The Economist There's an ad that I've been seeing on the tube on my way to work for years.
It's for a famous and I presume really expensive hair clinic for men.
I've seen probably hundreds of before and after pictures.
And thinking.
My hairline has been creeping ever so slowly back for like a decade.
And I think maybe I should do something about it.
That idea runs quickly into my deep resistance to acts of sheer vanity to spending piles of cash Of course,
I'm not alone in fretting about it There's a whole world of men out there troubled by their hair loss and this week We're going to hear how weird and troubling at least some of that world is I'm Jason Palmer and this is the weekend intelligence On today's episode,
Sam Westrin, the economist's bald correspondent,
dives into the beauty industry to understand why so many young men are getting hair transplants.
It's a story from inside a massive cultural shift,
a story that investigates whether we have freedom to choose how we look,
or are we subject to a pressure we can't escape.
Given the choice, where do we draw the line?
It's hard to know exactly when the algorithm first began targeting me.
I got a hair transplant because I used to hate the way that my hair looked.
It looked like this.
Daily remind that if you're receding, you're going to carry on receding and you're in denial.
Listen.
I've been bald for the best part of a decade.