With the arrival of the month of November, several youths are seen with a long wild beard and hashtags of ‘No Shave November’ in their social media profile. But, what the ‘No Shave November’ campaign really is? Here, we take a look at it.
History
The ‘No Shave November’ campaign doesn’t have a definite history. However, it is thought that it could have started in the late 70s’ when 4 sons grew a beard as a tribute to their deceased father, who died due to cancer and also had a long beard.
Likewise, it is also found that it might have started in Australia with the name of ‘Mo-vember’ because “Mo” in Australian slang means mustache. A simple trend of growing mustache for a month could have transformed into this worldwide trend with time.
Concept
The main idea of the trend is to let the facial hair grow. This has been a symbolical support to the cancer patients who lose their hair during the treatment. Similarly, people also donate the money they would usually use for shaving and grooming for cancer research and treatment.
Rules
The rule is simple. Just put the razor down for 30 days and donate the expenses you would have used on your hair-maintenance. However, according to the ‘No shave’ organization, there are no hard-and-fast rules for this trend. If one has to maintain a certain dress-code at work, then trimming and grooming one’s beard is totally acceptable.
Impact
While the actual trend seems to have started much earlier, it has started selling like a hot cake only since few years. There have been several celebrities who have mastered ‘No Shave November’. From top Hollywood actors to Bollywood actors such as Akshay Kumar and Ranveer Singh have supported this campaign.
And, with a facebook group called ‘Dari Gang’ specially opened just for the beard-lovers in Nepal it is not a surprise that several of those beard-lovers have also joined hand to this trend.
Final say
While the main objective of ‘No Shave November’ is to raise awareness and make donations for cancer, people seem to have lost track of the main objective. It is growing more like a fashion trend in Nepal than an awareness one.
So, we really need to embrace the main principles of this trend and contribute whatever we can from our position. The easiest way to do so can be by recognizing the cancer patients nearby or in our community and help them specifically. Likewise, signing up on the official website of No Shave, one can create own personal fundraising page too.
