Looking at some Korean men’s hairstyles from 2004 to the present day.

Korean fashion has come a long way since then 2004, which may as well have been a completely different era. Hairstyles are no exception. I was only 11 in 2004 but seeing all the guys older than me sporting long hairstyles made me want to try growing out my hair long too.

By the time I was 13, I started to care enough about my appearance to follow the trend (thanks to peer pressure, partly….even though I was still slightly overweight and not the most attractive guy. Plus I wasn’t into video games as much anymore). After all, all the cool Korean guys were growing their hair out like this and the rest tried to follow along;

Yeah, not surprisingly, they look like something straight out of an anime. In the eyes of some, they were some kind of Koreanized version of Japanese hairstyles (in other words, really more of a knock-off).

Granted, not everyone grew their hair out that long, but it was close enough.

I remember one guy at the church I used to attend growing out his hair even longer than shown in the photos above. He looked pretty awesome. Pretty much every Korean guy back then was trying to grow their hair out as long as possible. Seriously, it was *the* trend to follow.

The problem with these hairstyles though, at least for me anyway, was that it was a damn chore using the hairdryer after taking a shower (or just washing your hair for that matter). It could also be particularly difficult to just get the overall ‘shape’ of it right as well and there were many times where I had a bad hair day and ended up having to wear a cap or a beanie whenever going outside the house.

Heaven forbid if it was on a school day, where wearing such with the uniform was a huge no-no and sadly, the old-style uniforms that also had their own peaked caps were a thing of the past by then.

These uniforms were essentially gone in Korea by the 90s or so. Probably because some hyper-nationalist in the South Korea’s Ministry of Education thought they resembled Japanese male school uniforms too much. Still, I think getting rid of stylish school caps like that was a bad idea. But I digress.

On top of it, to style it, you needed quite a bit of wax too.

Boy oh boy, you could easily notice just how much some guys used this to style their hair in those years

During 2008 to maybe around 2011 or 2012, trending hairstyles in general got much shorter. Not extremely short, but not extremely long like the past ones.

Case in point;

Personally, I like these styles the most. Even as of now, I keep my hair this way (specifically,something resembling the fourth example). It just looks the most natural out of the rest. Not too long but not too short either, nor does it require a ridiculous amount of drying and wax either.

Even as a Korean (where following the trend is always a must), this is something I just can’t let go of. It’s pretty much grown on me.

I think pretty much 60~70% of the guys I knew or seen had some variation of these hairstyles, come to think of it. I know I myself did after all and I was damn happy with it. Nobody was going to change my mind.

On a side-note, I believe it was also during this time when short hairstyles also steadily grew in popularity. Not entirely common, but not uncommon either. Though I do remember in my days in high school (specifically 2009) where any guy who cut his hair short was considered to have gotten a ‘2PM cut’ and would be referred to as that constantly, since the boy group 2PM all sported short-cut styles supposedly.

Afterwards, from perhaps 2012 to 2015(?), this was what had become common;

Not exactly my cup of tea, although I don’t think it looks too bad overall either, objectively anyway. I’ve had my hair similar to the third photo a few times though couldn’t really quite pull it off well for long(probably because my hair grows toofucking fast and I got increasingly lazier with it in general as well).

Thus, I stayed with my old hairstyle for the most part.

It was from 2016 to the present however, when I noticed the trending hairstyles were….let’s see….radically different to what I’d grown up with since I was a teenager.

By this point, I pretty much stopped following trends overall (save for clothes and shoes. I can’t let go of myself *that* much) partly because I just grew tired of putting my energy into it. But looking at the current hairstyles that are the rage, I know for sure not a single one of them are for me.

But comparing then and now, it feels like I’d lived through several generations. 2004 or even 2010 for that matter didn’t feel like all that long ago, even though it has been. I was just 11 and 17 then (now 25).

The cool guys I’d seen with the trending hairstyles from 2004–2007 would have been anywhere between 14–20 back then. Now, they’re well into their late 20s to early 30s. Seeing how some of them had changed so much, I couldn’t help but chuckle just how different they are now.

I suppose that sooner or later my hairstyle will ultimately change immensely too, even though I’d kept the same one for the better part of 7 years.

Disclaimer — I don’t claim to be any expert on trends on fashion whatsoever, and this is all purely my opinion for the sake of just nostalgia, or something of that sort.

Also, Justin Trudeau sucks donkey dick.