Memetic Hair

If you don't get the reference, see here.

"Attention duelists! My hair is now an internet phenomenon!"

— Kemo, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series

Almost anything can become a meme, whether it be an outfit, a badass, or a picture of an animal doing something funny. Hairstyles are by no means immune to memification. Hair is a device creators often use to convey information about a character to the audience. For example, a girl with pigtails and a girl with a Mohawk are likely to be very different. In non-visual mediums, largely due to The Law of Conservation of Detail, it's seldom an arbitrary choice on the author's part to describe hair at all.

Sometimes somebody's hair is so stylish or unique that it becomes associated with that person or character. In fiction, weird hair can become so recognizable that to change it would be like losing part of his or her personality. In Real Life, a celebrity's trademark hair could even become a trend, even if was around long before they made it popular.

See Hair Tropes. Note that Anime Hair is especially likely to be subjected to this. Einstein Hair is a subtrope.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The TV ads for L'Oréal's brands of shampoos with beautiful women waving their long hair are so ingrained in popular culture that memes have been made with any human (or non-human) having long hair, such as Chris Hemsworth (here◊) or even Chewbacca (here◊).

Anime & Manga

• Astro Boy: Astro's spiked hair is one of the most iconic haircuts in anime.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Super Saiyan hair - all three levels of it (spikey, spikier, and down-to-your-feet)
  • And of course, there's Goku's omnidirectional spikes along with his Super Saiyan 1 hair and Vegeta's Villainous Widow's Peak.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Envy has the Fan Nickname of "Palm Tree" (or sometimes "Aloe") for their default form's long spiky wild hairstyle. It’s also colored green in both anime adaptations.
  • The manga/Brotherhood version of Solf J. Kimblee is often compared to a cockroach because of his Hair Antennae (and him being sleazy and unnerving.) Meanwhile his 2003 anime counterpart has a mullet ponytail instead, so he's often called Mullet Kimblee.
• Hunter × Hunter: The climax of the Chimera Ant arc sees Gon sacrificing all his Nen for an Older Alter Ego Next Tier Power-Up with extremely tall, who-like hair. This is a Wham Episode, and is supposed to be the most major spoiler for those who haven't caught up with the series, but the hair's absurdity makes it even more It Was His Sled. It's even been used as a Late-Arrival Spoiler in some gacha game collaboration promotions.
• Plenty to go around in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
  • Polnareff, Dire, Whammu and later Koichi (for a short time) sport tall, prominent flat-tops resembling a column on their heads.
  • Kakyoin's hair has a single long dangling lock on his bangs, informally known in the fandom as a "noodle".
  • Giorno's blonde hair sports three distinctive donut-like loops at the front above his forehead.
  • Josuke has an enormous pompadour, and in fact is his Berserk Button whenever somebody insults his hair.
  • Perhaps most perplexingly, Jotaro's hair seems to merge directly into his hat: somewhat excusable in part 3 when he has a black hat and black hair (and it's shown the back of his hat is torn), but less so when he switches to a white hat in part 4... and the hat still merges seamlessly. It has reached a point where it's a common in-joke or fanon joke, that Jotaro actually styles his hair to look like a hat.
  • Jolyne has two buns on top of her head resembling Mickey Mouse ears, as well as having bright neon-green bangs to contrast with her black hair.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury:
  • Miorine's hair has such a large ahoge that fans have made multiple jokes about it, from calling her a cockatiel to describing her hair as having a Commander-Type Antenna.
  • Chuchu's gigantic hair puffs are the source of many jokes in the fandom, especially wondering how she can fit them into a skintight cap.^note Turns out such compressing hoodies really exist. A lot of fanart depicts her hair puffs as removable accessories that can be used as things like boxing gloves, pom-poms, or - since this is a Gundam series after all - Attack Drones.
• Naruto:
  • Naruto's spiky blond hair is nearly as iconic as his orange jumpsuit. He had it even as a newborn. As an adult he cut it shorter but it's still spiky.
  • Sasuke's infamous "duck butt" hairstyle.
• Sailor Moon: Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon is the Trope Namer for Odango Hair; her distinctive hairstyle, which combines twin buns with very long Girlish Pigtails, is one of the most recognizable and iconic looks in anime.
• Smile Pretty Cure! has Cure March with her fluffy pigtails and Cure Peace with her banana hair.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The series has some of the most extreme cases of Anime Hair the world has ever seen. In the abridged series particularly, amazing hair grants the owners special powers.
  • Kemo, as noted in the page quote.
  • As well as Seto Kaiba's original hair in the 1998 anime: "Screw the rules, I have green hair!"

Comic Books

• Spider-Man's most infamous detractor and the chief editor of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson (Jr.). Has his infamous flattop (with white or gray streaks) and mustache. Expect anyone who rocks that look in any medium to be referred to as good old J. Jonah as a reference or joke.
• Superman has his curl, which frequently gets poked fun at and parodied.
• Tintin's "duckbill" bangs. Lampshaded several times in the 2011 animated film adaptation— no matter how many times he tries to flatten them down, they bounce right back.
• Wolverine's twin peaked hairstyle and sideburns is iconic both in and out of universe.

Films — Live-Action

• Seneca Crane's beard in The Hunger Games.
• John Wick's shoulder-length dark hair is fairly iconic on its own despite being relatively generic - but much more-so when coupled with the trimmed dark beard that makes his face resemble a skull.
• Star Wars:
  • Princess Leia's iconic cinnamon bun hair from A New Hope. Throughout the rest of the series, she tends to wear her hair in various different styles of braids, but the twin buns are the style most associated with her.
  • Rey's three buns from the sequel trilogy is probably a close second to Leia's.
• The Wizard of Oz has Dorothy's braided Girlish Pigtails. Even though she loses them when she gets a makeover in the Emerald City and spends the rest of the film wearing her hair down with a single ribbon, the pigtails are much better remembered.

Literature

• Discworld: Archchancellor Ridcully's uniquely-groomed beard with mustache.
• Land of Oz:
  • Dorothy's Girlish Pigtails are iconic and it's rare to find a modern portrayal of her without them, especially after Judy Garland wore them the movie. Despite this, when the books were first published, that hairstyle was only used in the first book. Starting with the third book, contemporary illustrations gave her a blonde bob haircut.
  • Ozma's curly brown hair, combined with her ringlet crown and Iconic Outfit, is a staple of the series. She's described as blonde in The Marvelous Land of Oz, but all illustrations darken her hair.

Live-Action TV

• Both Spike and Angel's hair in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Doctor Who:
  • The Fourth Doctor's tangled, bohemian Seventies Quirky Curls, in universe as well.
    • The reason the starfield title sequence animation was changed between the Fourth and Fifth Doctor (the Fourth Doctor appearing out of stars, the Fifth with a Venetian blind effect) was said by Word of God to be because the Fifth Doctor had a boring hairstyle compared to the Fourth Doctor, so the stars were less interesting to watch.
  • The Sixth Doctor's yellow 80s perm, mostly because it'd be almost as hideous as the rest of his legendarily atrocious outfit if it wasn't so flattering on him.
  • The Eighth Doctor's glorious dark curls of kindness, which won Paul McGann the part and forced him into an uncomfortable, eyebrow-movement-restricting wig when he cut them all off before filming. The Big Finish audios give him an Important Haircut in which he slices his curls off, the results of which are seen during the Eighth Doctor's death in "The Night of the Doctor".
  • The Ninth Doctor's... lack of a silly hairstyle. Or hair, really. This is notable because the Doctor generally prefers longer hair, so a buzz-cut Doctor was a pretty large signal for where the series was going to go.
  • The Tenth Doctor's Britpop-influenced, slightly vain-looking gelled quiff and distinctive sideburns.
• Fantaghirò: The eponymous heroine's bowl cut is possibly the character's most recognisable feature.
• Rachel's hairdo in the early seasons of Friends. Jennifer Aniston was reportedly amused to learn that hairdressers were getting requests to give their customers "the Rachel", as she herself hated it.
• Jon Snow's dark curls on Game of Thrones, so much so that actor Kit Harington's contract famously banned him from getting a haircut.
  • The Targaryen wigs in House of the Dragon, from the more passable ones to the more ridiculous ones (from House Velaryon especially).
• Shepherd Book’s hair on Firefly is a variation in that it’s not the style that became a meme, but a scene with the hair. Specifically when he had it loose rather than up in a ponytail and River was afraid of it. Fans love meme’ing the scene.
• Bob Ross' perm on The Joy of Painting.
• The Harfoots' Unkept Wild Hair on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power gained a lot of notoriety for being compared with their trimmed and illustrious descendants.
• My Kitchen Rules: Contestant Ash's large, frizzy hair seems to be her most prominent feature. When she and Camilla showed up for an interview about their winning of the first People's Choice, even the interviewers got distracted by it.
• Sherlock's hair in Sherlock stands out amongst most incarnations of Sherlock Holmes. It's very identifiable looking.
• Captain Christopher Pike from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has become known for his pompadour, referred to as "Pike's Peak". This becomes an Ascended Meme in the Star Trek: Lower Decks crossover "Those Old Scientists" when Brad Boimler tells Pike that he's known for his "really great hair". Pike does his best to keep from looking flattered.

Music

• A Flock of Seagulls. Mike Score's hair is often considered the epitome of '80s Hair.
• In Brazil, a mullet can be downright called a "Chitãozinho & Xororó◊ haircut" (though only the latter of this country duo still wears this hairdo).
• Justin Bieber's "Bieber hairstyle".
• Lorde's curly hair became memetic quickly after she became known for her song "Royals".
• Commander Hawkins of The Protomen and his beard.
  • All of the Protomen and their beards really. Except lead-singer Panther, who can't grow one.
• Brian May's gigantic, puffy hair, which holds the distinction of being the only hairstyle among any of Queen's band members to be unchanged since the band debuted in 1970. The hairdo's become so iconic that one of the stipulations for including Queen in LEGO Rock Band was that Brian's hair had to be accurately replicated on his virtual minifigure.
• Skrillex actually helped revive the sidecut.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic's long curly hair and pencil moustache. For a while after he shaved & got a haircut, he wore wigs & a fake 'stache for public appearances just so he'd look like himself, but eventually abandoned them (the hair is back, but the moustache isn't).
• ZZ Top is known for their long beards almost as much as their music.
• Michael Jackson's jheri curl in the 80's and the long, brunette hair he sported from the 90's up until his death in 2009.
• Pretty much all of David Bowie's hairstyles have been subject to this trope, but the most prominent example would be the red-dyed beehive/mullet combo he sported from 1972 to 1974.
• Morrissey's pompadour.
• 1960's teen idol Lesley Gore wore a distinctive "flipped-up" hairstyle between 1963-65 which appears in much of her publicity shots and album artwork, as can be seen here◊.
• Justin Timberlake's "instant ramen" hair back when he was still in *NSYNC.
• Eminem, at the Turn of the Millennium, started a fad for young men cropping and bleaching their hair to match his, which he frequently referenced in lyrics, performances and videos. The video for "The Real Slim Shady" features an army of Eminem-like men with bleached hair and white t-shirts, the video for "Stan" begins with Stan bleaching his hair, and lyrics on various songs talk about the moral panic about 'kids with dyed hair and earrings'.
• Bill Haley can be quickly identified by his Superman-style kiss curl. He originally adopted it to draw attention away from his lazy eye on the left, in which he was blind due to a childhood medical operation that went wrong.

Video Games

• Kaoru Tanamachi's slightly mussed hairstyle in Amagami has earned her the Fan Nickname of "Sex Hair".
• Danganronpa:
  • Mondo Oowada's absurd corn cob-shaped pompadour in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.
    Mondo: Hey you, apologize now! Your joke has gone too far!!
    Monokuma: Joke...? Wouldn't that be your hair?
  • Komaeda's fluffy hair in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is frequently either lusted after or compared to microwaved soup.
• From the Devil May Cry series, Vergil's slicked-back silver hair became iconic as his quotes, it turned into a memetic hair on the Internet. Simple meme edits crop his hair from any of the DMC games and put it on top of other pop culture characters should the meme make a DMC reference. Other edits have the character slicking their hair back. DMC fans also label anything that closely resembles Vergil's hairstyle with nicknames such as the "Motivated Hair". Somebody also made a Salon Tutorial for the DMC5 version, while a Mortal Kombat 11 developer even noted Fujin was "motivated" when showcasing his slicked-back pointy hair cosmetic.
• Wilson's "W" shaped hair in Don't Starve.
• Guile's flat-top haircut in Street Fighter. The most American of hairstyles.
• Saber from Fate/stay night has Idiot Hair, which has mutated into things like a one-bladed helicopter rotor and a way to call her Superpowered Evil Side out.
  • Parodied in Fate/Grand Order's "Saber Wars" event: the main currency of the event is severed Idiot Hairs.
• Final Fantasy VII:
  • Cloud's ridiculously spikey hairdo.
  • Sephiroth has what's probably the most iconic white hair Bishōnen look.
• Ramza Beoulve from Final Fantasy Tactics is known for his ponytail and Idiot Hair.
• Kingdom Hearts: Sora's spikey Anime Hair even gets noted in-series by Tifa.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Groose's massive gravity-defying hair spike, leading to the Fan Nickname "The Legend of Groose: Skyward Hair".
  • Link's hairstyle changes designs and colors with each incarnation however the core standard rarely changes: his hair is usually kept short and he has bangs.
  • Zelda's short-cut hair inThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom quickly caught on to memetic levels once it was first shown off.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon X and Y introduce a new mechanic called Mega Evolution, allowing some previous generation Pokémon to temporarily evolve further. One Pokémon that can Mega Evolve is Ampharos, and when it does, it grows a full head of white flowing hair and a white flowing tail. Yes, Pokémon now has a Bishōnen sheep. For comparison, here's normal Ampharos◊, and here's Mega Ampharos◊. Naturally, that was the first thing people noticed when it was revealed, and has led to nicknames like "Amphabulous" and tons of fan art.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon introduced Alolan Dugtrio, with three different hairstyles due to its three heads - it also became a meme as soon as it was revealed.
• Heihachi's Wolverine-esque twin spikes from Tekken.
• Natsume from Ensemble Stars! has red hair with white streaks, which the fandom likes to compare to crabsticks.
• The New Order Last Days Of Europe: Coming from the Reich's holdings in South Africa, showing this trope can be applied to bad haircuts too, comes Hans Huttig◊, whose wavy, overly-parted and positively gross-looking hair is yet another atrocity on his list to the players. And it's based on a real picture, too; it's even uglier in HD◊.

Western Animation

• The Simpsons: Marge Simpson's trademark blue towering hive, and Bart's spiky hair (Which he referred to as "Bad Boy Spikes") for that matter. To a lesser extent, Lisa and Maggie's star shaped hair (the former called it her "Good Girl Points").
• Star Wars Rebels: Agent Kallus and his amazing sideburns. His season 4 hair may also be becoming this, based solely on a brief appearance in the trailer.
• The titular lead of The Legend of Korra spends the first three seasons with long hair. Despite this, she is most often associated with her Important Haircut from Book 4. This is mainly because that's the hair cut she had when she had her famous Relationship Upgrade with Asami.

Real Life

• Ask anyone about 1920s bobs, they'll immediately think of Louise Brooks.
• The long list of blonde bombshells of Hollywood has quite a few. Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe remain the most iconic.
• Salvador Dalí's bizarre mustache varied in length but it was always very thin and pointing upwards.
• Sergei Eisenstein's big mop of hair.
• Farrah Fawcett got the style she made popular named after her.
• Figure skater Dorothy Hamill started a fashion trend with her wedge-shaped haircut that would float up when she twirled on the ice. It even gets a Shout-Out in Beverly Cleary's Ramona and Her Mother.
• Albert Einstein. There's even a whole other trope devoted to this.
• Bettie Page's bangs.
• Comedian Russell Brand's untamed mop of hair.
• Mr. T's mohawk hairstyle and goatee, which he claims he copied from a African Malinka warrior he saw in a National Geographic.
• Veronica Lake's over-the-eye look was named after her
• Adolf Hitler's toothbrush mustache (or Charlie Chaplin's). Hitler's undercut also remains fairly recognizable.
• Josef Stalin's perfectly trimmed walrus mustache.
• Chuck Norris's beard.
• Freddie Mercury's Porn Stache. Mandatory for the Freddie Mercopy.
• Giorgio Tsoukalos, whose hair is the closest thing to a live-action Yu-Gi-Oh! character there is in real life.
• Donald Trump's combover, particularly once he started losing his natural hair in the 2000's and covered it up with a toupee. Even his own family sometimes pokes fun at it.
• The 2015 Canadian federal election involved a surprising number of jabs about hair, ranging from jokes about Stephen Harper's stylist to Tom Mulcair's beard, but the prize has to go to Justin Trudeau.
• While soccer player Ronaldo was bald for most of his career, Brazil always remembers the weird toupee (compared to Smudge from local comic Monica's Gang) he grew during the victorious 2002 FIFA World Cup.
• Afro-French soccer player Paul Pogba is notorious for his bizarre hairstyles, including many punkish ones with variants of white streaks.
• Boris Johnson is notorious for his perpetually messy blond hair.
• US politician Bernie Sanders' thinning, fly-away hair can give him a crazed appearance.

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