1. This reminds me I have some thoughts on the pre-history of the mullet, the Beastie Boys, Dan Clowes, the way naming something makes it visible and changes our sense of the past, Jack Kirby, etc.https://twitter.com/AryehCW/status/1421983919600279552 …
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3. History records that the mullet as a term was first popularized, and perhaps even coined, by the Beastie Boys in 1994. But as the Clowes strip shows, mullets had pre-dated that -- and many readers testified that when they saw Clowes drawing it resonated with what they saw.
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4. In popularizing the term "the mullet" the Beastie Boys made it visible, made it discussable, and altered not just the present but the past since we can now see the mullet in earlier eras, whereas before it was just a inchoate odd thing on corner of consciousness.
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5. Now that "the mullet" is named we can find all sorts of precursors in history. In 1621 a Plymouth colonist encountered native named Samoset of the Abenaki: "He was a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only short before, none on his face at all"
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6. Various photos of Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, David Bowie from 1960s and 1970s now look like mullets avant la lettre. The thing existed before the name but the name helps us see the thing.
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7. Some notes that might be useful for future mullet scholars. Basil Wolverton's drawings from 1930s and 1940s often feature what seem like proto-mullets.pic.twitter.com/GGUWhV7KsP
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8. And Jack Kirby's Angel (from Boys' Ranch, early 1950s) is edging towards a mullet.pic.twitter.com/2Gup8LEV1i
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9. I think is is key about how successful the term mullet has been, enough to overshadow original mocking use and also eclipse earlier stabs at taxonomy like "hockey hair"https://twitter.com/ericbrownzzz/status/1421991889620946948 …
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I remember, having been there, that when those haircuts were in style they most definitely were NOT called 'mullets'.
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U2 in that drawing is so perfect. In the early 80's most mullets I encountered were U2 fans with long black trench coats, including me! ;)
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Was there really no name? I think it just as likely that Clowes, for all his powers of observation, was not sufficiently plugged in to popular culture to know a term that had currency in other regions or social millieus. (Still like the broad strokes of your thesis, though.)
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