0:00:09 - (Matt): There's perhaps no haircut as reviled, yet as resilient as the mullet. A style so irrepressible that if the calculations from the faun awesome ministry of pop culture are correct, the mullet has stood the test of time for 50 plus years. Truly 50 years. Love it or hate it, we believe that such an enduring cultural symbol deserves respect. So we thought it was only appropriate to make an icon in honor of the enduring mullet.

0:00:37 - (Matt): So for those who prefer business in the front and the party out back, this one's for you. This is Fa one, the story behind the icon. So before we jump into the episode, I just wanted to let you know that we are doing a short series on these behind the icon episodes that we were putting up on YouTube, and we did a whole video version of these, which I think are pretty entertaining and funny. So head on over to YouTube and check that out, let us know what you think. I think you'll be entertained.

0:01:15 - (Matt): Alright, without further ado, back to the episode. But before we get to the saga behind the creation of the icon, we would be remiss, not to mention some critical historical mile markers. From where and from whence did this iconic hair come? When and where did the mullet originate? Some argue that the mullet goes back to ancient times, though we're not able to really substantiate those claims with any accuracy.

0:01:47 - (Matt): But we do have legitimate proof of Tom Jones sporting the look in his 1965 performance on the Ed Sullivan show.

0:02:00 - (B): It's not unusual by anyone. It's not unusual you want to have fun with anyone, or when I see you hanging about with anyone, it's not unusual. It happens every day.

0:02:19 - (Matt): A mere half decade later, and David Bowie took the mullet to new heights during his 1970s Ziggy Stardust era. By the mid to late eighties, the mullet had entered the mainstream imagination and began gracing the airwaves and silver screen, with many a tv and movie star proudly flaunting their style. The hairstyle provocateurs include Kiefer Sutherland, Kirk Cameron, Billy Ray Cyrus, John Stamos, Hulk Hogan and Michael Bolton.

0:03:03 - (Jory): You know, there's nothing wrong with that name.

0:03:05 - (D): There was nothing wrong with it until I was about twelve years old and that no talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.

0:03:12 - (Matt): And there's countless others. Mens hairstyle options were forever changed. But who coined the term mullet? The etymology of the mullet is highly debated, and some believe the Beastie boys coined the term in 1994 in an ill communication outtake. Incidentally, the song appeared on the clueless soundtrack and was included in the 2009 remastered version of ill communication in their brilliant, tongue in cheek, academic styled article titled mulling over the Mullet, which appeared in the pages of the short lived and celebrated nineties pop culture magazine Grand Royale.

0:04:09 - (Matt): And you definitely want to pick up some copies of that if you can find it online. The writer explores the mullet through the lenses of race, economics, and history. Faux intellectual article it's pretty funny. So true to the twists and turns of etymological history, mullet has not always been known by its given moniker, but gone by the name of hockey, hare, ape, Drape, Mississippi, mudflap, the Kentucky waterfall, soccer, rocker, river, Cut, the Boz and there's a whole lot more in the comprehensive Decoder Ring podcast, Willa Paskin tracks the rise and fall of the mullet, and also the lexical quandary at its heart.

0:04:49 - (Matt): Who named the mullet? Initially, Paskin discovers the earliest mention of the mullet in an australian magazine called Street Machine, but as she did some more digging, she found out that was actually false. If the reports are accurate. There's also a Reddit thread floating around there somewhere where some claim that the mullet was already part of the teenage lexicon by the mid eighties. I don't remember this.

0:05:12 - (Matt): Though we may not be able to say who coined the term with absolute certainty, the mullet's luxuriously coiffed locks are still with us today. In fact, no, you're not crazy. You probably saw a teenager today sporting a mullet, and the mullet has enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence of late, which may ensure a bright future for the style in the coming decades. Long live the mullet at font awesome. Every icon we create goes through a very rigorous and thorough vetting process that is very serious.

0:05:42 - (Matt): This was not the case for the user mullet icon. In fact, we just added a new user hair icon. But the fon awesome team members were quick to point out that this icon was definitely only business in the front. For the sake of balance, we added user mullet to round things out a little bit with party in the back. The fact is, the mullet has experienced a renaissance of sorts, and to keep up with the trends, we needed to add a mullet icon. It's as simple as that. But enough with all that trivia.

0:06:10 - (Matt): Let's talk a little bit about the making of the actual icon with our icon designer, Jory Raphael.

0:06:22 - (Jory): The user mullet icon I believe it is user hair. Mullethenne exists in font awesome because it was fun to add because we design lots and lots of icons. And when you were designing tons of icons, you know, sometimes it gets a little boring or, you know, your eyes start to glaze over, as I've said before, and you just gotta kind of add a little spice, little whimsy. And so we had, we have a nurse icon, and the nurse icon used to have hair, and that was kind of the standard way these icons were designed, is this little nurse hat and hair, kind of longer hair.

0:07:06 - (Jory): Nurses are ladies. Exactly. Nurses can be anyone of any gender or non binary anything. So we simplified that icon, we removed the hair, but we wanted to keep the hair version, so we kept that, and we just renamed that to be a little bit more true and object based. So it was user or nurse hair. And we're like, well, we've got this one. Let's add it to all our other user icons. So we added just a bunch of different hair variations to our other user icons and different professions and things like that. But as we were just developing these icons, we had short hair, long hair, no hair.

0:07:42 - (Jory): Someone just said, oh, we need a mullet icon. You know, maybe this is dating me, and like, but in my head, when I think of a mullet, I very much think of, like you said, like the kind of feathered, kind of buffant y stuff up front and then the party in the back. Very eighties, very roddy Piper. Oh, yeah, they live.

0:08:07 - (Matt): Yes.

0:08:07 - (Jory): Like that. Is that. Like that to me is a, that's a mullet.

0:08:10 - (Matt): Yeah.

0:08:11 - (Jory): And so that's what I tried to embody, american masculinity.

0:08:15 - (Matt): Like the. Not the toxic kind.

0:08:17 - (Jory): Yeah, no, it's a very. Yes, american, non toxic masculinity.

0:08:22 - (Matt): Well, thanks, Jory, for telling us the story about the. Isaac, can we get some more coffee, please? Thanks for telling us the story about the icon, the. You're welcome.

0:08:41 - (Rob): Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.

0:08:47 - (Matt): At this point in the podcast, we thought it would be a good idea to talk with folks from the Fon awesome team to see what kind of real world experience that they had with the mullet. Here's a story from Rob Madole. Rob, word has it that you sported a mullet as a youngster. And I got to hear the story.

0:09:05 - (Rob): I did. I did. Actually, it was a mullet. Plus an extra bonus. And I'll tell you about we. I moved to Missouri whenever I was in fifth grade. So we act, everything got moved. I was not the most charismatic child. You know, I was definitely nerd and.

0:09:27 - (Matt): Had metaphors and I remember tough skins.

0:09:31 - (Rob): What were the tough skins.

0:09:32 - (Matt): Yeah, they were like Kmart pants that had, like, reinforced knees. The idea was like, kids, little kids play hard. And so they were very stiff pants. Anyway, I'm getting tuftskins. Vibes is kind of what I'm saying.

0:09:47 - (Rob): No, no, I was the indoor kid. No, I was drawing and had my own drafting table as a kid. Like, just really weird drawing stuff. Dragons and dragons and rockets. Just stupid stuff. So I. We move here, and I'm trying to, you know, kind of fit in and, like every kid does, trying to find my. My group, my people.

0:10:08 - (Matt): Yep.

0:10:09 - (Rob): And I was like, mom, I want to get a mullet. She's like, can you take me to the barber or the salon or wherever you go to do hair things? And she said, no, we're not gonna do that. That cost too much money. Yeah, I'm gonna do it at home. So I had. I had pretty long hair, but. So she cut the top, and now imagine this. So a mullet. But then the back of the mullet is she permed it.

0:10:37 - (Matt): Yes.

0:10:37 - (Rob): So now I've got this curly tube of hair in the back and the perm, like, set really well, I don't know what. What the deal is with some industrial string perm that she used or if she just got distracted and left it on too long. But the mullet had this big tube thing, and I could not comb it out. Nothing. So it was full mullet, you know, short on the top.

0:11:01 - (Matt): Yep.

0:11:01 - (Rob): And then the back was going down and just tube of hair. It was. It was ridiculous looking.

0:11:07 - (Matt): Yeah. So I remember you saying something about how the. What do we call it, the hair log. I imagined it being sort of vertical. It's like a. Like a tall boy, like, monster energy drink. So was it horizontal or.

0:11:25 - (Rob): It was horizontal, yeah. Like, so imagine. Imagine if princess lays hair buns, got a little woolly, and then just went down. That was what was hanging on the back of my neck.

0:11:36 - (Matt): So did you think you, like, achieved, like, mullet glory where you're like, oh, this is amazing. This looks great.

0:11:43 - (Rob): Yeah. Oh, I did. I loved it. I thought this, finally, people will start talking to me. They're gonna ask, you know.

0:11:51 - (Matt): Yep.

0:11:52 - (Rob): Who did your hair? Where did you go to get your hair done? How much. How much did that set you back? That amazing hairdo? Yep. It did not happen.

0:12:00 - (Matt): Yeah. It was the era of what's the show? Was it growing painst Kurt? Kirk Cameron.

0:12:13 - (Rob): Kirk Cameron.

0:12:14 - (Matt): Yep. Yep.

0:12:14 - (Rob): Oh, my gosh.

0:12:15 - (Matt): Yeah. Do you.

0:12:16 - (Rob): And do you remember his sidekick, what his name was? I was born Boner I was talking to my wife and my kids about this the other day. Is like, how did that get into network television? I wanted the Kirk Cameron. I thought that's what I got. Yeah, but, yeah, so, years later, right?

0:12:31 - (Matt): Yeah.

0:12:33 - (Rob): And this school picture hung up on the wall, too, in the house. So it was immortalized at my house for a while.

0:12:38 - (Matt): Nice. Thank you for your vulnerability today, Rob. I really appreciate it. I know it takes a lot to tell these stories, and we just really appreciate your time.

0:12:48 - (Rob): Yeah, yeah. And especially now, you know, I have no hair. I'm a bald guy. So thinking back, even. Even to that mullet, kind of miss it.

0:12:57 - (Matt): Yeah. In this next section, I talk with Joey Henson, Font Awesome's controller, about the unlikely situation where he got an accidental mullet. Here's Joey with more. Joey, I gotta know. I think I heard you say that you got an accidental mullet, and I don't really understand how you get an accidental mullet. You gotta tell us a story.

0:13:25 - (D): Yeah, so, I mean, 2000, 917, 18 years old. I was like, I need a haircut. I don't have a barber. I mean, before that, my mom was just cutting my hair, so it wasn't a thing. Went to a barber and was there, and I was like, you know, I really want it kind of shorter. You know, I got it already. I kind of have a giant hair. You know, if you see it now, you wouldn't know it. But she's like, okay, yeah, we can do that. And she starts cutting my hair, and while she's doing it, she's like, you know, Elvis is really cool.

0:13:55 - (D): Okay. Yeah, cool, cool, cool. So I'm gonna leave your sideburns for one about here, you know, just halfway down your face. Cause I think it gives you an Elvis look. Okay. And, you know, I think what we really want is kind of shorter hair up here. And we're gonna go a little bit longer. Cause you have really nice curls. We're gonna go a little longer on your back. Oh, yeah, that. That makes sense.

0:14:15 - (Matt): You're the professional.

0:14:16 - (D): You're the professional here. You know, I've never done this before, so whatever you want, we get done. I'm looking, I'm like, this is a straight mullet. Like, legitimate, you know, business. Upfront party in the back. Mullethen. I pulled it off, but it lasted all of, like, 2 hours before I. I left there immediately called my friends and said, I need your mom to fix my hair. Made sure no pictures were taken.

0:14:37 - (D): Cause, look, a ginger mullet is not cool. And I already struggled with looking cool.

0:14:45 - (Matt): So I think I remember you saying that you hung out with some friends for a while. Didn't you go to the mall?

0:14:49 - (D): With the mall?

0:14:50 - (Matt): So did you. Did you see the comedy in the situation and, like, try and play it up a little bit? Like, it's a little bit of mullet swagger. Yeah.

0:14:57 - (D): You know, you got the. You got the swag going on. It's peak 2009. You're just walking through, rocking the mullet before. It was cool again. Yeah, exactly.

0:15:07 - (Matt): Nice. So I would love to see photos. But you said you don't have any photo proof.

0:15:13 - (D): Yeah, I made sure that there was no photo evidence of the redheaded mullet. It's not happening.

0:15:21 - (Matt): I'd love to see it, man. Maybe you can recreate it again. It's come back. I mean, that was 2009. We're living in different times now. I feel like you could probably confidently pull that off and it would really fit the vibe these days.

0:15:37 - (D): You know, I could probably pull it off sadly, you know, my wife would not let me do that. She would be very against it.

0:15:45 - (Matt): Fair enough. Fair. Yeah. Well, thanks for telling the story, Joey. Appreciate it.

0:15:49 - (D): Yeah, anytime. Pleasure being here.

0:15:57 - (Matt): So I bet you didn't think when you woke up today that you were going to learn so much about the mullet or the mullet icon. But you know what? We like to give you news that you can use, and we've been really enjoying doing these video versions of the podcast, and we'll do this from time to time. We'll do this series with a couple different icons. So we don't see our oddball icons in the wild often, but we believe in you. Fun, awesome community.

0:16:21 - (Matt): Now's your chance to show us what you've got to and give us an appropriate use of the user hair mullet icon. We want to hear from you if we've missed an important hairstyle worthy of icon creation. Did you know that you can commission an icon to be officially added to fon awesome? It's true. All font awesome users will have access to the icon and will note you as the official sponsor. Get in touch with us for more details and next steps.

0:16:48 - (Matt): Or you can make an icon request and vote it up the ranks of our icon leaderboard to get it officially added to font awesome. And per usual, podcast awesome is produced and edited by this guy right here, yours truly, Matt Johnson. The font awesome theme song was created by Ronnie Martin, and the audio mastering, which makes this sound crisp and clear, was done by Chris Enz at Lemon Productions. And obviously this is a video version of the podcast because you're watching it right now and the editing was done by our very own in house, Isaac Chase.

0:17:22 - (Matt): Good job, Isaac. If this was educational, informative, or entertaining to you, maybe pass it on to a friend. Let him know about the awesomeness of podcast awesome.