A teenage boy stares at the camera, freckles on his cheeks and his lips pulled back, letting out a broad smile. In the background, Billy Ray Cyrus‘ 2006 hit I Want My Mullet Back plays, and the kid stands there in his bedroom, bobbing up and down. Dancing on the spot. Waiting.
“Back light, red lights and strobe lights too, were all the rage for me and you,” blasts Billy Ray, his familiar southern drawl slurring the words together as the boy reaches to the back of his head with a hand, grabbing at something unseen.
“Only one thing I miss more than that,” it continues, the teenager pulling on the hood of his sweatshirt and letting out a lengthy mane of brunette hair, cut narrow and no broader than the width of his neck.
Billy Ray, his voice never leaving the scene, continues for his final, imperative line. The boy stands proud, staring at the camera again, showing off his hair. “I want my mullet back.”
This is the recipe for the latest trend to take over Gen Z’s internet, one born in reality, enhanced by throwback culture, and then posted on video apps like TikTok.
The mullet, it appears, is back. The end result of a generation desperately grasping for the good in things, thinking of a time period they might not have known but can still learn from. Zendaya, ever the cultural leader of her generation, might have kicked off the revival back in 2016. Elsewhere, in New York, the Bushwick mullet is commonplace. It is, however, now that teenagers all over the world are reaching for the scissors, growing out their hair for the expressed purpose of cutting large chunks of it off.
And yes, for some people the narrative will always be that “the mullet never died,” which is true to a certain extent. But in 2019, more than ever, the internet is riddled with videos of young kids taking clippers to their skulls and carving out a lengthy mane.
Tristan Ahrendt uploaded a video of himself (and his mullet) as his first video on the shortform video app TikTok. He says it was his first time using the app.
Once he made the decision to go for the throwback look, Ahrendt searched “mullet” on the app and found Billy Ray Cyrus’ classic hit. He claims to be one of the first to use the sound, one that has since gone viral on the platform and inspired hundreds of imitators. Ahrendt’s own video has over 130,000 likes and hundreds of thousands of views.
“Some people saw mine and did it, and then it kind of grew,” he says. “A couple did it before me, too.”
Ahrendt’s overnight and easily managed virality is exactly how TikTok is taking the already rapid nature of trends in 2019, working them through its mysterious algorithm, and spinning them into hyperdrive. Ahrendt had a mullet, wanted to make a short video about it, and was able to easily find a song that suited his video in a matter of seconds. What’s more, his video was then logged into an algorithm that serves up mullet-content nonstop, all of it catalogued by sound.
Like most trends, there’s varying levels of commitment.
Some choose to go with hairspray and product ahead of any permanent change to their silhouette, which is understandable. But for the willing scroller, hours can be spent combing through the archives, as people show off their hair or try their best to imitate the look in other, inspired ways.
This latest trend marks the second recent instance of Billy Ray Cyrus somehow squeezing his way into the teenage zeitgeist.
Infamously, it was Billy Ray who lead a public push to recognise Lil Nas X mega-hit “Old Town Road” as a country classic, and it was his involvement in a second edition of the song that forced the hand of disgruntled, die-hard country fans everywhere. That was a movement also born on TikTok, and now the world has a new placeholder for most weeks at Number 1 in the Billboard 100.
Perhaps its the end result of a generation who grew up as Hannah Montana faded, leaving in its wake a Miley Cyrus who would rather be a pop star 20-something, already trying to disown her Disney past, and a father, constantly in a cowboy hat, earnestly clinging to his fame, lest he lose it once again.
Zackary Brown, 16, also picked up over 160,000 likes and a ridiculous amount of exposure for flaunting his locks on TikTok. He says he has had a mullet intermittently since his freshman year of high school, but decided to grow it back longterm last year after a few of his friends also took the plunge.
“They said they wanna bring it back,” he says. “It’s just an old thing.”
“I mean somethings gotta come back from when things were good. Why not start small?”
