Lead Balloon Ep. 72 - Bald as a Brand: What is Baldmaxxing and Why Should Marketers Pay Attention?

With Harry James and Brennan Nevada Johnson

https://youtu.be/YPEKfNleDfQ

For decades, baldness has been seen as undesirable—for men AND women.

Traditional and social media both have reinforced the message that a thick, luscious head of hair is synonymous with desirability and success.

And marketers have hocked products to prevent, hide or "cure" baldness—but never to embrace it.

However, a new online trend—"Baldmaxxing"—is changing the narrative around hair loss, and opening up a new market for shrewd communicators.

Harry James is the founder of Baldcafé, a popular online community and YouTube channel created to help men embrace hair loss, overcome insecurity, and build confidence. He’s also credited with coining the term “Baldmaxxing,” empowering men to celebrate their ascent into baldness rather than try to cover it up.

And Brennan Nevada Johnson is the founder and CEO of Brennan Nevada Inc., a black-and-female-owned PR and media relations agency working in New York. Brennan has been bald by choice for 15 years, hosts the podcast Bald and Buzzed with Brennan, and works to help other bald women affirm their beauty and bolster their confidence.

So in this episode, these two outspoken advocates for baldness as beauty are going to explain the momentum behind the Baldmaxxing movement, critique decades worth of messaging on the topic, and prove conclusively that baldness isn't JUST an untapped opportunity for brands.

In 2026, bald IS a brand, in and of itself.

Make sure to check out:

• Baldcafe - ⁠https://www.youtube.com/Baldcafe⁠

• Bald and Buzzed with Brennan ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BaldBuzzedwithBrennan

Transcript:

Dusty Weis

You know, I've always wanted to start an episode like this.

What if I told you that there's an unserved marketing demographic out there?

They make up more than a quarter of the population. They cut across all income brackets, races and genders.

And the only advertising messages that have ever been directed at them cut them down and demean them for the way that they look.

But mostly these tens of millions of Americans, billions of people worldwide, have just been ignored by advertisers.

Baldcafe's Harry James shaves his head.

I'm not going to keep you waiting. I am talking about bald folks, people without hair.

By middle age, two thirds of men and many women will experience hair loss. Yours truly included. And since the dawn of advertising, every media message that we have ever heard has offered solutions to cure, alter or hide our baldness.

Harry James

You know, they portray these bald guys as like bumbling buffoons who are miserable and alone. And I think guys just they reached the limit and they thought, no, I don't need to be doing all that.

Dusty Weis

Harry James is the founder of Baldcafe and the instigator of the online trend baldmaxxing, a massive and growing online phenomenon where men embrace hair loss and foster a positive dialog about baldness.

And baldmaxxing isn’t just for the fellas, either. Brennan Nevada Johnson is a cutting edge PR and media relations founder who's working to destigmatize the feminine buzzcut.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

All of these products that are being marketed and pushed to bald people, they're very outdated, and I feel like not enough brands are marketing and selling products that's like: you're bald, you want to be bald, you're going to be bald tomorrow. Here's what you should use.

Dusty Weis

So in this episode, together with these two outspoken advocates for baldness as beauty, we're going to explain the momentum behind the baldmaxxing movement. We'll critique decades worth of messaging on the topic. And, conclusively, we will prove that baldness is not just an untapped opportunity for brands.

In 2026, bald is a brand in and of itself. And in a social media era dominated by toxic messaging around skin deep, appearance-altering snake oil, baldness is a brand on the rise.

I'm Dusty Weis. From Podcamp Media, this is Lead Balloon, a podcast about iconic tales from PR, marketing and branding told by the well-meaning communications professionals who live them.

Dusty Weis

Thank you for tuning in. We are joined today by Harry James and Brennan Nevada Johnson.

Harry is the founder of Baldcafe, a popular online community and YouTube channel created a help men embrace hair loss, overcome insecurity and build confidence. He's also credited with coining the term baldmaxxing, an online trend where men celebrate their ascent into baldness rather than try to cover it up or hide it. It's basically the way that I've been trying to live my life for almost 18 years now. I just never had a word for it before. So Harry, thank you for giving me that term and thank you for joining us.

Harry James

My pleasure. So good to be here. Excited.

Dusty Weis

And then our other guest, Brennan, is the founder and CEO of Brennan Nevada, Inc., a New York based black and female owned PR and media relations agency working with tech companies and startups for more than a decade. Brennan has been bald by choice for 15 years, hosts the podcast Bald and Buzzed with Brennan, and works to help other bald women affirm their beauty and bolster their confidence, whether they chose baldness or baldness chose them. Brennan, thank you. I'm glad that we finally got you here on Lead Balloon.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

Thank you. Dusty. Super happy to be here.

Dusty Weis

And I just want to open the conversation with one of my favorite literary quotes. I know literary quotes. Always a great way to open a podcast here, but it honestly, I'd say it inspired me to embrace my baldness at a very early age.

In Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin wrote, “Never forget who you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.”

I was in college when I realized that I was losing my hair. I was 25 when a friend convinced me that it would be a power move to buzz what hair I had left and just own the look. And I honestly, I haven't looked back since then.

Bald has been a part of my personal brand for 16 years now, but I'm going to admit, guys, the first time that those clippers ran through my hair, I was a little bit scared.

What has made people so afraid to go bald for so long, Harry?

Harry James

Yeah, no. Great intro on wearing it like armor, but I think a lot of it comes down to this, like change, right? For, for in the male pattern baldness realm, you haven't asked for it. You know, it's nothing that you've done wrong or anything like that. It kind of comes out of nowhere. And just as humans, change is inherently uncomfortable to deal with, right?

I would say that's number one. All these plans I had for my life are now thrown up in the air, like, am I going to be able to achieve everything that I want? Because you've only known life with this sort of self-image that you have of yourself, this self-esteem, this self-confidence, and it feels very uncertain on the other side of that.

And I think that's the main reasons why it can be a huge struggle for a lot of men.

Dusty Weis

Brennan. Everything that Harry just said about the way that baldness impacts men, I gotta imagine that goes tenfold for women.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

Yes, women. We have been taught by beauty standards that long hair equates to femininity. It's what's most attractive. When you think about Disney movies growing up and all of those different TV shows, it was always really showcasing long, luscious hair as being the most sought after. And for women, beauty has been so associated with hair length, and I think that also stems from some of the standards that men have set on us.

But now we're embracing baldness and shaving our heads more than ever before.

Dusty Weis

You touched on it a little bit there. The role that media has played in beauty standards, both for men and for women. But I want to dive down a little bit because this is a show about marketing and advertising and talk about the role that advertising has played in this stigma. Where have you seen ads over the course of our lifetimes, sort of reinforce the fact that you got to have hair on your head if you want to be successful and beautiful?

Brennan Nevada Johnson

I don't want to call out any brands, but if you turn on your TV, you're going to see a bunch of commercials and ads being pushed at you. That's almost like demonizing hair loss. It's doing everything that it possibly can to convince you that hair thinning or hair loss is like your last resort. And take these pills, or use these products, or use this crazy cream that has like, insane ingredients in it to grow back your hair.

And so the media has only perpetuated it along with the advertisers. And lately I feel there has been a little bit of a shift towards embracing baldness, which is what Harry and myself have realized, that there's a huge opportunity and market there. But for the most part, I would give brands and media companies an F on engaging and really understanding who the bald consumer is today.

Dusty Weis

But isn't that just like, you know, advertising 101 shake and bake advertising where you make somebody feel less than you make someone feel inferior and then say, But I've got the answer, it's right here. And if you pay me $80 a month, you don't have to worry about that.

Harry James

Absolutely. Yeah. It's a gold mine as well, because if you think about the quote unquote solutions, you know, and they are kind of painted as this, this cure. Right. But by the very nature of how they work, it's something that you have to continually use. So once you've got someone hooked on that, you know, before they've even realized their own sort of power and self-esteem that it's not going to ruin their life if they kind of get attached to using this product before they've realized that, you know, it can be completely consuming, right?

Using this safety behavior is what it is really to dampen down that anxiety, all the stuff that they're telling you is going to go wrong, and you have to keep using it right, because you become more and more dependent on that, and that sort of dark cloud that hangs over you, that you think about one day not using it becomes all the more sort of severe to the point where guys reach kind of crisis point with it, which is often where they find my work.

But, you know, it can be a long road before they hit that point.

Dusty Weis

I remember when I was in college and one of my college roommates was also losing his hair, but he steered really hard into the pills and gels. And I remember I was in his room one time and picked up this tube of gel, and the list of like, warnings on that thing was like this long, you know, do not come within ten feet of this stuff if you're pregnant and do not leave this where children can find it.

I just looked at this thing. I said, dude, you're putting this on your body every night. Like, what? What are you accomplishing with that? But when you look back over the annals of advertising history, what are some of the most ridiculous things that you've seen advertised or pushed as a solution for hair loss?

Brennan Nevada Johnson

Well, for women it's always been wigs... which, wigs are fantastic. So are weaves, so are bundles. But for women it's always been like, if you have alopecia, if you're getting sick, or if you're wanting to shave your head, that should never be your first option. So for women, it's really been trying to ensure that, like these products grow your hair, or if your hair isn't growing, then use these like wigs.

And you don't always identify and love yourself when you're constantly hiding behind different products. And so when people discover, at least from the feminine side of things, that, you know, wigs shouldn't be covering up something that could be embraced and empowering. On the female side, we're seeing a lot of brands continuously pushing out these types of products. I think brands like Nutrafol for example, is, you know, a bit out of touch with the bald consumer today because as you can see, we're willingly and wanting to stay bald.

Dusty Weis

I look back, Harry and I grew up in the early 90s, and I feel like that was kind of the heyday for ridiculous advertising. I don't know how much you remembered of it or how much you had across the pond in England, but one of the earliest commercials that I remember having to do with hair loss sold this product called Top Coverage.

And it was essentially it was a can of spray paint that you sprayed on the top of your head to darken any bald spots that you had.

Are there any other like, formative memories that you have of advertising, like suggesting that these ridiculous products are something that you need?

Harry James

Yeah, I mean, you know, honestly, the market hasn't evolved a great deal, right? Like those products are still very much in existence. They've maybe been given new names or they're marketed more cleverly, like these days. They're tweaked ever so slightly, but they're all one of the same. You know, they still exist. Hair fibers, hair powders. They've rebranded the wig as we were talking about earlier, as like hair systems, you know, so there has been improvements, but they, they.

Dusty Weis

I hadn’t heard the term hair systems before!

Harry James

They’re hair systems, now, you know.

Dusty Weis

That's very technical.

Harry James

I think it's obviously to get away from the negative connotation of the word wig, especially in sort of the, the men's sphere, you know, that sort of embarrassment. And they've done a good job of doing that, a bit like the hair transplant industry getting a lot of influencers and stuff, offering them free hair transplants. I probably could have had 40 hair transplants by this time myself, you know, and it makes it like everyone's doing this.

So that must be like a, you know, the thing that I need to, to do. And, you know, I think ultimately it's just it is a bit of a minefield, but it's just the journey that some people need to go through as well. I will say that, you know, like sometimes a guy needs to be doing that for like a year for him to realize, I really don't need to be doing all this, you know?

Dusty Weis

This sucks. I need to move on.

Harry James

Exactly. And he has to be like your your friend, you know, in the college dorm, right? He has to be doing that daily routine to eventually maybe come to terms with it and go, okay, you know what? Maybe, maybe I can too just accept this. You know, guys have a different version of that.

Dusty Weis

Yeah, yeah. Well, to give you the Paul Harvey rest of the story on my college roommate, he's got a haircut just like mine. Now, today. There you go. I just never spent hundreds of dollars on gel that's, you know, from a toxic waste dump. But I think that you bring up a really great point about the evolution of the thinking on this.

And so I guess just my follow up question to you, Harry, is with generations of precedent stacked up against this, with advertising that has driven home to us, that to be bald is to be less than. Why would you say that the moment was right for baldmaxxing?

Harry James

Yeah, I think it reached. You know, every movement needs a kind of counter movement, right? A counterculture, naturally, it always happens, right. But I truly do think that that stuff I talked about before, the sort of bombardment which I really do feel like we're seeing my I was 25 as well. My sort of we're going back ten years now, my heyday of balding.

I feel like it reached that sort of highest point. 2015 2016 the rise of social media. You know, it's just daily messages, like you said, like you're not good enough, like you need this to save you. You're never going to have the self-esteem. If not, I think they push the limits right to the point where they're like, actually, this is a bit ridiculous.

Like you're telling me, you know, I’ve literally seen like you're talking about earlier adverts where, you know, they portray these bald guys as like bumbling buffoons who are miserable and alone. And I think guys just they reached the limit and they thought, no, like, I don't I don't need to be doing all that.

And I think it's partly that, but also a testament to just how positive this kind of baldmaxxing, like, bald positivity movement has been, that more guys are drawn towards that than sucked into the sort of fear based marketing on the opposite side of it, which has helped kind of grow this sort of positive movement around just accepting it and kind of moving on. And as I said earlier, realizing your own power and not sort of submitting that to a product or another way to hide yourself away.

Dusty Weis

Well, and I really think it illustrates sort of the dual edged sword nature of the internet to where, on the one hand, you have these negative messages that are bombarding you constantly and they're amplified by the internet, but it also creates the space for these sort of niche communities where people can push back against that, rise up against it and say, no, we don't buy into that. Here's our community.

And certainly that's what you fostered with Baldcafe as a place for people to come together and find like-minded people who feel the same way about that. But as you've sort of charted this path, how have you come to define baldmaxxing when somebody asks you, okay, Bald Cafe, baldmaxxing, what's that all about?

What's your elevator pitch?

Harry James

Yeah. It's a great question because it's been something that I've probably tried to define, like all throughout this journey, accepting the baldness and actually seeing that as a you used the word earlier like a power move, right? But you've got to think of it in a sense of guys can spend. For me, it was about a year and a half.

You know, for other people it could be ten, 20 years believing into this story that baldness is going to ruin their life. You know, in all ways they're going to be forever single.

And they really kind of lose that. Their sense of self, their sense of self-confidence. And I keep using the word lose their power. But it truly is that. Something switches and they choose to go against that narrative.

Right. Rather than buying into that fear and shrinking their life to feel safe around that, they kind of turn and face it. And often it's the head shave, right? The bald part, which is that first realization for them of, oh, maybe I am way more confident than I thought. Maybe I can handle this, maybe I can do all these things.

And that really starts the opposite kind of snowball of expanding out, right? And they start to take bigger chances. They believe in themselves way more. And this is the maxxing part. So the bald part is the turning and facing the fear. They realize just what they're capable of and then they just sky's the limit after that. And they just keep growing and growing and growing.

Hence the maxxing part. That's really how I define it.

Dusty Weis

As you describe it, the decision to embrace baldness is one that is deeply personal and even traumatic for some folks. It's something that we've all been through in our own way.

You kind of told us a little bit about how you went through it, Harry, and how you arrived at it. But, Brennan, I'd love to hear your story about how you decided to choose this lifestyle as well.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

Yeah. So I like to coin the term “bald by choice” because I willingly shaved my head. I was an athlete in college and I was constantly sweating out my perm. I always had short hair, but it wasn't to the point of like baldness or shaving it. And it was during 2011 when I don't want to say like “canceled people...”

But it was when Kanye West and Amber Rose were dating and my friends were like, Brennan, oh my God, there's this woman, Amber Rose. She looks so good with a bald head. You should do it. And I'm like, I look nothing like this woman. Like I'm going to look absolutely crazy. And I was, I think 19 or 20 at the time.

And my friend, similar to what you experienced, Dusty, was like, fine, if you're not going to do it, let me do it. And they did Clippers down the middle, because you can't do it down the side because you can easily stop. So it was clippers down the middle. And I remember initially being like oh my God why did I just make this decision.

But then it was probably I think like less than a week that what Harry was describing of like the confidence and being like, wow. Like I really look good with this and it made me embrace my features more. It made me stop hiding behind different things. When I had hair. When I became bald, I started to accessorize more.

So like the bigger the hoop, the bigger the cooler the person. Jewelry, sunglasses and it really ends up becoming a huge part of like your personal style. Like you try to figure out, like, okay, being bald is the accessory. What else can I do to compliment it? So whenever I first did it, a lot of women were like, are you okay? Like, is everything going all right?

Dusty Weis

They immediately assumed that you were sick.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

They thought I was sick.

Dusty Weis

Or, having a crisis.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

And Dusty, you probably remember, and Harry as well, that, you know, when Britney Spears first shaved her head all those years ago, they called her crazy, you know, recently, Doja Cat amazing rapper, shaved her head on Instagram Live, and everyone in the comments was like, what's going on? What's happening? So for women, when you shave your head, it does come off as like, okay, you're having a mental breakdown and like, you definitely need support or to be in a straight jacket.

But when I did it, I never have gone back. And I've had the same hairstyle for 15 years, I love it.

Dusty Weis

You mentioned Amber Rose as someone who inspired...

Brennan Nevada Johnson

Canceled! But she inspired it.

Dusty Weis

So maybe we're not calling her a role model anymore. But I like to tell people that those of us who have chosen this lifestyle, all of us have like a bald role model. For me, it was always Sir Patrick Stewart or Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek. But what are some of your other bald role models? Harry, you've got a very Jason Statham thing going on.

Can I assume that with the English background that that there's some Jason Statham in there for you?

Harry James

Yeah, he's he's obviously like a huge icon. Right? Because he's got it all, right? He's completely made. And I think that's one of the biggest if not the biggest for a lot of guys.

But honestly, you know, what I say to a lot of men is just look a lot closer to home for your like role model because it's a genetic thing.

Chances are you've got cousins, uncles, brothers you've overlooked because and often during the whole balding stage, you know, you're trying to push that away. You're like, no, no, I don't want that to be me. So you kind of overlook it, right? But when you're searching for that inspiration, it's often found a lot closer to home. And I will just honestly admit, one of the people that inspired me the most was my own dad.

Right? Because throughout growing up, it just never was a thing, you know? It was never, ever a thing. And if I said to him, like, why aren't you insecure about that, he would be so perplexed as to why I was even asking him the question, you know? So I really was like, okay, I need to that's the level I need to be, you know?

So yeah, I think that's what I often say to guys. It was the same for me.

Dusty Weis

Like you, I look to my own father as a bald role model as well. And thank you for bringing that back up, because he has some of the best one liners about baldness that you'll ever hear. One of my personal favorites is... and I'll do my best Chris Weis impression here... “If you look at the evolution of man over tens of thousands of years, we're getting less hairy as time goes on, and so we are just more highly evolved than most people,” is what Chris Weis would say there.

But as Brennan mentioned, being bald certainly becomes a major part of your personal brand. But your personal brand really defines your professional brand as well. And so, Brennan, I want to ask you, when you shaved your head and you were going out into the working world at that time, how did it change the way that you show up and get noticed in a professional setting?

Brennan Nevada Johnson

Yeah, that's such a good question. So there's two folds to that question. One is when I first shaved my head, I did a lot of like fun things. So I bleached it blond. I had it blue, I had it red, I had a green. I did all of that before it was trendy, by the way. And it was not accepted in the workplace.

I had one employer be like, is your hair normally like this? And I was like, are you really asking me this in an interview? But when I started my own business, it actually ended up being the one thing that people identified first. You know, there are so many people that base their brands off of, like their hairstyle and being a bald woman in a sea of women who all have like long hair or similar hairstyles.

It made me stand out. And so that's something that I ended up using to my advantage. So whenever I would go to an event, there wouldn't ever be that point where they'd be like, oh, do I remember this person? It's like, oh no, the bald person. And then they would remember, like who I am and what our conversation was.

But I think, you know, really owning it was something that I had to do because at first it was like completely rejected in the workplace. But I eventually just was like, okay, I'll end up finding the right community or I'll make my own community for it. And so being bald has been a huge part of my brand, and I consider myself a bald storyteller.

Dusty Weis

You know, when I worked in corporate, I used to get up and lead presentations wearing a suit and the freshly shaved head. And I found that if you steer into it, if you just walk in and again command the room, command the look, people snap-to, and they pay attention when you walk in and own a room, dressed like this.

Now, Harry, you didn't just build a professional brand out of baldness. You build a business. Can you tell me a little bit more about the opportunities that you identified and the business that you have built around this brand?

Harry James

Sure, yeah. As I started posting about my own story online about six months after I'd shaved it, and it had really sort of woke me up to that confidence that I described earlier, I thought, okay, there's got to be other guys out there that are having the same experience here. And when I started looking on YouTube for help when I was losing my hair, there wasn't a lot out there, just a few videos of people talking about it.

I think because of the very nature of the topic, it's embarrassing to admit these things. You know, as I have done sitting in the back of my classroom, not wanting anyone to be behind me, you know, walking down the road, staring at the floor, avoiding eye contact. You know, young men don't want to admit to these things. And so I think through me sharing that online, initially, a lot of people related to it.

And then they would ask for help, right? They would say, ask me all these questions, what should I do? And I started making videos about those. And that's basically grown now into a coaching business, right where I take guys where they're at the point where they're like, dude, I need to solve this. I need to get my life back.

The phrase I hear all the time, you know, I've got all these things I want to do. It's not just impacting me, it's impacting my relationships. Like, I could chew your ear off for four hours talking about all these different ways, and I work with those guys long term to kind of get clear on what they want to do, take the action and just grow and grow and grow.

The maxxing part, you know, I take guys through the baldmaxxing process. That's essentially what I do.

Dusty Weis

And it's really blown up. I mean, you were on NPR just a few weeks ago here, but the amount of attention that you've gotten for this, the followers that you've amassed, go ahead and brag a little bit. I want to hear metrics, man.

Harry James

Yeah, yeah, it's like a quarter of a million on YouTube now. 65,000 or something on Instagram. And I think the channel's done... I looked the other day... like 220 million views or something like that. So I think that's just an indicator of just how prominent thing it is for so many men, you know, because it draws so many eyeballs in.

It's been phenomenal as well. You know, that was the biggest gift for me to be able to turn this around to help others. I'm very, very grateful to have this kind of mission, I must admit.

Dusty Weis

Now, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about accessories here, because when you first shave your head. I mean, you're losing some prime real estate for self-expression up there. I know that for the first few years after I shaved my head, I was just out of luck because I couldn't grow a beard to save my life. But, Harry, you, I've got to say, are rocking, an incredible beard and mustache combo.

You're sporting the sleeveless tee to show off that gun show that you've got going on there. And Brennan, you are absolutely nailing the workplace appropriate but still kind of renegade piercing combo. So I got to ask each of you, Harry, go ahead and lead us off.

What works as far as accessories go, what have you seen other people do and what absolutely, positively does not work?

Harry James

Okay, so what doesn't work is, as you described earlier, that feeling right when you're still young? I get a lot of young guys. Right. And you're trying to have the board look that right now isn't in reach for a lot of guys. They think it needs to be the massive beard, right? It's the big beard and the shaved head combo.

But I have to tell everyone there's so many more varieties of bald man that you can be. I've made a few reels on this. Right. The corporate look. Right, if we're calling it that, the clean shaven, the smart attire you described yourself having rocked that before, right? You know where you walk into the room. Command it. It's a very strong look.

There's so many different ones for me. I've literally done it all. Clean shaven, huge beard, all sorts of variations. And I started filming these, like, barbershop videos where I'd go to a into a barber shop in different parts of the world. Very interesting for me, and I just found that this was a great way to do it, because there was there was more to do, you know, a little scissors on the mustache, shave the beard down, line it up, clean shaven head.

So over the last few years, this has just been my look. I enjoy it the most. It helps you stand out. It's a good conversation starter in the real world often, which I really enjoy.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

It is a really good conversation starter, like you can be bald in a room full of people, but if you lock eyes with like another bald person, especially another like woman with a shaved head, you're instantly like connected. There is a toolkit to be fabulous and bald. I think you know anyone, but I especially love when women do earrings.

You know we don't have hair, so get big, get fun, do dangly, do peacock earrings. Figure it out. I think sunglasses look the best on bald people. It's like we're literally out of the Matrix movie. Like any bald person, if you're stepping outside without sunglasses on, doesn't matter if it's rain snowing, you need to be wearing sunnies. I don't want to repeat what Harry said, but once you just start to, like, figure out what works for you.

A lot of women with bald heads like to color it. They like to do lashes. They like to like, really play up their makeup because they don't have hair. So they can get a little bit more dramatic in that sense. But to your point, like, there's so many ways that you can express yourself through fashion. And I think actually one industry that has probably done the best job at, like amplifying and empowering bald women and men has been the fashion industry.

If you look at like high fashion runways and that type of look, baldness has always been pretty much a major look. But for real life people, I think you need to get fun with the accessories. Sunglasses, scarves, also hats. Even though we want to embrace the bald head, you know you do need to protect your scalp during warmer months.

So I think Harry even has a product like to help protect your scalp. So there's so many things.

Dusty Weis

That's the bald butter right? The bald butter?

Harry James

Yeah the bald butter I make, yeah.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

I want to hear about the bald butter!

Harry James

Yeah the bald butter, it's a great product. No that was a real passion product and project for me because there wasn't a lot to service like guys that were losing their hair. Right? It's all hair gels and hair sprays. But what about after you've shaved it? Like, do I just rub some, like Vaseline on there or something?

Like, I need something more than that, you know? So that was how that one came about. I just wanted to really quickly state before it slipped my mind, talking about the fashion industry and really accessorizing it. The shaved head is like the ideal blank canvas, right?

Which I think makes you think more about how you do want to stand out a bit more, which is a great thing, like talking about all this self-confidence, self-esteem, like you kind of have to push the boundaries of what is like socially like normal, right?

For most gents, for me, pretty much all the time growing up, it was the short back and sides, just like everyone else. I'm just trying to get through life. You kind of dim your light a bit like that. So when you have the shaved head, it's like the perfect opportunity to start trying new things and really do what feels a little bit risque move of like some elaborate sunglasses or something.

But that's truly how you start having fun with it and actually, like, care way less and live way more.

Dusty Weis

I'll tell you this, I've had one accessory that's really worked for me in the past and one accessory that really didn't work. And Brennan, you called me on this when we chatted the other week when I jumped on to a video call and you're like, why are you wearing a hat? Some hats work. But I went through a fedora phase.

Harry James

What era was that? Like, 2012?

Dusty Weis

No. Yeah. You got it pegged exactly there. So the fedora. Not so much. But the accessory that I think too many people sleep on is a motorcycle. You show up on a motorcycle as a bald guy, you win. Whatever you're doing, you win. It's just the way to go.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

Do you ride a motorcycle, Dusty?

Dusty Weis

No longer. Once we started having kids, that was something that ended up sitting in the garage a whole lot. And so I gave it to someone... I didn't give it... I sold it to someone who was going to get proper use out of it. But once the kids all go off to college, I'll be back in the saddle someday.

Brennan Nevada Johnson

I want to double click on Harry's butter product, because that is something that you know, Harry's building for the bald people of today and of the future. All of these products that are being marketed and pushed to bald people, they're very outdated.

They're very much, you know, 1900s. They're not with the current times. And so, Harry, I'm curious, when you were like creating that body butter... because I was also needing like, where are all the scalp products, where all this stuff like aftershave so I don't look like a Nestlé Crunch bar.

Like I want to look good and I feel like not enough brands are doing what Harry's doing and marketing and selling products. That's like, okay, you're bald, you want to be bald, you're going to be bold tomorrow. Here's like what you should use. And I'm just curious Harry have you noticed that as well?

Because at least in the US, there's a lot more women trying to get into like scalp care, but not in the way that body butter and what you've done.

Harry James

Yeah, yeah. There's like there's definitely a gap for it, like to do it right. I would say more and more people are now like doing that. So it's kind of sign of the times, right. Like it is starting to switch and to change. And I think part of that was probably because people were still thinking like, no, everyone would much rather have hair and just trying to hold on to it.

So let's fully invest into that. Yeah. Once you go bald, like, that's it, nothing matters. Like that's it, it's over, you know? So just don't even care, right? Like, yeah, just shave your head, slap some Vaseline on it and shut up, you know, like it's over for you anyway. So there's that space for people to make it that, like, attractive thing.

I think branding is going to be huge for that. So it's not necessarily even just about the product, but it's having, let's say, men, you know, since that's my realm, look at a brand that's maybe selling products like that and be like, oh, I want some of that. Like, that's what I want, you know? And I think whoever nails that is going to do really well.

But people are trying it. It's great to see.

Dusty Weis

Yeah, I for me it harkens back to if you guys remember the Dove Soap Real Beauty campaign, and that was generally targeted at women. But the whole idea was, you know, be who you are and find your beauty from inside and use Dove Soap, by the way. But I think that there are brands and institutions that could really make a splash if they steered into baldmaxxing.

There was an advertisement that targeted me online a few years ago that I think was crushing it. It was for a company called Pit Bull. They make a skull shaver. An electric shaver.

And their advertising campaign was basically like, so you're losing your hair. Who gives a shit? Take care of your scalp. And like, that worked. That made me laugh. And then I went out and I bought the thing and it was just okay. I still prefer a Bic razor, but I think that there really is a lot of runway for brands to make a splash here.

But as we kind of wind the conversation down here, I think it harkens to me to this era that we live in where social media just controls a bigger share of our reality than ever before. And this has prompted people to do some really extreme things to alter or enhance their appearance. Jia Tolentino had a really compelling piece in The New Yorker and on NPR's Fresh Air recently, where she documented a lot of this.

Male influencers are out here hitting themselves in the face with hammers to sculpt their jawline. Female influencers are getting plastic surgery in their 20s. And so I wanted to ask each of you. Where do you see baldmaxxing in the larger context of the current social and media landscape? Is this is this a part of the social media obsession with appearance, or is this a rebellion against it?

Brennan Nevada Johnson

I would say from the female side of things, I think it's a bit of a rebellion against it. If you're shaving your head or if you're wanting to, you know, be bald after years of hiding. I think, you know, the whole thing about being bald is like you're no longer trying to, you know, be someone else. Like you're finally, like, loving and owning your look.

So the whole plastic surgery fiasco that's all about kind of altering your look to, like, really appear as someone else and not fully loving yourself. Whereas baldness is all about like, okay, you've been told that you need to hide this. You've been told that you need to alter this. Finally, you’re bald so it doesn't really fit the narrative.

Harry James

It's maybe like six months ago that r/bald Reddit kind of post got a bit of virality when I started talking about baldmaxxing it, you know? I mean, it is a play off the looksmaxxing trend that you're describing, right? With these influencers, bone smashing, they call it, and things like that. Right. Which is... there's a kind of toxic level to that.

I think for me, the whole baldmaxxing thing strips back to what I described as a blank canvas. And really, guys just appreciating themselves, their fellow man relating in that struggle that they went through and finding a lot of positivity and encouragement like in that. And it's overall like a bit of a tongue in cheek, like positive movement that can go as deep and as far as we want it to really, I think it just depends on who gets involved and how far we want to take it.

Dusty Weis

Well, and I do think it's got legs. I do think that it's going to continue on, and I do think that the push back to this sort of skin deep, omnipresent pressure that we all feel from social media is going to continue.

My wife came to me a few weeks ago, a few months ago and said, oh, you know, do you think that I should get some Botox? You know, I keep seeing these ads for it. And somebody else who's close to us had just gotten some.

And I turned back to her and I said, I want you to do what makes you feel comfortable in your own skin, but do you think I should get hair plugs? The answer is no.

You know, live with the body that you've got. Do everything that you can to preserve it and protect it and take care of it and strengthen it.

But don't poison yourself with products that you don't need.

And I end up thinking about this a lot right now because I've got three kids who are coming up in this world right now, and they're at this perfect age where they have just not been exposed to the toxic waste dump of online culture.

And I watch them play in the yard, and they have all the confidence in the world right now, because they've never been told that they are not good enough.

And of course, your first instinct as a parent is to try to protect them from that, but you can't protect them forever. And so I've decided that it's up to me, and it's up to my wife to model the kind of radical self-acceptance and self-improvement that we have discussed here.

That is why I really, really appreciate all the work that you each do and why I'm so thankful that you joined us for this discussion. I will drop links to each of your social media in the episode description, so folks can follow along with your exploits.

Harry James, the founder of Baldcafe, baldmaxxer extraordinaire, and Brennan Nevada Johnson, PR and media relations agency founder from New York.

Thank you both so much for joining us here on Lead Balloon.

Harry James

Thanks for having me.

Dusty Weis

And thank you for tuning in. Here on Lead Balloon, I keep waiting for a court order from Stephen Dubner ordering me to stop calling this the Freakonomics of professional communication. But his lawyers haven't found us yet.

And we certainly hope to see you back here in this feed again sometime soon. Follow us on your favorite podcast app, send a link to someone else who would dig it, or hire Podcamp Media to make a podcast for your company.

Because Lead Balloon is produced by my little old company Podcamp Media, where we help global brands use podcasting to tell worthwhile stories and connect with their audiences. Our podcast studios are located in the heart of beautiful downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but we work with brands all over North America to help them launch and build podcasts that work. Check out our website, podcampmedia.com.

Music for this episode by Midnight Daydream.

And until the next time, folks, thanks for listening. I'm Dusty Weis.