I was growing a beard for the last four months. There is nothing extraordinary about me growing a beard, but this was for a reason, a purpose if you will. I was growing a beard to celebrate the beard in Whiskerino, the behemoth of beard contests.

“We are alienated from our own facial hair. Society tells us that full beards are unacceptable. Businessmen, politicians, bankers, and the like are all clean shaven; all demonstrating the standards that middle class society expects us to maintain.”
from the Whiskerino About page

Whiskerino first surfaced on my internet radar back in 2008. That year’s contest had recently finished and I thought that it would be a real cool thing to do next time round, so I put a note in my calendar in the future. The future arrived in 2009. The start date was November the 1st and I had begun a journey. I shaved away my regularly appearing facial hair. Mackle, the leader of the beard pack was very kind to let me in after the site had reached it’s 400 beard original capacity on the opening day (eventually there was over 500 participants). Given the time zone difference I had allowed myself some extra time before I uploaded my first photo. It was 3 am eternal. I was in Whiskerino.

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