Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

Earlier this month, Pete Buttigieg resurfaced after a family vacation with a souvenir for his fans: a freshly sprouted beard. A recent appearance on Jon Stewart’s podcast found the formerly bald-faced politician sporting a set of whiskers for the first time since his fleeting pandemic beard of 2020. A couple of weeks later, he showed up on a manosphere podcast, beard still going strong.

As beards go, Buttigieg’s is tame and restrained, more military than metalhead. It’s shaved into a tidy shape with a ruler-straight upper boundary—about as short as facial hair can get without languishing in a spiky in-between phase. If a beard could have a type A personality, this one would.

Still, as a category of physical feature, beards carry a whiff of anti-establishment rebellion in the traditionalist world of U.S. politics, and Buttigieg is not known to buck convention. Even a prim beard seemed so incongruous with the ex–transportation secretary’s usual clean-cut style that when he popped up on-screen for Stewart’s podcast recording, the host was taken aback. “Look at you with the scruff,” Stewart quipped.

Buttigieg chuckled, though he looked a little embarrassed at having to expound on his look. “It was very rare in my former life that I could go more than a day without shaving,” he explained. The recent family trip gave him an opportunity to lay down the razor and let his (well-mannered, reined-in) freak flag fly. “We’ll go with it for a little while,” Buttigieg said. “We’ll see.”

Gays on the internet, as you might imagine, are respectfully registering the opinion that the beard should stick around. The comments on Stewart’s Instagram post about the podcast are a chorus of “Daddy Pete!” and “ohhh daddy Pete, we are here for it!” and “SCRUFFY DADDY PETE❗❗😍❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥.”

Setting aside the question of whether a meticulously shaped beard trimmed to within an inch of its life qualifies as “scruffy,” there is some political insight to be gleaned from Buttigieg’s choice to adopt what a gay news site called “off-duty zaddy vibes.” To find it, you have to go back to the beginning of the Buttigieg beard story, which begins long before this month’s fuzz.

More than five years ago, during the Democratic presidential primary that made the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor a national name, a gay film director named Jim Fall (Trick, The Lizzie McGuire Movie) used FaceApp to add robust facial hair to three photos of Buttigieg from his time in the Navy Reserve. Fall told the Advocate that he was moved to make the images after being wowed by Buttigieg’s “ability to stay cool and smart” during a presidential debate—he hoped to help voters consider the candidate in a new light. “I think seeing Pete with a beard gives people pause,” Fall said. “It’s like, dang, he’s smart and sexy. That’s an intoxicating combination.”

The images, and the hashtag #BeardedButtigieg, went viral. Within a day, other people began posting additional altered Buttigieg photos: His official headshot with a beard. A photo from the debate with a beard. A dreamy, off-center portrait, modified with playfully tousled hair and, obviously, a beard.

The fake Buttigieg did not share the vibes-based weaknesses some Democrats found in the real Buttigieg’s candidacy—namely, that he seemed like a brown-nosing striver whose life seemed fastidiously planned to support a future presidential run. The imagined facial hair gave him a welcome dose of personality. With bristly cheeks and chin, the straitlaced Rhodes scholar and McKinsey alum suddenly became playful and rugged. The possibility emerged that he may have, once or twice in his life, broken a rule. Buttigieg’s usual baby face, which made him appear even more like a kid genius on a debate team than his thirtysomething years would warrant, was roughened up with a dash of worldly wisdom. He looked attractive enough to be within spitting distance of sex symbol status—and, crucially, old enough to be president.

In politics, where image is paramount—and in the universe of men, where gender-conforming options for aesthetic enhancement are scarce—the beard is a particularly powerful tool. It can turn a scientifically unlikable face into something a bit more palatable. (See: Ted Cruz.) It can be a physical manifestation of humble reinvention, allowing a rejected candidate to mourn and build anew. (See: Beto O’Rourke.) Sometimes, it’s at the core of a viable political persona. Do you think J.D. Vance’s own baby face would have made it to the U.S. Senate and now the White House were it not partially obscured by a beard?

For Buttigieg, the beard looked to be a path from insufferable wunderkind to slightly-less-predictable leader, and the #BeardedButtigieg mock-ups were highly convincing. Plenty of online viewers were fooled, believing that Buttigieg had once had a beard or recently sprouted a new one. “Grow that beard back and you have my vote,” read one representative comment on a #BeardedButtigieg Instagram post from Perez Hilton. The fake photos were taken so seriously in some corners of the queer community that the Advocate published an entire column arguing that Buttigieg should grow a real beard, which would cement his legacy in American memory alongside the likes of, and I am not joking here, Abraham Lincoln.

Heather Schwedel Read More

Over the past decade, plenty of other politicians have been photoshopped (or FaceApp’d) with facial hair for a good laugh. But none have gone as viral or been appreciated with such fervor as the Buttigieg ones. The images were gleefully passed around in pro-Pete circles, like the r/Pete_Buttigieg subreddit, ostensibly in celebration of the candidate. It looked like lighthearted fan art, but the subtext was clear: This guy ignited so little sexual interest in his actual form that his comparative hotness and gravitas in fake photos felt like a revelation. No one was obsessively posting collections of photos of Buttigieg himself, mooning over his smile or jawline. The FaceApp’d pics were the only ones to capture America’s attention.

Buttigieg must have noticed. A month after #BeardedButtigieg, confined to his home at the start of the pandemic, the then-candidate took a cue from the fantasy character his fans had created: He began posting photos and videos of himself with a brand-new beard. But the new Pete didn’t last long. He had his presidential campaign to consider. Then there was the ramp-up to the 2020 election, and his tenure as transportation secretary. He didn’t have another chance to let his whiskers bloom—until he lost his job a few months ago.

My Ex Suddenly Wants to Meet. They Told Me Why. I’m Going to Lose It. I Thought the Michelle and Barack Obama Divorce Rumors Were Bunk. Then I Heard That Interview. This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Got Robbed. That’s Far From the Most Interesting Part of the Story. Unfortunately for Katy Perry, That “Space Flight” Turned Out Exactly How We All Knew It Would

Now, without the pressure of a Cabinet position, Buttigieg is ready to recapture all that beard thirst. After five years and a set of twins, this beard is grayer than the last one, particularly on the right cheek. (A charming bit of asymmetry that FaceApp would never devise—A.I. will not take the jobs of real beards!) But the new beard still lends Buttigieg the rough-around-the-edges glow that wooed his fans all those years ago. With his new face blanket, he’s making the media rounds as one of the Democratic Party’s sharpest and most resolute communicators. As opposed to his bare, soft-cheeked look, the beard better suits a politician who’s trying to make a name for himself as an uncowed truth-teller ready to take the fight to the opposition.

This should not be taken as an insult to naked-faced Buttigieg but as a compliment to the beard as a vehicle for personal transformation. All the man has to do is not perform a tedious, skin-irritating daily task, and a natural bodily function turns him into a sexier version of himself. I can’t think of a beauty intervention with a better return on investment.

Get the best of news and politics Sign up for Slate’s evening newsletter.