Steve Underwood's Facial Hair

About

Steve Underwood's Facial Hair refers to a series of jokes and memes about the mustache and beard of sports business executive Steve Underwood. Upon announcing his retirement of the presidency of the Tennessee Titan professional football organization in May 2020, images of his facial hair went viral.

Origin

On May 8th, 2020, the Houston Chronicle^[1] reported that Steve underwood would retire as the president of the Titans organization.

That day, news and media organizations began featuring images of Underwood in social media posts about his retirement. For example, Twitter ^[2] account @ProFootballTalk shared a photo that received more than 4,000 likes, 1,500 comments and 625 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Spread

Throughout the day, people made jokes about Underwood's facial hair. Twitter^[3] user @BobbyBigWheel shared the image with the caption, "Wishing a happy retirement to Steve Underwood who can now focus of his love of filtering krill out of seawater." The tweet received more than 3,600 likes and 285 retweets in less than one week (shown below, left).

The tweet account for Draft Kings tweeted a series of images of players with Underwood's facial hair. The tweet^[4] received more than 925 likes and 135 retweets in less than one week (shown below, center).

New York Magazine writer Yashar Ali shared^[5] a series of images of Underwood. The post received more than 22,000 likes, 3,200 retweets and 1,800 comments in less than one week (shown below, right).

Later that day, Underwood commented on the memes.^[6] He said:

I work my fingers to the bone for 40 years, and what comes out of it -- people are talking about my mustache and beard. “I never take myself too seriously, so I’m okay with it. I’m not a very attractive guy, and what people notice is all the facial hair. Over time, it’s become part of my persona. I get a lot of compliments about my beard and mustache, usually from others who have beards and mustaches. It’s a little distinctive. I don’t really have any other distinguishing characteristics. The beard and mustache are the best I can do with what I have available.

On May 10th, Redditor ^[7] deadmikey shared the photo of Underwood on the /r/ATBGE subreddit. The post received more than 25,000 points (95% upvoted) and 615 comments in less than 24 hours. Redditor^[8] dbeachside shared the image on the /r/Justfuckmyshitup subreddit, where it received more than 4,000 (98% upvoted) and 140 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References