mullets

I loved mullets. I loved them so much.

Loved, not love. I used to love them.

The bogan world’s fuck you to modern cosmopolitan Australia. A carefree, non-corporate, light-hearted haircut that embodied a fun-loving Australian spirit.

Not a haircut I would have, but you don’t always want things you like. I think face scars look cool and mysterious, but I wouldn’t ever want one.

For the longest time, the mullet resided in a category of haircuts shunned by most of Australia. It lived in a rough family alongside its cousin, the rat's tail, and its slightly cooler brother, the Jedi. Haircuts that only the most wild people on the outskirts of society would get—those unconcerned with finding a corporate job in the big smoke — where freedom was the ultimate reward.

But it seems as though not even hairstyles are safe from the engulfing phenomenon of gentrification.

A few weeks ago, I was walking through Hyde Park. It was a perfect April day, not a cloud in the sky. I was walking past the war memorial, you know, the one that’s shaped like a cube? I was looking at those soldiers perched right at the top of the memorial, about 20 meters high, looking over us. I was squinting up at them as they hovered in front of a gentle autumn sun, wondering to myself if, when they made those statues, they were based on real people who had to model in front of a sculptor, or did they just copy them from another statue? If so, which ones? And if they were sculptures of real people, why were all the faces the same? Did some dude have to change outfits nine times that day? How’d they even get them up there? Surely they didn’t have cranes back then—maybe a pulley system? I wonder if I could make a meme about the Hyde Park war memorial?

Cops.

I was nudged out of my mindless daydream about statues by the sight of two cops standing at the edge of the man-made pond next to the memorial.

“Slow down, you’re walking like you did something wrong,” I thought to myself as a habitual fast walker.

“Actually, wait, don’t slow down—then they’ll definitely think something’s up. What am I talking about? Walk however you want; it’s 1 p.m. on a Saturday, and they couldn’t give two fucks about you.” I was right; I had somewhere to be. I’m not slowing down due to my functional anxiety and an unhealthy relationship with authority. I had to get the 428 to Frangos.

I continued on, looking at the two cops enjoying their lunch. One of them was munching on what looked like a pretty goddamn delicious sandwich—the fancy type. The food wasn’t the issue, though; it was what I saw when I scanned further up that was.

He had a mullet.

For me, this was the death of the mullet, the final nail in the coffin, raw and unfiltered mulletcide (mullet homicide).

No, no, no, this is all wrong. What kind of world are we living in? When did this all go so wrong?

I had a lot to think about before getting to Petersham.

Australia's fascination with the mullet trend kicked off just like many trends do: by taking cues from America. The mullet started as a modern, cool, and exciting haircut sported by the "it" crowd of the 70s. Bowie, Keith Richards, and Paul McCartney all did their part in making the mullet a worldwide phenomenon. By the 1980s, the who's who of Gen X's Sydney had adopted the cut. Ironically, the people who would eventually define the mullet in Australia would have scoffed at such a foreign, trend-chasing, cosmopolitan hairstyle.

This was a haircut for those yuppie Aussies who were tapped into Ronald Reagan’s flashy, cocaine-fueled 1980s America—not some factory worker on the outskirts of Penrith.

Just like Reagan’s America, most of mainstream society would eventually realize how crazy the mullet was, and it would slowly fizzle out. It would make its mark on the hip-hop world in the 90s through Eazy-E (one of my favorite mullets0. The cut would also be championed in the 90s by Billy Ray Cyrus.

I was scrolling through TikTok a while back and saw a snippet of Joe Rogan talking to Miley Cyrus (yes, my FYP is that basic). Joe was explaining to his audience just how big Billy Ray Cyrus was in 1992. This was surprising to me—like, I knew he was big, but Rogan was going on like he was some mega-star. I know he’s well before my time, but it just doesn’t feel like he was that big. Turns out, he sold 9 million records his debut year and made $40 million that year, too.

Billy Ray Cyrus, the biggest country singer at that time, seems to have helped shift the perception of the mullet from the city to the country, and that’s where it would live for the next few decades in America.

This is where the story should have ended—a fad haircut that peaked in the 80s and died—but bogans in Australia had different plans.

Another thing about Australian trends taken from America is when they eventually die off in the states, it’s usually gonna take a few months for us to realize it’s not cool in America anymore, especially before the internet.

This was perfect for bogans.

“So you’re telling me this cool haircut that all those yuppies in the city have is also cool in the country music scene in the states? Perfect!” I imagine they would have said.

Country Australia and Bogan Australia aren’t the same thing, but they sure as hell have similarities, and the music genre of country-pop is one of them.

The mullet had officially gone working class.  

Throughout the 90s and well into the 2000s the mullet would become one the pillars of bogan culture. People all over the nation would wear mullet wigs and draw southern cross tattoos on themselves when cosplaying as a bogan. Superwogs' Aussie character was signified by the mullet wig and the only time a middle class Australian would actually get the haircut was for an elaborate dress up party or losing a bet. Despite it being mocked by most of the country, the haircut would serve as a way for bogans to show they honestly just really like having a good time and they don’t take themselves too seriously. 

The mullet would find its home on the outskirts of the city and further on to the bad, bad lands of Regional Australia.

There’s three places in Sydney where you really get to see all facets of society together, Services NSW, the airport and the hospital. All three are unfairly labeled as sterile places of bad news and inconvenience. I say to those critics that they should actually be turning their frowns upside down and viewing them as prime people watching locations.

As an annoying out of touch inner west boy, the bogan mullet isn’t something I get to see very often. Other mullets, yes. The private school mullet, the ethnic mullet, the lesbian mullet, I see these so much they mean nothing to me, but the OG, fuck the system, bogan mullet? I yearn for this, I yearn to see more bogan mullets.

On a layover flight from Bangkok to Europe in 2022 this yearning was satisfied. I had a 10 hour wait in Bangkok airport before a 12 hour flight to London. Did you know you can’t smoke anywhere in Bangkok airport now? Isn’t that bullshit? Do you know how much I look forward to smoking in a steamy South East Asian airport smoking area and feeling like the main character? What am I even going to do now? Anyway, this gave me a lot of time to sit at my gate with little to no wifi access to watch the people walk by for hours.

The long giant terminal was dimly lit by this time, it must have been 3am after I had explored what I could for a couple of hours, the occasional body could be found slumped out on benches as I sluggishly tried to find which gate I would call home for the next 7 hours. I found it and set myself up, I would hear faint noises become crystal clear as groups of travelers would march through the terminal. Big chinese tour groups, the business man yapping on the phone that’s done this 100 times already, the obnoxious Brits on a lads holiday, and finally, a bogan with a mullet.

Nothing on this earth makes me more patriotic than a bogan in board shorts, thongs, a muay thai singlet and not a clue where his gate is (but still acting confident). His mullet served as a beacon of who he was and what he represents, a patriotic salute in hair form to other Aussies he might come across. I felt like I should have stood up out of respect as he walked by.

The Bogan mullet was one of, if not the symbol for bogans.

This is exactly the sentiment a lot of middle class Australia has with the classic bogan mullet. We don’t like to be too close to it but we love it, we don’t want to be seen with it but when we see it overseas we can’t help but think, “fuck yeah, what a mullet, what an Australian..” It feeds in to your romantic idea that Aussies are crazy and don’t give a fuck , when you actually do.  We do give a fuck if we’re being honest, but when we see a bogan we wouldn’t usually associate with back home, actually not give a fuck overseas, it satisfies our imaginations of who we are.

“It wasn’t a good day but most of the people there where there for a good time…it had to be done” a doll faced blond shire girl says to stunned journalist Ray Martin who definitely did give a fuck when hearing an innocent looking girl justify Australia’s newest shame weeks after the cronulla riots on a national Q&A discussing the aftermath.

The early 2000s saw the Arab community’s day in the spotlight. The great Vietnamese-Australian scare of the 90s had passed and in great Aussie tradition the new millennium came with a new ethnic group the media could use to outrage Aussies that would rarely ever interact with said group.

The war on terror, riots and a police force dedicated to targeting Arabs (MEOC unit- Middle Eastern Organised Crime) would put pressure on a new generation of Australian born Arabs in Sydney's West. Talk of impending Sharia law was all over talk back radio and many mullet-havers may or may not have ate that talk up.

It seems as though the saying pressure makes diamonds was true because those turbulent times birthed a unique, tongue and cheek culture in parts of Central-Western Sydney, now colloquially known as ‘The Area’.

‘The Area’, a hodgepodge of dozens of different cultures, would embrace their differences to mainstream Australia. Unlike their parents who tried to sound more Aussie, they would use their own slang, which would eventually be used by kids all over the city. 

It’s not to say The Area was absolutely problem free at this time, there were clearly issues in their community and high numbers of boys were finding themselves locked up, rubbing shoulders with boys from all over the state and for some it would have been their first time seeing working class Aussie mullets.

When I talk to people from this part of Sydney they look at this time fondly, burnouts in souped up cars, KK car park,  canterbury tracksuits and dry-fit hats, the Bulldogs 2004 premiership and parody rappers like DJ Moey and 1buck80. This was the birth of a unique Australian-Middle Eastern culture which you can only find in this part of the world.

This newfound sub culture in Sydney gave us The Area’s favorite movie, The Combination. Written by Lebanese-Australian George Basha, the movie was about an older brother freshly released from prison trying to keep his younger brother out of crime in Western Sydney. The movie would also introduce another character, Zeus, Area heart-throb who’s mullet would come to define the ‘Area Mullet’.

The mullet had gone street.

Rats tails, speed lines, line fads and eyebrow slits were all staples throughout the area during this time, it almost seemed like it was a battle of who could out-do each other, but only the baddest, most brave boys from the area would rock the majestic mullet, just like Zeus from the combination.

The mullet was getting cultured and slowly drifting towards the city.  It could be found chilling out at Shisha lounges, in car parks, and flying through footy fields playing Western Sydney’s favourite game, Rugby league.

The first clear sign of the mullet’s  mainstream acceptance since the 80s was on the footy field. Players like Jai Arrow and Josh Addo-Carr would adopt a hairstyle that was so common among alpha males from an area that loves footy.

The mullet would be a hit in the world of footy. Footy players seemed more relatable to not only fans from The Area, but fans from regional NSW who had a soft spot for the bogan mullet.

It was a match made in heaven.

The mullet had already been a footy fashion staple in the 80s and the general demeanor of a modern NRL player really just fits the mold to a tee. From Belmore to Brookvale the mullet was on a crash course to a nation-wide revival.

The mullet had gone NRL.

Lurking in the darkness at many of these footy games at Brookvale oval and the SCG were a group of men, dark men, men that have laid waste and destroyed many a trend. The vintage mambo shirt and the dad hat were once a quirky clothing item before they discovered them, anything they touched went painfully mainstream. Their mere presence sent shivers down the spine of both bogan and hipster alike. As they glided through football grandstands across Sydney like Dementours from Harry Potter, the mullet had no idea it would be next. 

Private School boys.

Rugby Leagues dominance in popularity over the last decade saw many Private School boys turn their backs on watching whatever competition Rugby Union has, opting for it’s more exciting working class cousin Rugby League. Along with a constant crossover of league players to union and union to league the private school boys were salivating at this cool new haircut that they would have once laughed out of any room.

The larrikin nature of the mullet was attractive to a group of men that spent years in the gladiator arena of an Australian private school, where roasting each other and violent pranking is the law of the land.

The mullet had gone private school.

The best and worst thing about Private school alumni is their blind confidence in any environment. It does not matter where you put them, they will have confidence. A private school boy would somehow bluff his way out of a kidnapping, i’m sure of it. This blind confidence allowed them to walk into their corporate office job head held high with their brand new mullet haircut. 

The mullet had reached the height of society, through sheer force and private school confidence it had become an accepted haircut in the corporate world and slowly trickled down the rest of mainstream Australian society. So accepted by society that even cops had them.

The mullet had become redundant, it had no meaning, it had the same amount of meaning as a crew cut.

The mullet had gone mainstream.

“Everyone thinks I’m Australian” was what one British man who thought he would be different from his friends and get a mullet said on tiktok days after making the decision. 

The mullet’s long journey to Australian mainstream resurgence was long, but through it all the cut has lost it’s local meaning. Instead, the cut has become a signifier for Australia as a whole. From lads in Britain to Frat bros in America that like to drink, the mullet is becoming a favorite around the world for those trying to achieve the ‘Australian look’.

Thx for reading :)