I don’t often get personal in this blog. Mostly I talk about Firefox things, security things, or how to make reasonably awesome bread. I don’t want to inundate my reader(s) with too much sap; surely the blogosphere has enough emo in it already.
This is different though, because I’m talking about something really important. Not just to me, but to people everywhere who think ideas like “freedom” and “adventure” are more than just words. People who think that it is the duty of a responsible citizenry to resist injustice, and to throw off the shackles of polite society when they reach too far into our world, when they transgress too much.
Last year, I introduced people to this struggle, and the response was overwhelming. This year, we aim to do more. To reach more people. To change more lives.
We need you to be a part of it.
Tomorrow is the first day of December. If you are someone who lives with the hegemony of social pressure, someone who is compelled to hold knives against your own flesh defying every instinct evolution has given you: NSID is your emancipation. We don’t care if you’re male or female, young or old, unix-hacker bearded or barely able to grow hair, NSID is your chance to stand with friends and get shaggy.
Join the flickr pool, post updated pictures, fill the #nsid twitter stream, blog the news out to the masses. Be part of the revolution.
And don’t worry, in January you can shave it all off again. It stops itching around the 8 or 9th day.
[UPDATE: NSID now has a tracking page: noshavingindecember.org (Good idea, Humph!)]
meandering wildly 
If you have to wait for December, an event like NSID, and a whole bunch of other people to not shave for a while, in order to not shave, just how free are you?
There must be some element of sexism in this idea or something, because the 2007 NSID collage doesn’t have a single woman. Hey, what is going on?
Dear Internet,
These comments are awesome. They help remind me exactly why I should never, ever, ever pay attention to comments on blogs, news articles, or portal sites.
I don’t know what you mean, Mike. I thought it was brilliant satire!
I mean jesus christ I hope so! There aren’t actually people like that, are there?
I’m going to have to find a beard proxy. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that asian people should not grow facial hair.
http://is.gd/9FwQ
Is there a facebook group yet?!
Your movement has been pre-coopted:
http://www.movember.com/
I’ve spread the campaign in the Spanish community, also I’ve created a event in our Spanish Facebook equivalent 😉
I spend most of the year shackled by my facial hair. This December, I choose to express my freedom by shaving regularly for an ENTIRE MONTH. Take that! 😛
johnath, I want you to know that your NSID post last year changed my life. I was previously unaware of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
As far as I can tell, Maslow’s theory is sheer nonsense on one level, the level of mere “facts” and “reason”, and yet simultaneously on a much deeper level it is meaningful, true, and powerful. It has become a part of my life. In this it has much in common with NSID and, now that I think of it, the Web.
Thanks.
This post makes me want to cast off the shackles of my oppressors. Great stuff.
I just came back so I could forward the link to a friend. It thing commenter #3 is responding to my “humor” in comment #2. It was a joke. There are plenty of things in the world worth getting worked up about, but this isn’t one of them.