Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

Bored Panda

Kotryna Brašiškytė

‘Neckbeards’: 35 Times People Shared Their Opinions Without Realizing How Hateful They Are

"Neckbeard" is a pejorative online term to describe a person who exhibits social awkwardness, underachievement, and pretentiousness.

It's a reference to the poor grooming and hygiene standards associated with these folks, and their facial hair in particular, which, according to the stereotype, is unkempt and extends down their neck.

This doesn't mean that every guy with man fur under his chin automatically becomes one. Plus, people's personalities are so nuanced that it's often impossible to make an accurate assessment of them from something they say on the internet.

However, it it does mean that if you are hateful towards others just because you need to mask your personal insecurity and a lack of self-confidence, you might end up on the subreddit 'Neckbeard' as punishment. Here are the ones who did.

#1 Sorry Ladies

Image credits: FruitsAreGoodForU

#2 Stop Kissing M’ladys Hand

Image credits: anamezon2008

Dr. Lauren Rosewarne, author of 'Cyberbullies, Cyberactivists, Cyberpredators: Film, TV, and Internet Stereotypes' and Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia, said a good example of a neckbeard in popular culture is Jeff Albertson from The Simpsons.

"The fat, pony-tailed and bearded sarcastic misanthrope [is] more commonly known as the Comic Book Guy," she said. "In the Bart the Fink episode, Albertson wheels a barrow full of tacos through town commenting 'Yes, this should provide adequate sustenance for the Doctor Who marathon.'

Then there's Plague from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). "Surrounded by junk food packaging, this greasy hacker has the gracelessness to use the toilet – door agape – with [the] company still in his apartment."

#3 Neckbeard Found A “Girlfriend”

Image credits: NoMaskTilReparations

#4 Don't Know If This Has Been Posted Here

Image credits: Man-Spider_1301

#5 "Stop Telling Me To Get A Job"

Image credits: RockyMntnView

"At a cursory glance, the neckbeard is an easy figure to both loathe and laugh at: he’s the fat guy whose whole pathetic life plays out exclusively in cyberspace," Dr. Rosewarne said.

"This screen stereotype, however, has other interesting elements to it."

#6 Neckbeard Gets Pissed Because Unlike His Expectations, The Us Army Is Not All 80s Sylvester Stallon Clones

Image credits: R_Dey

#7 I Just Can’t

Image credits: Zek0ri

#8 Oh S**t, He’s Gonna Take Legal Action!

Image credits: therattywoman

At its inception, virtually every new technology had been associated with fears of addiction and the internet certainly hadn't avoided this, either.

As Dr. Rosewarne pointed out, by the mid-1990s, the online world was said to be ruining relationships and socially isolating teenagers.

"The screen’s neckbeard is a product of this: he's not just a user of the technology, the technology is his life."

#9 Is That So Much To Ask??

Image credits: aethericallum

#10 Local Weaboo Upset About Japan Not Being Their Fantasyland

Image credits: crestren

#11 Dude, You Stink

Image credits: HungerLefty

In this context, the neckbeard is a physical incarnation of modern gluttony – too much sedentariness, too much darkness, too much isolation, too much computing.

"He is what happens to the body – to society – when we become too reliant on machines: we go soft, we go to fat," Dr. Rosewarne added.

#12 Found On Twitter, Where Neckbeards Still Prey On Ukrainian Refugees

Image credits: LaFilleDuMoulinier

#13 This Is What Comes To Your Head?

Image credits: antonio_dhanteras

#14 Now That's True Love

Image credits: Rod-FM

"The neckbeard is unkempt, of course, because heft and dishevelment are regularly coupled on screen in a culture loathing of fatness," she continued. "But he’s unkempt because of his computing. He’s not leaving his basement, he’s not socializing; the machine has made him reclusive and facilitated his isolation."

But as you can see from these pictures, as well as our previous publications on the subreddit People On This Group Are Shaming ‘Neckbeards’, And Here Are 30 Of Their Best Posts and 30 Entitled ‘Neckbeards’ Who Showed Their True Colors, As Shared By This Online Group (New Pics), the neckbeard is often also a jerk. Be it a misogynist, or just another troll, this character amuses himself by being a bastard online.

#15 This Neckbeard Wants Kawaii Sharia Law

Image credits: No_Biscotti_7110

#16 Most Likely A Neccbeard

Image credits: JudithBurley

#17 Just Saw This And Figured It Belonged Here. Yikes. Comments Are Currently Ripping Him Apart

Image credits: LOVallie

#18 Who Hurt This Guy?

Image credits: RossPerot_1992

Dr. Rosewarne said the repulsive exteriors of this stereotype "function as an insight into their filthy psychology."

"These men are socially isolated, and behind their monitors (and invariably in the bravery of mom’s basement), they get to stand up to their tormentors – to the women, for example, who ignored them – and feel a modicum of (digital) power," she said.

No wonder we love to hate these characters.