The Art of the Icelandic Man Bun

Urban Dictionary describes the Man Bun thusly:

'(n): A questionably sexy hairstyle in which a man with hair of the medium to long (and usually greasy) variety secures said hair into a firmly rounded bun; also used to describe one half of the male buttock region.'

It is shocking how many man buns there are in Reykjavik.  They are absolutely everywhere. I have never seen so many tightly wound bundles of testosterone-filled locks.  I started to take pictures of them for Asia, who is a great connoisseur of the man bun, but after I was inundated with fabulous man buns at a concert at the Kex hostel this past weekend, I feel the need to share them.  Note that this is only a tiny sampling of what Reykjavik has to offer.

Also note that these are mostly poor quality, because I didn't want to draw attention to how creepy I was being.

Above is a picture of our downstairs neighbour, who we have actually started referring to simply as 'manbun'.  I don't think privacy is really a thing...he once walked into our kitchen when I was the only one awake at 12:30am to borrow some cooking oil.  It was moderately terrifying.  But man, can he sport a man bun.

This is a tricky one to see, especially since it's in silhouette: It's our guide from the Settlement Museum.  His long-ish red hair was tied into a high Viking-esque topknot with a matching fiery beard.  It was deeply impressive.

Okay, I'm kind of cheating with this one.  Above is a picture of Eli, who is one of the students in our course.  He's got Faroese blood...but he's basically American and so doesn't quite count as an Icelandic man bun.  But when we all go out to the bars, he takes his hair down and everyone calls him 'Rocker Eli' because he looks like a 70s rockstar.  I like to spell it 'Rokkur Ílæ' because we're in Iceland.

This man was such a veteran of the casual man bun that I needed to put him twice.

This is a 2-for-1.  It's what I like to call the 'man bun bookends'.  A family surrounded by man buns.

THIS MAN WINS.  I had to triple check that it was actually a man.  His splendid mane of Carrot-Top-esque hair was tied into a high, blooming, overflowing man bun.

This man, yes, has his hair down.  But you'll just have to believe me that I saw this bartender on the street a day later with a perfect man bun.  I include him because he looks like a Viking who has just crawled out of the primordial ooze.

Okay, enough objectifying half the population of Iceland.  Next, I will talk about Icelandic art!!!