In Defense Of The Broccoli Heads

I’ve been reading a lot of history about the American Revolution, and one consistent feature in all the high-minded declarations is a reverence for earlier generations and a strong hope for future ones. Most of the discontent was reserved for the present leaders, which is to say that they were mostly mad at themselves and their peers.

It’s an unfortunate byproduct of our postmodernism that we now seem to view our preceding generation as to blame for all of societies ills and look to succeeding generations with, if not contempt, at least pity. The Gen-Xers I know have taken square aim at the Boomers, and Millennials like myself can’t seem to stop ourselves from pointing out that Gen X kids all had their brains rocked by lead from antiquated gasoline.

At the same time, I have more than once mumbled that “Gen Z is soft” to another Millennial, and wondered aloud if the Pandemic had forever broken their collective will to contribute to society. It’s all nonsense, of course. My cerebellum is probably full of microplastics and my organs have been poisoned by the artificial ingredients put in my cereal during the peak of food science.

Monterey Car Week has become a weird cauldron of all generations, as enthusiasts of every age crowd into the same small peninsula to gawk at cars. After last year’s brief mayhem, there was a growing sense that this was going to be the year Car Week exploded, and everyone already decided who’d they’d blame: the Broccoli Heads.

What Is A Broccoli Head?

I barely use TikTok and am generally unaware of what is fashionable for younger people. I’m generally unaware of what’s fashionable for people my age, if I’m being totally honest. This is not a bad thing. I shouldn’t know why so many young men have the same haircut. It’s none of my business.

You can see it in the photo above, and there’s a good description from a salon here:

The broccoli head haircut, also known as the “bird’s nest” or simply “the perm,” is characterized by voluminous, tightly curled hair on top of the head, often with shorter sides. The name comes from its resemblance to the top of a broccoli floret. This style has gained immense popularity among young men and boys, particularly through social media platforms like TikTok.

As far as looks go, this seems fine. My generation’s equivalent was either frosted tips or a sort of ramen noodle pompadour so who am I to judge, really?

The broccoli head haircut may not be the preference of every young man, but it’s seemingly the choice of any kid with a camera within 200 miles of Car Week. They were everywhere last year and they’ve only multiplied in the last 12 months. If your business involves making the machines that give people perms, I’m assuming you’re a trillionaire by now.

Also, I asked around, and calling someone a Broccoli Head doesn’t seem offensive or pejorative, though if you say it with a sort of Robert Pattinson-in-The-Odyssey hard b then it maybe could be. Just assume I’m saying it with a soft b.

Fear Of A Permed Planet

This is the year it was all going to explode. Those were the rumors. That was the vibe. An old man in a Packard was going to crash into a kid with a Sony A6400 trying to grab a photo of a Koenigsegg and someone was going to beat someone else to a pulp.

I think the sense of what was about to happen is best captured by Instagram commenter Angeles Death Highway:

 

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There was a decent amount of intergenerational drama on display in this very fake AI video, which was then followed by this video about influencers. Resident Kate Novoa, who runs the blog Big Sur Kate, shared this post on Facebook, which was widely shared:

I think going into the week there was also a general fatigue on the part of locals that was entirely reasonable given there was a large wildfire in the days leading up to the event. The popularity of Car Week seems to have brought about as many people as the area supports, and it can be a strain on resources, even if it brings in money to the local economy, so I’m sympathetic to the residents.

The singling out of the kids taking photos of hypercars and supercars, though, does feel a little ageist. On A blog post from Big Sur Kate about the week, there was this predictable reaction:

I’m a boomer for sure. One of my first jobs was in a machine job rebuilding the heads and seating valves on small block Chevy engines. I can recite the cc’s, bore and stroke on just about every engine that came out of Detroit from 1958-1970. I love – LOVE – muscle cars. But I deeply despise what this event draws to our communities. These are not car buffs. Most are charlatans with ego’s attached to a $40,000 paint job.

90% of the car owners I spoke with wouldn’t know a carburetor from an incubator.

There is no one right way to enjoy cars, and if kids with cameras want to take photos of cars I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I met a bunch of these kids and they seemed enthusiastic about cars in a way that’s absolutely necessary if car culture is going to exist.

Leave The Broccoli Heads Alone

I am old enough to remember the wave of panic (or glee) attached to Millennials and our supposed lack of appreciation of cars. Here’s a typical column from USA Today in 2013 about how “Millennials reject car culture” that included this gem:

With online shopping, they have less need for cars to take them to malls. Smartphones take them to virtual hangouts with friends. Driving to the movies? Not in the age of Netflix. And when they’ve got to get somewhere, they avoid the hassle, cost — and pollution — of owning cars by relying increasingly on bicycles, public transportation and such hourly car rental services as Zipcar. Or they walk.

Maybe the worst was Elizabeth Rosenthal’s essay in the New York Times Sunday Review that implied it was the end of car culture (three years before America bought a record number of cars, btw):

The United States, with its broad expanses and suburban ideals, had long been one of the world’s prime car cultures. It is the birthplace of the Model T; the home of Detroit; the place where Wilson Pickett immortalized “Mustang Sally” and the Beach Boys, “Little Deuce Coupe.”

But America’s love affair with its vehicles seems to be cooling.

Guess what? We all got older, had kids, and bought cars. It was fine. We maybe bought more efficient cars than our parents, we may drive less because we can work online, but that’s a net good for society. What all these articles got wrong was that commuting does not equal enthusiasm. More people living in cities and not being forced to drive doesn’t mean they like cars less. If anything, not having to drive makes you like cars more as they seem like less of a burden.

I remember thinking my car culture looked too weird for older people to understand. It was blogs not magazines, Gran Turismo not Knight Rider, and R32 Nissan GT-Rs not Tri-5 Chevys.

Gen Z car culture does feel a little different for me, too. I’m a little less interested in hypercars. I use Instagram, though I think my Instagram algo probably delivers a different result (I’m guessing they get fewer Widow’s Bay memes and old Volvos).

You know what we do have in common, other than a predilection for older BMWs? We love gawking at cars. The least jaded people at Car Week were the BHP (Broccoli Head Patrol) and, also, maybe the least problematic. A common complaint is that everything has gotten too expensive and, while there are definitely kids there who have money, most of the young people I spoke with were staying an hour or more away. It was my generation, and older generations, buying all the expensive hotel rooms and driving the prices up for everyone.

By virtue of being in media, I also had passes to almost every event, which means I was constantly driving from Laguna Seca to The Lodge to downtown Carmel and back to Monterey. Most of the kids I saw found a corner to sit on and stayed there, which means if anyone was clogging up roads it was me.

 

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My biggest sense that the kids are all right came early in the trip. A big goal of mine was to grab footage of kids staring at our cars and, also, of driving by real, actual supercars. We connected with Gabby Downing who, despite not having a curly perm, is young and qualifies as an influencer. She wanted to film on 17-Mile Drive and I had a sense of exactly where I wanted to take her to film that would accomplish both our goals.

There’s a little outcropping just north of the golf course and it’s usually crowded with DSLR-toting young people as well as expensive exotics. Pulling in with our Autozam we passed an admittedly stunning yellow Pagani Huayra.

The kids, much to my delight, were excited to see the Autozam and, while not all of them knew exactly what it was, many of them did. Even those who didn’t grasp the joke-inside-a-joke of the car immediately appreciated it. Everyone there was respectful, calm, and willing to share space with our car. When we needed to film they gladly moved, which is not something I can say of everyone at Car Week.

Our friends at XPEL did a great job capturing the spirit in this reel:

 

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From the start of the week to the finish, nearly every encounter I had with a Gen Z/broccoli head/whatever was pleasant, whereas I saw more people closer to my age drive or act foolishly. I certainly saw way more older people act indifferent to the amazing cars on hand. Other than a little bit of jaywalking to catch a car, the average person under 25 seemed no more disrespectful of the rules than anyone else.

What the kids had, more than anyone, was enthusiasm. If you care about car culture, if you want there to be a future for car culture, then you have to accept that enthusiasm for cars is going to look a little different. The people are going to look a little different. They certainly look different from me.

I probably lack enough hair to be a broccoli head, though maybe I could pull off being a Broccolini Head.

Top photo: Griffin Riley