It’s been a rough couple of months for hair. In August, Timothee Chalamet traded his luscious locks for a bowl cut in The King.Lainey liked it. I was pretty lukewarm. Harry styles went through somebang complications, as did Joe Keery. (Joe’s was aneven worse combinationof bad hair and a bad photo.) Just last week, we mourned the loss ofTom Holland’s hair, and now Noah Centineo has joined the club and shaved off his hair too!

This is me to whatever demon seems to be possessing these men to go and screw up their beautiful hair.

There seems to be a desire within people who have Good Hair™ to do something awful to that Good Hair™. Is the pressure of having good hair driving people to have hair breakdowns à laBlack Swan? As far as I can tell, there isn’t a clear reason for why Noah decided to cut his hair. However, I will say that the buzzed look is better on him than it is on Tom Holland. His face shape and features are better suited for the style.

Ever since theBlond Beard tragedy of 2019, I deeply mistrust Noah’s hair decisions. What I’m afraid of is that this is becoming a trend. Buzzed hair is fun to rub your hand over (don’t make this weird; we’ve all done this), but as a consistent look, I am not fan. You can’t style it, and it reveals everybody’s real head shape, a fact which I don’t always want to know. Maybe this train has already left the station though and we need to start getting on board with this look. Who do you think is the next victim? I’m guessing Shawn Mendes.

Like most people, however, Noah’s haircut distracted me from the real news of the day. The hair picture was just one part of Noah’s story on Instagram, and there were some key details in the other pictures. Noah showed off his new haircut, then quickly distracted us with ashirtless picbefore posting a video of himself and rumoured girlfriend Alexis Ren together on a couch.

They’ve been kinda flirty for a while, but they haven’t posted any pictures together on either of their accounts, despite multiple reports of people claiming tosee the two together since September. In the infamous buzzcut photo, Noah is actually responding to Alexis’s post where she says, “where’s maaaahhh baby,” on top of a picture of two cups of coffee. Noah’s photo says, “I’m right here,” as he holds one of the cups.

Does that count as Instagram official? Are we beyond the relationship announcement and into the cryptic messages that require some work to uncover? It’s not an official confirmation of their relationship, but Shawmila is still not “official” despite making out in nearly every city on the planet. So, I guess this is as official as we’re going to get.

Back to the shaved head. It’s been the focus of a lot of people’s attention, and the apparent relationship announcement hasn’t received as much coverage. Maybe this is intentional. Noah Centineo is (was?) the “internet’s boyfriend” and much of his appeal is the imagination that we could all be his significant other. That probability significantly drops if he’s in a relationship with a beautiful Sports Illustrated Model. As we prepare for thebattle of the century on February 12th, Noah needs to start banking points for Peter Kavinsky. However, the shaved head and the blonde beard are two strikes, and soon I might be switching to team John Ambrose.