Birds Nest Haircut Broccoli Haircut Zoomer Perm

2018hairstyle trenddeclining

The Bird's Nest Haircut, also called the Broccoli Haircut or Zoomer Perm, is a men's hairstyle popular with Zoomers featuring shaved fades on the sides and long, messy, curly or wavy hair on top that flares upward like a nest. Early versions appeared around 2015 on celebrities like Justin Bieber, but the style became strongly tied to TikTok e-boys by 2020 and 2021.

Overview

The Bird's Nest Haircut, also called the Broccoli Haircut or Zoomer Perm, is a men's hairstyle mostly worn by Zoomers with curly or wavy hair. The sides get shaved into a fade while the top is left long and messy, cut shorter in the back and longer in the front so it hangs past the eyebrows, then flared upward with light hair gel to keep the bouncy nest-like shape8.

Online audiences often describe the cut as ugly or as a TikTok e-boy stereotype, mostly reserved for male influencers. Versions of the style circulated within mainstream beauty coverage as early as 2015, but the specific 'bird's nest' name did not stick to it until around 20186. It picked up steady speed on TikTok through 2020 before becoming heavily identified with the platform's e-boy aesthetic in 2021.

How It Spread

TikToker Sebastian Bails helped normalize the cut on the platform, sporting an early version in his fifth TikTok on November 21st, 2015 before posting a July 13th, 2018 TikTok themed around the full bird's nest that pulled around 2.4 million plays7. By 2019, the style was heavily tied to the TikTok e-boy stereotype, showing up in 'before and after installing TikTok' meme formats. In September 2019, a Duet chain broke out after TikToker @saint_savage mocked another user's broom-like bird's nest in a Duet that gathered around 2.2 million plays and 171,100 likes8.

The label had also been floating around rap and politics before it settled on the TikTok cut. An Instagram meme post on November 23rd, 2017 called 6ix9ine's hair a 'bird's nest' even though it did not match the later shape4. A 2017 Meme Generator upload similarly called Donald Trump's hair a 'bird's nest,' showing how loose the term was at the time5.

By 2021 the cut had saturated TikTok enough that creators began using it for comedy. TikToker @_andrecurtiss became known for bobbing his head to make his oversized bird's nest bounce, with a May 25th, 2021 TikTok using the bit picking up around 2.7 million plays and 353,500 likes. Beauty influencer James Charles also adopted the cut in 2021, and an April 2021 tweet joking that Goku could land in his hair pulled around 4,400 likes8.

How to Use This Meme

Barbers typically shave a fade on the sides and back, leave the top long with extra length in the front, and style the front upward with a small amount of gel to keep the natural bouncy volume6. The common convention is minimal product so the hair still looks messy and slightly piled rather than sculpted, and curly or wavy hair tends to hold the shape best8.

Frequently Asked Questions