About Hairy Folk
Hairy Folk is a nonprofit research and public-education project. We study how the beauty and lifestyle industries have manufactured insecurity — and the gender roles that insecurity was sold through — from the 1880s to today, and we teach the pattern to the people most exposed to it: students and marketers.
Hairy Folk is named after something true about me, not a pun. I'm hairy. I grew up watching an industry decide that was a problem to be fixed rather than a body to be lived in because you're a hobo, a tramp, unkempt, and judges in courtrooms, groomed elegantly, coiffured, look at you askew, and askance. And industries are built around those feelings. So this nonprofit has two names. Weaponizd and hairyfolk. Because both land us here. Folklore shamed us, not just hairy Folk, but weaklings, nerds, fat girls, thin girls, you name it, BO, short, dark, whatever it was we could wash off as the ads went or feel bad about it or attack one another about. Bully. Humiliate. Gaslight. And they did it all for profit. The sole determinant and motive. 8 year old girls who now use retinol. Broken old heels and knees and ankles from high heels and running shoes.
This site is the expose. It is a paper trail on how that decision got made -- and who profited and profits from and repeats odious ads like you can wash black skin off so it's crystal white like the Pears ad. That's the history of or at least the tradition of indoctrination and propaganda. That's the history of anti Black discrimination and racism built into industry, into soap, that won't be washed off now by glitzy advertisements. It is indelible. Because of the awakening of human consciousness. Because of this site and others like it. Because of you.
The name hairy Folk isn't a metaphor. I'm hairy folk. This is what that industry looks like from the inside of it when shame is built around you. And I'm an extremely minor example of it compared to what it's done to women, girls, persons of colour, and targetting the masses, customers who will spend money on the eternal promise of anti-aging creams, perfect skin as if, and smelling like roses. In short, anything but being ourselves, your already perfect self.
Method
Every exhibit starts from primary or well-documented secondary sources — surviving ad copy, company and agency archives, academic history, and museum collections — before it becomes a public-facing page. Claims are marked for ongoing verification, and we publish corrections when we get something wrong. We do not accept funding from the beauty, tobacco, diamond, or advertising industries we study.
Where we are right now
Hairy Folk is in its founding research phase: building out the exhibit archive, the campus curriculum, and the formal nonprofit and board structure required for grant eligibility and tax-deductible giving. If you work in nonprofit governance, media-literacy funding, or advertising history and want to help shape that structure, we want to hear from you.
Reach the research team
For speaker bookings, grant inquiries, corrections, or press: use the contact channel your organization prefers to have listed here once the site is deployed — email, a booking form, or a scheduling link all work well in this slot.