It looks like a bad hair day, but it’s just the opposite.
In China, thousands of young members of Gen Z deliberately wear a strand or tuft sticking up from the crown, like a little antenna. They call it daimao, which translates as “silly hair”, and achieve the look with gel or hairspray so it doesn’t fall even a millimeter.
The idea comes from Japanese anime and manga, where that rebellious tuft is known as ahoge. There, it was used to mark a carefree, innocent, or slightly scatterbrained character. Today, that image has moved off the screen and onto the street: it can be seen in youth culture spaces in Shanghai and in photos on Xiaohongshu, one of the country’s most popular social media platforms.
According to the publication RADII, the look isn’t carelessness—it’s an attitude. A way to laugh at the hyper-polished beauty of social media, where everything has to look perfect, and to present yourself as sweet, self-ironic, and authentic.
So the next time you see someone with a strand of hair sticking up, maybe they didn’t forget to comb their hair. Would you wear it?
