I Always Resisted the Easiest Way to Become a “Hot Guy.” Then I Went for It. What Stopped Me?
In April, the world was treated to a disturbing realization: Mark Zuckerberg was wearing a chain. Not only that, it was making him sort of hot.
The small silver necklace was part of Zuckerberg’s “glow up,” which also included a mop of longer, curlier hair and a tasteful crewneck sweater—a big departure for a guy who used to wear the same T-shirt every day. And though the chain did nothing more than dangle off his neck and occasionally catch the light, it also was evidence of something else: We are in a Chain Guy era, and if Zuckerberg’s on board, none of us are safe.
Chains, if you haven’t noticed, are everywhere you look. Here’s one on Ryan Gosling. Here’s another on Justin Theroux. Look how these chains make Barry Keoghan seem like less of a mannish boy, and more of a boyish man. In fact, chains are so popular that they’ve contributed to a historic bump in the market for men’s jewelry. Sales of women’s jewelry still dominate the industry, but masculine designs have become a bigger growth driver for many brands, which are investing in the area like never before.
Like most fluctuations in fashion, the root of the chain’s renewed popularity is difficult to pin down. Some trace the current craze to actor Paul Mescal and the iconic thin silver chain he wore in the 2020 miniseries Normal People. (The chain was so scintillating that it earned its own stan account.) But in recent decades, chains have been most commonly associated with hip-hop and Black fashion. Jonathan Square, a professor of Black visual culture at Parsons School of Design, told me that this association began in earnest in the 1980s and the advent of Run-D.M.C., the members of which famously sported roped-gold necklaces during the group’s pioneering run on the Billboard charts. He said the full story is more complicated, and it’s hard to point to a single influence for the basic gold and silver chains adorning the necks of today’s men. “They’re worn by those in the Black community, the Latinx community, the Italian community, and Middle Eastern cultures,” Square said.
Derek Guy, editor of the fashion blog Put This On and one of the foremost menswear experts on the internet, believes that beyond the obvious influences from hip-hop and Black and Latino culture, the current jewelry revival is also an appendage of a more general evolution in masculine style. Sleazy 1970s tailoring is in: Think bell-bottoms and cowboy shirts, with one or two buttons teasingly unfastened. “All of those outfits work really well with a chain,” Guy said. “Is there a broad trend? No. My dad is not wearing a chain. But if you’re super into menswear? Then yes, there is. Of all the jewelry pieces a man can wear, aside from a wedding ring and however you classify a watch, a necklace is up there for how easy it is to incorporate into a wardrobe.”
It’s also, as many pointed out, kind of “horny.” Not in a sexual sense, per se, but in the sense that it means a man is simply trying, or is merely aware of his appearance. Whereas men of other generations flourished in their soulless uniform of cargo shorts and polo shirts—insisting they could never, as straight guys, tell when they looked “hot”—today’s fellas are adorning themselves with pride, shamelessly calling attention to themselves with eye-catching chains that just barely graze the curve of their collarbones. It’s a look that suggests a man is secure and self-aware enough to be perceived; some have called it “male thirst.”
I have been falling behind. I am not a trendsetter when it comes to fashion, and I’ve happily—and somewhat blindly—stuck to the styles that passed their way through the culture of my youth. This hesitancy will likely be familiar for all millennial refugees of the skinny-jeans-and-band-shirts era. Like many 33-year-olds, my wardrobe has calcified into a staid rotation of old staples, all bearing the residue of an outmoded circa-’00s hipster playbook. I own three different pairs of Doc Martens, and until the summer of 2021, I never wore shorts. So, calling attention to myself in the aforementioned horny way—through precious metal, designed to accentuate the primacy of the self—is a foreign concept. I have always been somewhat afraid to try to look “hot,” or to step outside of my regularly scheduled outfit programming. Disruption to that natural rhythm would surely unleash the great terror of visibility, and I’d not only have to be perceived, I’d have to answer for my sudden flair.
But alas, Chain Guy culture would inevitably hunt me down. Which is how, after Zuckerberg’s moment and with some prodding from my editor, I found myself staring in the mirror, struggling to clasp a chintzy $30 gold (read: yellow-tinted stainless steel) chain around my neck. Determined to break out of my fashion habits and experience the apparent bliss of slutty dressing, I’d found it on Etsy and made the purchase, primarily because it seemed the most modest and unnoticeable of all the available options. When I looked up and saw it hanging around my collar, the first thing I felt was fear. What would my friends and family think? Was I somehow trying too hard?
Eric Thurm, a writer and an old friend, knows this fear firsthand. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s been draped in heavy gold chains. When he first started wearing jewelry a decade ago, he was fueled by pure id. He always wanted to go bigger, brighter, and more ostentatious—he used to walk into jewelry shops and ask to be outfitted like the gangsters in Miami Vice. Thurm savored his confection of irony and assertive swag for years, but as he delved deeper into adulthood, he began to suffer from the same modesty now poisoning me.
“I really enjoy wielding masculinity as camp. And I think jewelry effectively accomplishes that, in a way that I’ve found to be fun and helpful. But lately, when I look in the mirror, I’ve been thinking about how my jewelry is increasingly hard to justify as a bit,” Thurm said. “I’ve been wearing this chain as a joke for so long that it ceases to be a joke. And I think the only real antidote is to not think about it.”
Thurm’s observation pleated into another anxiety that lingered in the back of my mind: Was I setting myself up to look like the biggest poser in the world? This displacement gripped me right up until the moment that I finally slipped that cheap little 22-inch Etsy chain around my neck. It twinkled in the amber lighting of my fiancée’s bathroom, half-tucked under the splayed collar of a Hawaiian shirt donned on the first warm night of summer. To my absolute horror, it looked great. The chain was the perfect accelerant to the energy of my outfit—a missing link, finally reclaimed—which meant I had nowhere to hide. The red pill had been swallowed. The knowledge could not be purged. I left the apartment a Chain Guy.
Guy, the menswear expert, likes to talk about the “spotlight effect,” a psychological term used to describe how our own individual mental frailties can be artificially projected outward, conjuring the feeling that everyone in the room has put you under a microscope. (If you have ever walked into a meeting late and felt the heavy indentation of leering eyes, then you are aware of this phenomenon.) Guy believes this is where so much of the uneasiness about male jewelry comes from: It’s the idea that a necklace announces itself like an airhorn, pulling everything toward its gravity. Yet for my chain-curious brethren who connect to those apprehensions, let me offer some good news. When I wore my necklace, none of my friends interjected to heap attention on my latest sartorial choice.
The chain survived everything. A happy-hour dinner, an after-work round of drinks with a colleague, and a boozy book-club meeting all passed by without my necklace being nominated for a round of ball-busting. It was only after those hangs, when I asked my friends if they’d noticed what I had added to my repertoire, that we broached the topic. The chain earned a positive response across the board. Most didn’t even notice it in the first place.
“I just thought you were being a little more sleazy than normal. It seemed like a logical addition to what you normally wear,” offered a friend who tends to have a sharp eye for accessories.
“It looked slutty, but in a good way,” added a fellow journalist and friend. “I didn’t think you were going for anything. Like if you showed up with a big gold earring I might have said, ‘Are you OK?’ “
It went on like this, day after day. I’d fuss with the necklace before a night out, examining all of its sartorial permutations—tucked? dangling? somewhere in between?—feeling briefly intimidated by the way the jewelry augmented (and improved) my aura. And then, after being out and about for a few minutes, I’d be reminded that the human race is mostly loving and merciful, and good people do not pass judgment on someone who has made the decision to, in the words of my friends, get a little slutty with it. Was it strange to watch someone’s eyes drift to my neckline in the middle of a conversation? Sure, a little bit, but that too can be overcome with enough reps—to train your brain into understanding that drawing attention to yourself is, in fact, a feature, not a bug.
In fact, the most winning endorsement the chain received came from an old college girlfriend of mine who—by the nature of our friendship—has witnessed the full extent of my fashion progression, warts and all. She didn’t notice that I was wearing a necklace, but she did pick up on what she described as a “subtle vibe shift” as a chain guy, which, she argued, is a common psychic transformation among men who take the dive.
“When a guy has a chain, he’s added a horny accessory,” she said. “It reflects in his disposition.”
Maybe she had identified evidence of a cerebral unlocking that occurs in the brains of men who make a jewelry pivot. Or maybe she’s simply observing a trickle-down effect of the other vestiary enhancements one must make to style a chain—those extra undone buttons subsuming the soul. Whatever the case, it was good to know I was doing my $30 chain justice. The necklace, and the rest of my affectation, were marching in unison.
I often find myself wondering why straight men like myself have such a fear of adding a dash of sexuality to their appearance. There is certainly a lack of sartorial solidarity in male friendships—the boys are not traveling to suit fittings together with a bottle of Champagne—and due to some ancient and inveterate masculine anxiety, we have a much more difficult time assuring our friends that they “look hot” when one of them has made an extremely vulnerable leap of faith with a chain, a signet ring, or a bracelet. All of that leads to the condition I described earlier: a feeling of unworthiness, or even shame, when considering a horny adornment. Guy, for his part, believes that attitude to be patently ridiculous.
“Mark Zuckerberg wearing a chain is one step away from Bill Gates wearing a chain. Like, he’s even less cool than Jeff Bezos,” said Guy. “This is an extremely wearable item.” In other words, anyone can wear a chain. Get over it.
Guy recommends that prospective Chain Guys start off with a cheap fake necklace—perhaps procured from Etsy—so they can find a groove in this new fashion frontier before diving into the realm of real-deal jewelry. Personally, I’m ready for graduation. In the near future, I intend to shop for a slightly more expensive chain, and hopefully, I’ll continue to unlearn some of the retrograde lessons I’ve internalized about manhood. First and foremost, it’s OK to try to look hot.
