New Year, New Me

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One of the big changes I made at the end of 2025 was shaving off my moustache. I’ve had a moustache since mid-2020; I talked about my reasons for growing one in my post called My Moustache. I think it looked really good, and it made me feel connected to my Middle Eastern heritage — both Greek and Arab. It was a pretty prominent feature and people would compliment me on the street for it.

But after 5 years, I was starting to feel overshadowed by the moustache. I think I was leaning too hard on it as part of my personality. When I talked about changing it up, my wife and kids would get upset — like I wouldn’t be the same person without it. It felt a little uncomfortable.

So, I decided to take the opportunity of the New Year to learn who I am without a handlebar moustache. I’m going to try living without a moustache for the whole of 2026; we’ll see how far I get. I am enjoying the freedom of being able to eat and drink much more neatly, and my bare lip does not require the same amount of care and grooming as it used to.

Before, with a moustache
After, clean-shaven!

Thanks to all the nice people who have complimented my new look. To those who regret the loss of my distinguishing characteristic: I get it! It’s a little jarring to see this bare face without its central feature. I feel a little like a Mr. Potatohead with a missing accessory.

Mr. Potatohead, no moustache

Anyway, that’s where it went, and why.

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Published by Evan Prodromou

Research Director at Social Web Foundation. Past founder of Wikitravel, StatusNet, identi.ca, Fuzzy.ai. CTO of Breather, TRU LUV and MTTR. Co-creator of GNU Social, creator of pump.io. Co-chair of the Social Web Working Group at W3C. Co-author of ActivityStreams 2.0. Co-author of ActivityPub. Co-author of OStatus. In Montreal, from San Francisco. Greek, Arab, Palestinian, American, Canadian. Husband, father, cook, gardener.

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7 thoughts on “New Year, New Me”

  1. @evanprodromou looking good either way! Enjoy the new you! šŸ‘

  2. @evanprodromou Congrats on the decision! My partner (who has a full beard) has shaved it off in its entirety twice. Once earlyish in our relationship and once more recently at which point we both noticed how much his face had changed!

    It's funny, I always felt that the moustache made you look French but maybe that's because I knew you lived in MontrƩal and I made assumptions.

  3. Lookin’ good! That’s definitely a huge change.

    Your beanie got shaved off too!

  4. @evanprodromou @evan I usually have a pretty full/long goatee (current avatar pic is old but pretty representative), and occasionally cutting it all off is fun. I despise shaving though, so it never ends up lasting long.

  6. @evanprodromou As a person with a mustache, I don't feel that a mustache defines you, but is more about how you present yourself. I'm sticking with mine. Looking forward to how shaving yours works out for you. Happy New Year!

  7. @evanprodromou I haven't seen you face to face since before the mustache, so as far as I'm concerned, all the photos I've seen in the meantime were photoshopped.

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