From Texas Standard:
Big beards, sleeves of tattoos and dark sunglasses; those are bold fashion statements, to say the least.
You might see a person that fits that description and think their appearance screams "I'm tough, I'm bad, I'm not to be messed with and I don't care what you think."
Maybe that's not a fair assessment. Some of the them do care what you think of them, and they know what you're thinking about them, too.
This common perception is why a group of men from Corpus Christi have launched a campaign to try to change the negative notions you might have of them. They call themselves the "Hairy Hooligans."
Johnny Rodriguez founded the group and he says it all started on a conversational whim.
"One day I was contacted – I had just started growing my beard out – I was contacted by a local beard oil company," he says. "Dirty Dog Beard Oil was having a photo shoot. We all went out over there. I never met any of the guys before, and it was just random people in the city showing up for this photo shoot."
Rodriguez says after a few minutes of standing around, the bearded brothers all started talking. "Just off the top of my head, I mentioned, 'Hey, what if we had a group, man,'" he says.
The beard culture is it's own world, Rodriguez says.
"There's competitions and everything. But you see a family, you see a group of people, you see friends," he says.
A few months later he posted on Facebook asking about interest in a facial hair club.
"Man, I got response right away," he says.
One thing he wants people who stereotype bros with beards to know? Not all people are bad.
"Especially people riding motorcycles, [with] tattoos, beards, gauges," Rodriguez says. "A lot of us you'd see us, be scared and probably go the other way. In reality, the guys in my group, man we're some of the most down-to-earth, family guys."
