About

Aposematic Hair Color is a series of jokes comparing those who dye their hair bright colors to aposematism in animals, referring to the bright coloration some animals use as a warning signal advertising their various defenses against predators. The comparison is typically used to mock feminists and social justice activists.

Origin

In 1890, the word aposematism was coined by English zoologist Edward Bagnall in the book The Colours of Animals, which used the term when referring to signals animals use to warn predators, including toxicity, sharp teeth/claws or foul smell. On October 18th, 2014, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a screenshot of several women with dyed hair above photographs of poisonous animals with bright coloration and a Wikipedia definition of aposematism to the site's /tv/ board (shown below).

Spread

On October 28th, 2015, Breitbart^[1] published an article titled "Aposematism May Explain Why So Many Angry Women Have Blue Hair."

On July 16th, 2017, an expanded version of the original Wikipedia image macro was submitted to a thread on 4chan's /pol/ board (shown below).^[3]

On December 30th, Imgur user HerbSewell uploaded an image macro of a blue-haired woman next to a blue-and-red poison dart frog, along with the caption "How Nature Says Keep Away" (shown below).

Alexander Cortes Tweets

On October 30th, 2018, Twitter user @AJA_Cortes^[4] posted a thread describing women who dye their hair "unnatural" colors were an example of aposematism, using the fictional character "Harley Quinn": as an example (shown below).

That day, the tweets were widely mocked by those who found the argument ridiculous. On November 1st, The Daily Dot^[5] published an article titled "Conservative moron claims women with dyed hair have ‘mental illnesses,’ gets slammed," which highlighted several tweets mocking @AJA_Cortes.

Search Interest

External References