Legbeard

About

Legbeard is a pejorative term referring to unattractive, overweight and socially inept women who do not shave their legs. As the female counterpart to the neckbeard stereotype, legbeards are often associated with social justice warriors and misandrists who frequent the website Tumblr.

Origin

The term "legbeard" references the feminist movement urging women to abstain from shaving their legs to protest socially imposed standards of beauty. On October 7th, 2009, the earliest known instance of the term was posted on the /a/ (anime and manga) board on 4chan (shown below).^[7]

Spread

On February 19th, 2010, Urban Dictionary^[3] user Marcel Laverdongle created an entry for "legbeard," defining it as "the female equivalent of neckbeard."

Over the next two years, the term remained relatively dormant until it was used in reference to unattractive women in a post on 4chan's /r9k/ (Robot9001) board on June 10th, 2012.^[8] On April 21st, 2014, the /r/JustLegbeardThings^[11] subreddit was created, for posts mocking examples of the legbeard stereotype found online. Within two years, the subreddit garnered upwards of 8,200 subscribers. On January 16th, 2015, the Social Justice Legbeard Tumblr^[13] blog was created. On February 14th, Redditor SyncNexus posted a "I Wish I Was at Home" comic titled "Legbeard at a Party" to the /r/justlegbeardthings subreddit (shown below).

On May 28th, Redditor N0Treal submitted an "I Made This" comic in which a /r/TrollXChromosomes Redditor reclaims the word "legbeard" (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gathered upwards of 1,800 votes (98% upvoted) and 270 comments.

Search Interest

External References