About

Neckbeard Nero refers to sculptures of Roman Emperor Nero who reigned from 37-68 AD.^[2] The sculptures' neckbeards became notable subjects of online commentary.

Origin

Neckbeard is a pejorative term referring to unattractive, overweight and misogynistic Internet users who wear a style of facial hair in which a majority of the growth is present on the chin and neck. Neckbeards are commonly associated with hipster stereotypes and Internet addicts who frequent websites like 4chan and Reddit. On January 18th, 2015, Redditor the_rabbit_of_power posted a photo of a bust of Nero to /r/justneckbeardthings^[5] with the caption "I present Emperor Nero, rocking a neckbeard, ahead of his time" (shown below). The post gained 102 points (88% upvoted) in four years.

Spread

On May 26th, 2015, Facebook group Optimi Roman Memes^[8] posted a photoshopped image of the bust with added fedora, junk food and vape (shown below). The image received 46 likes in four years.

On February 24th, 2019, Salva Ruano uploaded a video of the hyper-realistic Cesares de Roma^[1] sculpture (shown below). The video has accumulated 31,900 views in five days.

On February 25th, the Facebook account History Leak^[3] shared photos of the sculpture (shown below, left). The post gained 1,400 likes, 1,000 comments and 7,899 shares in four days. That same day, Newspaper comic critic Josh Fruhlinger^[4] noticed the facebook post and tweeted "someone made some a super lifelike nero head based on one of the most famous portrait busts of him and folks ……… i am horrified" (shown below, right). The tweet garnered 3,300 retweets and 13,000 likes in four days.

Nero is known as an evil emperor as head had killed his first wife, his mother and countless Christians and Jews in horrifying ways.^[2] He has been dubbed the original neckbeard by countless Twitter users. On February 26th, Twitter user Rick Wilson^[6] compared the sculpture to Chuck Johnson in a tweet that garnered 40 retweets and 318 likes in three days (shown below, left). Twitter user Rob Rousseau^[7] also responded to Fruhlinger's Twitter post by tweeting "when SJWs are ruining video games by reducing the breast sizes of female characters" (shown below, right). The tweet gained 30 retweets and 588 likes in three days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References