“The Rise of Barbers on TikTok: Meet NOSMo, the 16-Year-Old Barber in His Bicycle Shed”

The barber goes viral. Millions of times people watch how guys shave others or put a ‘midfade’. While barber training lags behind, young people today teach each other how to cut through videos on TikTok.

For example, using the videos of the wildly popular 19-year-old hairdresser Reboir. Within a year he grew into an example for many young boys: “You see a lot of young people on TikTok who now want to become a barber. That was not the case at first. Before I started I had never seen it in the Netherlands. I watched it myself off to an Englishman barber.”

Reboir’s ‘transformation videos’ are especially popular. Those videos, the most popular of which have been viewed 36 million times, show how someone with an ‘unkempt’ haircut is transformed into a radiant person by the young barber. “Then I make a video before and after, and then I put a nice music under it.” The videos were viewed much more than he had expected.

The fact that barbers are popular online was already noticed four years ago at the hairdressing training of ROC Aventus. They decided to create a new training there, fully focused on barbers. “There were always men who wanted to do hairdressing training, but they ran into the fact that they had to braid, color, blow-dry and put up. And they really didn’t want that,” says teacher Jacqueline van Dijk.

The course is particularly popular among young people with a migration or refugee background, says Van Dijk. According to her, people who have sought asylum in the Netherlands often come from a culture where barbers are very important. Their business is also a place to get together.

The fact that the hairdressing profession is still often associated with women in the Netherlands is probably due to their over-representation in practice. More than 91 percent of hairdressers are women. Hairdressing courses often seem to be adapted to this.

Nevertheless, more ROCs have started barber training in the last two years, according to hairdressing association ANKO. The union recognizes the image that many boys leave classical hairdressing training in their first year, because the image they had beforehand of the training was different. “And that while we see barbershops popping up all over the country.”

The lack of barber training in his area was the reason for Reboir to quit the hairdressing school. “I did hairdressing training for six months, but working with women’s hair turned out not to be for me. So I started working full-time when I was eighteen. And so I continued with those films.”

16-year-old Mo from Lochem in Gelderland is also trying to become a hairdresser with the help of YouTube, TikTok and a little bit of his father, who is also a hairdresser. He gains practical experience by cutting classmates and relatives in the shed.

Mo managed to convince his brother and friends of his cutting skills:

Mo is in the third year of pre-vocational secondary education and recently visited an open day with a teacher to become a hairdresser. He just doesn’t know yet if he wants to finish high school; the only requirement for admission to barber training.

“I prefer to start hairdressing school next year, then just one level lower. Since I started cutting, I only watch those videos. And I learn from that. I have faith in TikTok and my shed.”

Bartender teacher Marc Bout likes to see guys like Mo appear, and is happy that barbers are such a trend on TikTok. But he does have a caveat. “I think you can really learn to shave with online tutorialsbut you can only learn the breadth of the profession and all the techniques here.”