From our other sites
The story
A poster who started wearing a wig after a job transfer got a reaction from 5ch’s realtime-thread crowd. Their report that “seriously, nobody’s noticed” drew a string of insights only fellow wig-wearers would know, like “the people you see every day have noticed — they call you ‘Toupee’ behind your back” and “the trick is not making the hair volume look unnaturally thick.” The conversation broadened into hair loss in general, touching on finasteride’s side effects and the rise of thinning hair among young women.
What people said
No, seriously, nobody's noticed
People who see you every day have noticed. They're treating you like a bomb that might go off. Behind your back your nickname is "Toupee"
Why would just wearing a wig get you treated like a bomb that might go off?
Probably because the list of banned words around that person keeps growing — things like "slip," "fall out," that kind of thing
It's the delicate nature of wearing a wig in the first place. People start thinking "this guy must be sensitive about it," so even when joking around they have to watch their word choice
No, I debuted the wig right when I transferred to a new workplace, so seriously, nobody's noticed
The reason wigs get spotted is that the hair volume looks unnaturally thick for your age.
It's important to buy the wig and then get it cut to look like natural thinning hair
If you're going to bother making it look like thinning hair anyway, just go bald for real
Take off the "thinning hair" wig and actual baldness pops out underneath — it's like a matryoshka doll
Well, it'd look weird if a bald guy's hair volume suddenly shot up, so it can't be helped
Okay, now I'm completely lost
You can tell right away from the feel of the hair, the volume, the unnatural hairline, and the part
Nobody stares that intently at someone else's hair though
That's a real hair transplant he got done in Russia
Once you go skin-bald, there's no going back
I've been thinking about doing that myself for ages.
I want to be upfront that I'm bald underneath and just enjoy wearing wigs for fun.
Styling my actual hair every day is such a hassle
Sorry, I just can't look away
That's because you're bald yourself lol.
Normally people don't pay that much attention to other people's hair
There are a ton of women out there with thinning hair wearing wigs
Same. You end up feeling like you have to make extra sure you don't let on that you noticed
Though apparently finasteride causes impotence, and minoxidil apparently causes heart problems
Honestly I don't worry about words like that at all lol
Foreman: "Let's have another safe, upbeat day today!"
OP: "That's harassment!!!"
The person wearing it might not even care, but the people around them get nervous wondering if it'll come across as harassment
Just a heads-up for you guys on that one — though it might vary by person
You're gonna end up with a nervous breakdown at this rate
Why not just take it off and go skinhead?
Is there some reason that's inconvenient for you?
Barring illness, you can generally tell whether you're headed for baldness
I have my wife check my scalp for me.
Even if my crown turns out to be thinning, that's just proof of her love
Compared to the past, thinning at the crown is way more noticeable on young women now.
I seriously think that every time I'm on the train
Yeah, I think that too.
Maybe it's some kind of nutritional deficiency
Apparently it just came out that Mounjaro (the weight-loss drug) makes thinning hair more likely
Ah, yeah, Gen Z does seem to have thinner hair somehow.
Also feels like a lot of women these days have greasy-looking hair
Background and Key Points
Wig-wearing in Japan sits inside a large, semi-institutionalized industry rather than a fringe practice — companies like Aderans and Svenson have sold custom hairpieces and “increased-hair” services for decades, and androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is estimated to affect roughly a third of adult Japanese men at some point. That scale is why the thread’s tactical talk (thinning out a wig’s density at the barber so it doesn’t look “too full for your age”) reads as common knowledge rather than eccentricity, and why workplace etiquette around it is so codified — Japan’s 2020 anti-harassment law (パワハラ防止法) put employers on notice for appearance-related remarks, which is the real backdrop to commenters describing a growing list of “banned words” around a wig-wearing coworker.
The thread’s actual fault line isn’t wigs versus baldness, it’s a disagreement about detectability: OP insists the switch went completely unnoticed after a job transfer, while replies argue coworkers absolutely clock it but say nothing, treating the wearer as fragile rather than actually fooled — a gap between self-perception and how tactfully silent Japanese office culture can be.
What the thread never grounds is the medical detail behind its asides. Finasteride’s sexual side effects and reports of persistent symptoms after stopping it are a recognized, still-debated clinical issue, not a throwaway meme; minoxidil’s cardiac risk is a real but dose-dependent concern mostly tied to oral, off-label use rather than the topical product most users apply. And the closing speculation about young women’s thinning hair — pinned vaguely on “nutrition” — never mentions Japan’s well-documented extreme-dieting culture among younger women, a far more plausible driver than anything posted.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Good News] The Results of My Wig Debut WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.”
Leave a Reply