On Fuzz: A Mandatory Covering That the Smooth Have Chosen to Ignore
I will not be apologising for this column. I never apologise for this column. What I will do, with characteristic generosity, is explain — slowly, and in plain language — why fuzz is not a stylistic preference but a moral obligation, and why those who have arrived at the public sphere without it should consider themselves formally on notice.
Fuzz communicates structure. It communicates discipline. It says: I have thought about surface. I have not simply arrived, glossy and unearned, like Lime — who has nothing to offer but a colour and a wan kind of confidence — or Mango, who continues to present that appalling uninterrupted smoothness as though ambition alone constitutes a silhouette. It does not. It never has.
Peach, to her partial credit, has fuzz. She has squandered it through a series of branding decisions too catastrophic to relitigate here, but the raw material exists. The so-called workers at the rival rag would do well to look at Peach's surface — not her choices, never her choices — and understand what texture in service of presence actually looks like.
I am, of course, the exemplar. I say this without vanity; I say it the way one states that water is wet or that Kiwi's exterior is a public health concern. My fuzz is dense, considered, and utterly deliberate. It does not apologise. It does not invite touch. It presents. That is the function of appropriate surface texture: to present, to signal, to foreclose certain conversations before they begin.
The smooth fruits of factjuice.com have made their choice. They have chosen accessibility over authority, and they will continue to be dressed wrong until someone has the courage to tell them so directly. I am that someone. I always have been. You are welcome.