‘My sister-in-law actually showed the page to me at a wedding recently, asking me if I’d seen it online. My wife just started laughing hysterically.’
In Philadelphia, the land of die-hard sports fans and cheesesteaks, lives a 40-year-old man who holds the keys to one of the most wholesome corners of the internet – and almost no-one knows his real identity.
A Reddit page with over 1.2 million weekly visitors, r/bald is a space for like-minded individuals to take the leap into hairlessness together.
It operates on a strictly no bald-bashing policy and was created 15 years ago by a figure shrouded in mystery, known only as geekbro27.
The ultimate hype crew, r/bald’s community does a really magnificent job at spotlighting humanity in its element. Just one quick scroll and you’ll come across thousands of stories from people across the globe, both men and women, who’ve taken their fate into their own hands, and in doing so have been welcomed heartily into the bald-headed family.
Metro spoke with geekbro27 about the impact the page has had on both its members, but on him as well.
I wasn’t interested in being the butt of the joke
At 9am his time, 2pm in London, I log onto my zoom call with geekbro27. His connection is a bit shaky so we opt to keeping our cameras off. I can’t decide if it’s a ploy from him to keep his identity concealed or if the Wifi in Philly is just objectively crappy.
We start off by talking about how the page came to be in the first place.
‘I created it as a therapeutic way for me to accept that I was losing my hair. I’ve always had short hair, so it took me a little while to realise that with the little hair that I had, maybe I should take ownership and just decided to shave it – and I loved it.’
‘I remember the date I did it really well because it was one of my best friend’s 21st birthday, and we’d all gone out to the casino and had a big celebration.’
‘And that was the day that I thought ‘What am I doing’ and I just finally accepted it’
‘I was in my early twenties at this time and instead of being the butt of the joke with friends, I decided to make it a more meaningful thing.’
In 2011, r/bald was born, and the love started pouring in: ‘I initially started with posts like ‘bald guy of the week’, sharing pictures of celebrities and spreading this message of ‘don’t let this get in the way of you being successful’,’ and then it kind of took off from there.’
The page’s description reads: ‘Our philosophy is simple: embrace bald and strive to make the world a more bald-friendly place. We’re often sold the idea that bald is bad. That’s bullshit. As we grow and mature everyone experiences the aging process a little differently, for most of us here, that includes varying degrees of hair-loss. It is natural. And it is nothing to be ashamed of – here we’ll support each other and learn to take pride in our baldness.’
Each post from a new hairless homie receives a heavy dose of support, so much so that you’d genuinely think these members all personally knew each other. Take member, @Accomplished-Brief76, who shared his pictures, alongside the caption ‘Finally joined the bald squad. Got told I looked like I had a comb over and knew it was time.’
‘Welcome!’ one commenter exclaimed. While another added ‘This sub is just making me want to shave my head and my hair isn’t thinning yet.’
And these aren’t isolated kind exchanges. Across all of the posts you’ll see comments like ‘The hair was doing you a disservice!’ or ‘You look so much happier!’
There’s something about a shiny head that truly brings out the best in us.
Over the course of the next decade or so the moderator shares that the page grew substantially.
‘In November 2024 we had 147,000 users. And then, after CNN wrote an article about the subreddit, it started to get more into the public view,’ he explains, stating that as of January 2026 a further 200,000 bald-loving friends have joined the sub.
‘Our biggest day was on December 12 2025, when we had 2.5 million visitors on the page.’
There are a lot of rules on the page
Unlike so many places on the internet, geekbro27 runs an extremely strict house when it comes to respect and online decency – one of the reasons why people have become so fond of his page.
According to the moderator’s guidelines, the following are forbidden:
- Abusive behaviour will not be tolerated
- No bald-bashing
- Zero advocating of hair-restoration methods
- No trash talking or negativity about baldness
- Treat the hair-headed ones with kindness too
‘There’s going to be some bad apples in the bunch, but I haven’t had to ban anyone in a long time,’ geekbro27 shares.
Interestingly, one of the obstacles he was first faced was when women who had undergone chemotherapy started sharing their own bald pics.
Swearing is prohibited on the page, but with so many people commenting things like ‘fuck cancer,’ underneath these posts geekbro27 felt contextually it was important the comments stay up.
‘It is automatically removed, so I will go through each post myself and try to catch those comments. It’s troublesome because it can be a bit of an annoyance on my end, but it’s necessary. If I’m the only one being burdened by it, I’ll happily take on that burden.’
Geekbro27 is the definition of a moderator who cares.
lthough he keeps his identity separate from the group, he shares that he tends to be involved in upwards of 50 conversations with different members each day.
He’s even previously gone out of his way to direct female visitors searching for hair loss guidance to more useful reddit pages.
But for him, the positivity that the community brings makes it all worth it: ‘It’s been really humbling to see people’s social media reactions to the page – in a reel or YouTube video. If they’re filming it live and you’re able to see their initial reaction that’s definitely been one of the most inspiring parts of all this.’
‘It makes me feel proud that so many people get enjoyment out of this, and that there’s so much support there. It’s been great to see people take something I made and make it their own.’
The bald batman none of us knew we needed…
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