Styro Steve is the latest bit going viral on social media after an X user began to collect his girlfriend’s shed hair and tape it to a Styrofoam head. After launching the endeavor on Sunday, Steve’s account already has over 18,000 followers as users watch his head grow hairier and hairier. It is almost undoubtedly related to Styro Mike, a similar account doing a similar bit on TikTok; but why?
Not only have both accounts gained rapid fame, but a Styro Steve meme coin launched just hours after it launched. Those crypto guys are getting fast.
Who or what is Styro Steve?
On Dec. 15, 2024, X account @SteveStyro rolled out to document how they are supposedly collecting and attaching loose hair left behind by their girlfriend to an otherwise unremarkable Styrofoam head named Steve. The account owner purports to take this hair primarily from the bed and shower and claims their girlfriend is so far oblivious.
On Monday, the account owner posted a Day 2 photo of Steve sporting more hair. The styrofoam head is already looking quite a bit fuller. They also created a poll asking other X users how long they think it will take before Steve has a full head of hair. It’s currently a dead heat between six months and a year.
According to one of the account’s tweets, hair collecting is not a new hobby.
“Ever since I was a kid I loved women’s hair,” they write. “I remember carrying around Ziplock bags with names of girls in my high school written on them. When I saw loose strands of their hair I would take them and put them into the baggies. I must have had 12 full bags of different hair.”
Styro Steve goes viral
The saga of Styro Steve blew up overnight. Though the account was created back in March 2024, the owner either deleted all other posts or put up the first one on Sunday, which now has over six million views, 96,000 likes, and thousands of comments.
Many of their other posts have hundreds of thousands or millions of views as eager fans watch Steve’s progress. Part of the viral quality of this account may be because the girlfriend supposedly still doesn’t know, the tension heightened by the owner stating that they are “actually terrified she will find out.”
It seems only a matter of time before Elon Musk responds, especially after the account owner tagged the X owner in a post sporting his unflattering PayPal days coif and asked for some of his hair.
Styro Mike
Styro Steve appears to be a joke bit expounding on Styro Mike, a TikTok and Instagram account that also began posting videos of loose “girlfriend” hair being taped to a styrofoam head.
“Day 1 of collecting hair of my girlfriend so that this guy will no longer be bald” read the text of @thestyrofoamhead‘s first video, posted on Sept. 26, 2024.
@thestyrofoamhead Day 1 of collecting hair of my girlfriend so that this guy will no longer be bald 🧔♀️ #collecting #hair #daily ♬ Shes homeless – ⭐️
Styro Mike is on day 82 of collecting and taping hair as of the time of writing. They added eyelashes at day 32 and a moustache on day 44. “Here since day 1” comments spam the comments section under every post.
Reactions to Styro Steve
Reactions to the styrofoam head range from obsession to repulsion, sparking discourse about historical accounts of women gifting pieces of their hair. The majority of commenters and quote tweeters are either expressing how they’re all in on the story of Styro Steve or that they don’t understand how we got here as a society.
It seems to be quite an obvious gimmick, but to what end? Unclear.
Then there are the inevitable pop culture comparisons. Steve has been likened to Gollum, Ashley from The Boys, comedian Stavros Halkias, and a deeply unsettling costume via a TikTok video.
At least one brand has gotten in on the trend so far. European airline Ryanair says “Styro Steve needs a flight to Turkey.”
The Styro Steve meme coin
A little over four hours after the first Styro Steve post, the account owner announced that someone had made a meme-based crypto coin for him. As usual, an anonymous individual appears to have done this without permission from the meme creator, judging by his surprised and tearful reaction.
At one point, according to Steve’s creator, the meme coin sat with a $1.5 million market cap. Its value is on the decline since earlier today, so it may already be too late to profit off of the latest in a series of weird internet things you can invest in before boredom sets in.
There have been many such meme coins, with at least one popping into existence for every viral meme in recent months. However, according to Nick Saponaro, CEO of blockchain startup The Divi Project, it’s uncommon for these crypto assets to see much success.
“Most meme coins have gone to zero or failed to take off at all,” he told Forbes. “Meme coins should be considered a dice-roll and those putting their money into these speculative assets should do so, with the assumption that they will lose everything they invest.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @SteveStyro for comment via X.
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