Quarantine haircuts — a harbinger for the broader economy

After a month and a half of sheltering in place and two months since my last haircut, I knew today was the day for a chop. So this afternoon, I selected a whimsical playlist and sat (mostly still) in a bathtub for an hour while my girlfriend channeled her inner Jonathan Van Ness with a pair of kitchen scissors.

To say I was skeptical going into this exercise would be an understatement. While I hated the amount of hair gel I needed for each Zoom call during the week, the thought of a homemade hatchet job was even more stressful.

But my girlfriend crushed the haircut. In her words, it was a “Supercuts job.” Though, I think that comment is too harsh both on Supercuts and her ability to cut hair. And it got me thinking, why couldn’t she cut my hair when we go back to “normal” times?

While she insists that under no circumstances would the kitchen scissor salon treatment remain post quarantine, for my haircutting purposes, it very well could. And while I spring for a $30 haircut in “normal” times, it does make you wonder about what I (we/society/etc.) will and will not spend more or less money on after a time of quarantine?

For example, I notice more posts on Twitter of people lamenting the “loss” of frequenting their favorite restaurants and tweeting lists that start with, “My top ten post-quarantine restaurants are…”

First, I am impressed that people can name ten restaurants that they dine at semi-regularly to crave them in quarantine. But, I guess quarantine does leave people with a lot of time on their hands to conjure up lists. Also, It probably helps that I am just a simpleton with my staples of middling sushi and tacos (and even that reveals that I am also a stuck up prick).

But, it does make me wonder, with all the talk about “if only we can get the economy going,” and “businesses will be good once things are back to normal,” what if normal does not exist anymore?

What if we realize that we can cut our own hair, cook our own food, and iron our own shirts (pants no longer needed, it’s a Zoom world now, baby!)? Will we still seek out the services and establishments that we frequented prior to quarantine? Maybe not.

And if we do, does the ambiance of the corner bistro suffer if we need to distance ourselves appropriately from other guests (not to mention can the joint stay open if they only make a third of the revenue each night)?

It seems obvious that movie theaters face tough headwinds. Netflix is now America’s pastime. But the question remains will self-sufficiency and isolation replace a lot more of America’s favorite expenditures in the coming months? If so, the V-shaped recovery for consumer spending and the hope for the tens of millions of unemployed, many of them service workers, could fail to materialize.

And while it might be nice to know that we can all make our own Supercuts when needed, this shift in consumption would also require a supercut to future economic forecasts. Exactly the type of quarantine haircut that no one wants to see.