Teenagers are fighting the “recession.”
The battle against baldness is sprouting to new heights as boys as young as 16 flock to surgeons for hair transplants, doctors and patients told The Post.
“I’ve been the butt of too many jokes,” one follicularly deficient Manhattan teen who’s about to get a transplant — and who wished to remain anonymous — confessed to The Post.
“I don’t put pictures on Facebook anymore — there were jokes about the way my head looks,” he said. “I just want to look hot.”
The procedure — which transplants hairs one by one from the back of the neck to the top of the head, a process that can take up to six hours to complete — has spiked in popularity in the past year, according to Dr. Keith Durante, a West Islip-based hair-transplant surgeon.
“It’s growing rapidly among teens,” said Durante, who explained wealthy parents generally foot the bill. “My patients are getting younger and younger.”
The number of boys who have rushed to his office seeking help with cranium conundrums — problems that range from total baldness to slight recession — has swelled by 50 percent in the past year, he said.
Selfie culture could be the root of the growing trend — because seeing yourself at all angles exposes problematic areas, according to Durante.
“Sometimes teens don’t recognize their hair is thinning until they see themselves in photos on Instagram or Facebook at a party,” he said. “They go, ‘Holy mackerel, that’s me and I have a bald spot — I look horrible!’ ”
The hair-loss revelation can send a young man’s mojo right down the drain.
“A lot of these young gentlemen have lost self-esteem,” the doctor noted. “They’re not comfortable in their own skin.”
Ken, of Garden City, had the procedure done at 19 after realizing he was looking more like George Costanza than George Clooney.
“I used to have a big brown ’fro but I started losing hair,” he said, noting he was forced to wear a hat to hide the fallout. “I didn’t want people to see it.”
Now he’s hat-free and expects to be more confident once his new hair grows in, he said hopefully.