This is how I felt last Wednesday during a rainstorm in Glasgow. I was bald, suited and booted, a goatee drawn on my chin with eyeliner, wearing aviator sunglasses in weather that positively demanded a hood.
And yet I didn’t stand out at all; I was just another bald bloke in a suit, just one Pitbull in a sea of Pitbulls, dancing in the rain.
Over the past year, it has become customary to attend a Pitbull show dressed as Pitbull himself, decked out in a bald cap, dark sunglasses, a black blazer and drawn-on facial hair.
The movement has skyrocketed on social media platforms like TikTok, and Pitbull himself has joyfully embraced the tradition, calling it the ‘‘ultimate trophy’’ and saying it ‘‘touches his heart’’ to see people feeling good and enjoying his music en masse.
I was part of a 36,000-strong crowd that descended on Bellahouston Park in Glasgow to see Pitbull on Wednesday, July 1. On the bus there, an elderly woman, bewildered by the sudden influx of identical bald men, asked us why everyone was dressed the same.
Before we could answer, a complete stranger, who wasn’t himself part of this Pitbull pilgrimage, produced a photo of the idol on his phone and patiently explained to her the phenomenon.
The concert itself was fantastic. After an energetic opening set from Lil Jon, Pitbull rewarded the shivering, soaked masses by pausing midway through his performance to lead a rousing chorus of ‘‘No Scotland, No Party’’.
Strutting across the stage in a red velvet blazer, he declared us, the audience, ‘‘magical, phenomenal, spectacular, priceless, memorable’’.
On the bus home, as I deconstructed my Pitbull attire — peeling away the sunglasses, the suit, wiping off the questionable facial hair — I got to thinking about the whole silly phenomenon. Why was it so funny, so absurd, so unexpectedly enchanting to surrender my individuality and become merely one of thousands of bald men in suits for an evening?
There is of course genuine joy in dressing up and making an occasion of it, but there’s also a certain pressure in having to look like the best version of yourself. Dressing up as Pitbull on the other hand is a rare type of fancy dress that does not demand that women be sexy, beautiful, or even vaguely appealing.
Usually, I would spend at least an hour before a gig pampering and primping myself, trying to look my prettiest. But this time, I intentionally made myself look ridiculous, and in doing so, I probably had more fun than at any concert where I’d carefully curated my outfit.
My friend Shaakirah and I found that we were anonymous in the best possible way. We weren’t worried about our profile or how we might appear in photos. We danced without worry.
For the price of a bald cap, a pair of aviators and a cheap blazer, we had bought ourselves something far more valuable than a good outfit: anonymity. Nobody cared whose costume was the most flattering; we all looked equally ridiculous.
Of course, the notion of dressing up in a silly costume and anonymising oneself in a crowd is hardly a new phenomenon. For centuries across Europe, Carnival provided a socially sanctioned period of time when the usual rules of behaviour were suspended.
Revellers donned masks, swapped identities, mocked authority, and melted into a collective celebration of foolishness. The anthropologist Victor Turner later described these moments as ‘‘liminal’’, namely temporary spaces where ordinary hierarchies dissolve and people are momentarily released from the roles they typically occupy.
Then we have the 18th-century obsession with masquerade balls, where attendees’ excitement arose not merely from the beautiful costumes they wore, but also from the anonymity of their masks and the possibility of behaving differently under such a guise.
Today there are distinct visual aesthetics associated with certain popstars. Consider, for instance, Beyonce’s Renaissance tour, wherein fans embraced a metallic, futuristic cowboy aesthetic: silver hats, sequins, chrome outfits and glittering accessories.
Then we had ‘‘Brat summer’’ in 2024, when Charlie XCX fans donned lime-green clothing and adopted a messy party aesthetic with deliberately low-effort styling. Harry Styles’ fans are known for their colourful, maximalist outfits: feather boas, glitter, sequins, pearls, brightly coloured suits and vintage-inspired looks.
And of course, there are the Swifties, who like to dress as a particular era of Taylor Swift’s career: cowboy boots and fringe for Fearless, cottagecore dresses for Folklore, black-and-white looks for Reputation, sequins for Midnights.
What all these fan costumes have in common is that they necessitate becoming the best, most glamorous version of oneself, be it in a silver cowboy hat or deliberately smudged eyeliner. But the Pitbull costume asks one to become the least glamorous version of oneself. This is what makes it so funny: it is a fan uniform built around deliberate ridiculousness rather than aspiration.
The shiny bald cap made my forehead sweat, even in the rain. Droplets accumulated in the forehead wrinkles and ran down into my eyes each time I ducked my head.
My moustache and goatee ran down my chin, and I could barely see through my rain-streaked sunglasses. I wouldn’t learn until later that the rain had soaked through my vintage leather jacket and permanently ruined my formerly white linen shirt.
But despite all this, the night was glorious. Everywhere I looked there were bald little Pitbulls. I was but one egg in a sea of eggs. As the man himself would say, Dale!
• Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has started a new life in Edinburgh.
