New Reporting: Luigi's Hair IS A Sign Of Inmate Respect

Someone cared enough about him to make him look good

Luigi’s hair has become a thing. Specifically, the meaning of the haircut he had when he arrived in New York City has become a thing. That taper cut fade looked fresh in the hiphop sense of the word and it spawned 1,000 modern think pieces aka Tiktok video essays. His eyebrows were done, too, and he was freshly shaved—he had been groomed! This is a man who the authorities are telling us is human scum but someone in that Altoona, Pennsylvania prison had taken care of him. They took the time to make him look nice. They showed him some love. Did this mean something? Everything means something.

One creator on Tiktok, @kissingwhiskeyvintage, posted an amazing video about how this haircut was a symbol that Luigi was cared for and respected by the inmates. He was someone who would be protected by them. Her video was watched by over 13 million people and it shaped part of the discourse around Luigi online. She described the cut as a message to the guards that this was an inmate who the inmates loved, which meant they would know to leave him alone, which gave people a sense of hope that he would be alright inside. Because in the perverse pecking order of prison, he was a top dog. I watched a video by @marriedtoalunatic who made the same point and I spoke to two people offline about all this. They both confirmed this notion that the time and care that was put into Luigi’s haircut was a message that he was respected within the inmate community. I made a video explaining what I’d learned about all this and the semiotics of Luigi’s cut. 3.8 million people watched. Everything about Luigi goes bonkers right now.

The idea that Luigi’s haircut meant he was protected went supermegaviral and lots of Tiktoks were made expressing that idea. I think it felt good to believe that inmates were sending messages to each other and to COs through this kid’s hair, saying, we care about this one. Hair has often been wrapped up in strength for heroes like Samson or it can be a signal of cool if it’s coiffed right. To see Luigi show up looking ready for the cover Vogue or to audition for the lead in a Hollywood rom com for teens was, to many, a shock to the system. He looked better than we had expected. Some of us wondered, from the looks of the cut, did a Black man do it?

Then the internet began weighing in. Lots of people repeated the idea in their own videos but some doubting comments seeped in. That’s not true. Wasn’t he in segregation? What are you normies talking about? Two creators I’ve followed for a long time, two men who were incarcerated and who talk about incarceration in their content, said this was not true. There was no message implicit in his haircut.

But then someone in my comments wrote, “I did time at sci Huntingdon,” naming the Pennsylvania prison that Luigi was in. “It’s a hard core jail with a lot of lifers. You def need money and clout to get a legit cut.”

I said, what? You were locked up in the exact same prison that Luigi started in? Can you tell me what you mean by ‘he needs clout to get a cut?’ That’s how I met Ryan.

“The barbers at Huntingdon are all lifers,” he wrote, “and you ain’t getting a good cut without commissary and respect. I was broke so I always got baldies.”

Someone else in the comments suggested perhaps Luigi’s haircut was because of his attorney.

“Your lawyer doesn’t do that,” Ryan wrote. “They can only bring you clothes. But you can request a cut.”

I started talking to Ryan in the comments and then in DM, learning all about the inner working of that specific prison. Of course, I checked to be certain that he was who he claimed to be. He asked me to withhold his last name for privacy but he proved his identity to me by sending me a picture of his prison ID, his driver’s license, and an article about the crime that put him in SCI Huntingdon for 10 years.

Different prisons operate differently which is part of why there’s been confusion and conflicting takes about this. It’s very hard to report on the reality of prison but when you’re talking to someone who spent a decade in that exact prison in question, you’re in a good place.

In the comments I asked Ryan, So you think Luigi’s nice cut suggests that some inmate had respect for him?

“100%. At least in this prison. They are required to cut your hair but you only get a cut like that when you are a friend or highly respected. If you’re a nobody they rush and butcher you.”

He said, “They respect him for the crime he did.”

We carried over on DM.

“I 100 percent agree it was respect. I didn’t get a decent cut for 10 years because I was broke and a nobody. Like I said, the lifers cut hair and they do everyone in the jail so they rush you through. They cut all day. So nice cuts that take time are reserved for important people. Also they are timed so when they do a cut like this the guard has to be on board for it so the barber innate had to leverage his weight to do it.” So it wasn’t just about inmate respect, it was also about a little guard respect, too.

How much does it cost for a haircut in Huntingdon? How do you pay?

He said, “Depends on the barber but at huntingdon the currency is ice cream tickets… Ice cream tickets you use to buy soda and ice cream at yard but you can buy anything with them, drugs, phone or whatever but it’s what you would also pay a barber. Like the barber can’t deny to do your head but they will just do a shit job without money or respect.”

But, Ryan explained, that Luigi surely didn’t have ice cream tickets because he was new at the prison and in temporary holding and in segregation. He may have been able to pay the barber by putting money on his book, but then again, Luigi may have been without money.

Ryan said barbers can’t refuse to cut your hair (it’s a health regulation) but you can’t get a good hair cut if you don’t have either money or respect. But Luigi had no money and he still got a good hair cut. Because they respect him.

I’m picturing the barber as a Black man and Ryan says that’s most likely.

“99 percent of barbers in prison are Black and this heritage [the history of Black barbers] means a lot to them. So the fact they gave this cut to what they would consider is a white dude speaks volumes.”

I asked, But wouldn’t Luigi have been in segregation and away from everyone?

He said, “Huntingdon doesn’t have doors, it has bars so even in solitary you can see and talk to other inmates… Huntingdon is a very old prison so its kind of stuck in the past. A lot of stuff that goes on there doesn’t happen in the newer prisons. That and the large amount of lifers there kind of make it a time capsule. Looks like the Shawshank Redemption prison on the inside.”

He said things in Huntingdon were a little slower than in other places.

“People from places like California don’t realize pa is a hick state and that prison is in a hick town. Things are different there.”

This is a prison where inmates have cable TV. Ashleigh Banfield from News Nation did an interview where she asked questions on TV and the Huntingdon inmates responded by yelling or by flicking their lights on and off. So she was reporting on them while they were in their cells, watching her on basic cable. He said, “A normal inmate there can have a tv in their cell with cable.”

During the Banfield interview an inmate yelled out “Luigi’s conditions suck!” I asked Ryan what he thought that meant. He said, “Well I highly doubt the guards were hassling him. He was temp holding and lockdown so he was being denied yard, commissary and all the illicit stuff (drugs, gambling, tv, and phones) that all the other inmates are entitled to. So compared to them his conditions were shit. Plus its cold as hell in there and its possible they were denying him a blanket if he was deemed a suicide risk.”

How do you get cable TV in prison?

“You have to buy it off commissary… Almost everyone has one in normal population. Can get one with the almighty ice cream tickets.”

He really said, “Best jail I ever did time at.” He also said it’s very violent, but the amenities—TV, cell phone, drugs—made it livable.

So now that I have first person testimony about life at that particular prison, I feel like we’re getting closer to the truth. This is an old facility that isn’t as modern or as wild as many places. Guys are in there with cable TV and cellphones. But the core of the conversation is that a crime like Luigi’s wins him respect in prison. It looks like the inmates in that prison, especially the barbers, said, We like this guy. Some older Black man, a lifer, said, Gotta make sure he looks good for the judge. That inmate showed him some respect. He took good care of Luigi in the moments he had him in his chair. I could tell that a Black barber did that cut because it had a little Black flair to it. It had some flavor. For him to put a little cool factor on his head and make him look good for his big ridiculous perp walk was powerful. The world could see that someone still cared enough about him enough to make sure he looked his best.

This is a man from a large family and so far not one of them have shown up for him. Even his mother hasn’t come to the hearings so far. I’m not judging, I can’t imagine how she must feel. I say that to say Luigi seems to have been abandoned by anyone who was on his side before all of this. He’s traded them for a massive fanbase of people who are in love with him even though they only know him parasocially. He has fans but no family. He’s an abandoned person whose life is in freefall but he found at least one person who wanted him to look good. Some old Black man stood there and carefully shaped this kid’s eyebrows.

Was it meant to send a message? I think that wording may be too hyperbolic. Are the officers going to respond to this haircut in some way? I don’t think so—one of the former inmates on TikTok said everyone knows who has status. You don’t need a specific thing to signal it.

But Luigi’s cut does mean something. It’s evidence that at least one important inmate in Pennsylvania said, I fuck with you L, so I’m gonna take a little extra time and make you look cool. And at least one guard said, go ahead but make it quick. Or something like that. But some inmate gave him the special and some guard allowed it to go down. Perhaps it’s too much to say this is a message but the cut is symbolic of how things will go for Luigi: inmates will have tremendous respect for him and some of the guards will respect him, too.