Zac Efron Is Getting Dragged For His New Look

Zac Efron has dreads now. Yup, you read that right. Your fave High School Musical star has dreads now. He posted a black and white photo of his "new look" on Instagram, writing he changed up his hairstyle "just for fun." Zac's new look, however fun it might be, is being dragged online for cultural appropriation. 

While trying out dreads might be "just for fun" for Zac, he's ignoring the fact that dreadlocks are most often worn by black people who are regularly criticized for the style. As Cosmopolitan pointed out, Giuliana Rancic once said Zendaya looked like she smelled of "patchouli oil or weed" while rocking dreads on the red carpet. 

Many people have taken to Instagram and Twitter to call Zac out, as well as encourage him to learn about the style he's appropriating. "Zac Efron in dreads. I have really seen it all," one user wrote. "Troy, get your nonsense head in the bloody game." 

Another used a Chrissy Teigen gif perfectly, captioning the viral meme from the Golden Globes a few years ago "when your bae Zac Efron gets dreads 'just for fun'."

Zac isn't the only celebrity to come under fire for cultural appropriation recently. Kim Kardashian has been called out on a number of occasions for wearing a style of braids that originated in West Africa, calling them "Bo Derek braids" after a white actress who wore them in the 1979 movie 10. Allure writer Danielle Gray explained why it's such a big deal when celebs like Kim Kardashian and Zac Efron culturally appropriate black hairstyles. "Styles worn for decades, centuries, even millennia, by black women are not deemed beautiful until someone white or white-passing wears it," Gray wrote. "The biggest thing about this isn't whether or not Kardashian West is 'allowed' to wear cornrows. She's free to style her hair in any way she so pleases. The real issue is the constant erasure of black women when it comes to beauty."

It's important to know the cultural relevance of hairstyles like dreads and why it can be offensive to those who have long been criticized for wearing the hairstyle. It may be "just for fun" for Zac Efron, but for others, his new look represents a long history of double standards for what is deemed acceptable for some and unacceptable for others.