It's a phenomenon that's had social media bristling ... ABC News 24 presenter (and dedicated pogonotomist) Nick Grimm reflects on the rapid growth of facial hair around the world.

We can thank the ancient Greeks for giving it a name, and I'm not referring to democracy. Pogonotrophy, derived from the Greek word for beard, pogon, is the art/craft/habit of beard-cultivation.

The related term pogonotomy refers to those of us who are in the routine of dragging razor-sharp blades across our cheeks, chins and throats, with sometimes bloody results.

The bearded newsreader

When my ABC News 24 colleague Joe O'Brien recently returned from holiday leave, he reappeared on Australia's television screens sporting a splendidly-trimmed beard.

As one viewer tweeted:

Joe O'Brien's beard is terrible. Scruffy with grey bits. And I'm not against beards. My OH has one.

(The OH was presumably her "Other Half", though "Old Hairball" might also fit.) Other commentators have been far more generous about Joe's new hirsute look, with the ABC's @triplejmornings tweeting:

"Loving the beard Joe O'Brien is rockin' on @ABCNews24."

"A few people said 'get a razor'," Joe O'Brien says himself, "but there's been no full-on sledging. It's all been in good humour. A lot of people love it too."

In recent years, facial hair has been enjoying something of a renaissance (if not exactly a "rebirth", then certainly a "regrowth") among the young, the hip and the groovy.

Movie stars and recording artists flaunt the stuff accumulated on their chops in a dazzling variety of styles. An Australian beer company appears to be betting on the trend continuing on its present trajectory, with an advertising campaign featuring brooding male models gazing sullenly at the camera, sporting beards that would do Ned Kelly proud.

Of course Movember has done much to help popularise facial hair, with legions of males sprouting springtime whiskers in the cause of charity each year.

In 2012, though, facial hair remains difficult territory for television news presenters. Over the years, few have ventured to push back that frontier, with Derryn Hinch one of the only - and lonely - pioneers.

The bearded economist

Perhaps, though, things are starting to change.

The world of financial analysis and commentary is usually the domain of button-downed types with well-scraped jawlines. Commsec economist Tom Piotrowski has lately become the exception, peeking out of our TV screens from behind an impressively bushy beard. Some of his viewers have had difficulty making the adjustment. One tweeted:

wow just saw tom petrovski from comm sec on tv and he looks like he's just crawled out from under the west gate (bridge)

Another chimed in:

why do they have a hobo doing the commsec report on channel 9 now??

"I've been taken a bit aback by the response," Tom Piotrowski says when asked about his decision to beard-up.

"There's been nothing conscious about this effort. I never take a razor when I go on holiday. I just didn't shave it off when I came back to work a month or so ago.

"But it's not uncontroversial, let's put it that way. I suppose when you're on TV, lots of people see you. I think it's because your visage changes so markedly all of a sudden that it inspires the commentary. Then people get used to it and they forget about it."

Beard hate crimes

Globally, beard-growers are still living in a world often hostile to their cause. Consider the case of Samuel Mullet Sr, who is facing so-called beard-cutting hate crime charges in the United States. The Amish Mr Mullet's white beard flows over his chest towards his belly. Federal prosecutors accuse him of orchestrating attacks on his religious enemies and estranged family members, which resulted in their own beards being hacked off by Mr Mullet's followers as a form of punishment for their perceived misdeeds.

Christian extremists like Mr Mullet aren't alone in bringing the vexed issue of beard-growing before the courts. A military judge in the United States has ordered the forcible-shaving of the army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shooting rampage in 2009 in which 13 people were killed.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, grew his beard after his arrest, asserting he was doing so out of devotion to his faith, an act of religious liberty protected under US law. Prosecutors however argued the beard would prevent witnesses from identifying Major Hasan at his upcoming trial, which has had to be delayed while the beard issue gets untangled.

Beard freedom

The Arab Spring has also thrust beards into the limelight. In post-Mubarak Egypt, they have become not just an expression of religious identity and freedom, but also of gathering political power.

Under Egypt's old regime, facial hair was actively discouraged by the secular state. Now, democratic elections have strengthened the hands of Islamist Egyptians, and those hands are no longer willing to pick up razors as they've done in the past.

The nation now has both a bearded president and prime minister. As one of president Mohammed Mursi's political opponents tweeted: "Lesson learned: just grow a beard!"

Many Egyptian police want to do just that, and have a court challenge underway to rules banning them from growing beards.

"The beard does not break the law," another senior officer, Captain Yasser Ashour, says. "On the contrary, the constitution gives me the right to let my beard grow."

Egyptian flight attendants are also campaigning for the same freedoms, but many secular and Coptic Christians see the growth of facial hair in Egyptian society as unsettling reminders of the growing influence of Islamic hardliners in the nation's affairs.

The bearded politician

In the past, beard-growing here in Australia hasn't been for the thin-skinned, the faint-hearted, or it seemed, the ambitious. New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell famously declared back in 1999, "When I lose weight and shave off the beard, then you'll know I'm after the Liberal leadership."

Sure enough, the beard was jettisoned (along with 40 kilograms of Mr O'Farrell's body mass) in his quest to achieve his goal.

Yet would Mr O'Farrell need to take the same drastic action today? Is the time at hand when a bearded politician will emerge to seize power in this country?

We'll know the wheel has well and truly turned if one day Kevin Rudd appears sporting bristles and vowing to be a happy, and hairy, little vegemite. If a Speedo-clad Tony Abbott bursts from the surf sporting facial hair to match the thatch on his chest, then we'll know it's really time to get worried.

Meanwhile, Joe O'Brien is well aware that TV presenters can't afford to be thin-skinned when it comes to comments about their appearance. He's worn the beard with pride this week.

It's just something different. It's good to mix things up every now and then, but I don't really care about it that much.

Nick Grimm is a journalist for ABC News 24. View his full profile here.