Haha yeah true enough, at least outside of LA or New York, but still there were a shit ton of smaller copycat bands trying to make it, if you watch the documentary Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years you can see a bunch of them, point being it was a look that was popular with girls at the time since all these dudes wanted to be in bands mostly just to get with a lot of women.

Yeah I'm not sure about him either, kind of a strange meme all around haha.