Man, I feel this in my soul. I'm 34 and the only perm I've ever seen up close was on my aunt in a photo from 1987, and even she looks like she regrets it. I asked my own barber about this once and he just laughed and said perms pay for his boat, which tells me exactly zero about who is actually getting them. My best guess is it's a secret society of grandmas and maybe one guy in Ohio who really loves his curls. If perms are a deep state thing, they're doing a terrible job because I have never once walked past a salon and smelled those chemicals in the air. Somebody is out there getting them though, because the kits still sell.