But in the current state of the atheist movement, it unfortunately is right now.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
But in the current state of the atheist movement, it unfortunately is right now.
Ah… shit. I better find out what this ‘fedora’ meme is. Because I actually wear one sometimes.
*Chuckle* :D
@davidnagle
Apparently MRAs like to wear them a lot. I’m not sure why, but I assume because of some association to old-school masculinity. *shrug*
FAKE! That’s not a fedora, it’s a trilby. The differences are detailed here, along with the very same trilby image.
I am tired of hearing trilbys whine about how they “don’t have enough faith to fedora.”
Is that actually a fedora or a trilby? Or did fedoras’ brim shrink in recent years? Wear a hat with an actual brim, for crying out loud. Not those hipster hats.
Ah, it seems I’m not the only one with this complaint. Humphrey Bogart’s trademark hats are fedoras, right? And those have way wider brims than those things the stereotypical “fedora-wearing” atheists tend to use. Unless, again, fedoras changed in recent years?
I’m not giving up my trilby! I’m just feminist-trilbying rights at these PUA/MRA assholes!
/right
A lot of my fellow aging rock n rollers in this neck of the woods are wearing trilbies on stage (often with the front brim turned up, ecch). Why? To cover up their BALD SPOTS. Ai-yi-yi.
@ saganite #5
No, what’s pictured is actually a trilby, and what the MRAs normally wear is also a trilby. A fedora is what Indiana Jones wears. But everyone seems to be calling the trilby a fedora, so I just rolled with it. Perhaps I should be making a stand.
It makes me sad, because I like a trilby :( god damn MRAs have gone and ruined that too.
@ skmarshall #8
A trilby with the front turned up is a pork-pie hat.
does this imply Fedora –> Atheist, and therefore Atheists all wear Fedoras??
Around me, I’m pretty much the ONLY person who wears a Fedora (is it still fedora when leather and not felt?), does that mean I am the ONLY atheist?
oh no… me so lonely…
Let me see if I have this straight:
Indiana Jones wore a fedora.
Frank Sinatra wore a trilby.
Walter White wore a porkpie hat.
Does that work?
I love a good broad brimmed fedora. It helps keep the sun out of my eyes and rain, sleet, and snow off of my face. A stingy brim is fashion; a broad brim is utility and function.
Atheist movement?
@9 Thumper
Hm. I have to say I wouldn’t like that type of hat, even if that association didn’t exist. But tastes differ, I guess. I’d agree with taking a stand, though. Hey, maybe there’s Pharyngula, feminism or perhaps Atheism+ merchandise you could put on it, that’d really mess with some heads. Like a feminist pin or something.
@11 Scr… Archivist
According to Star Hats (yes, this exists: http://www.fedoras.com/blog/hat-resources/celebrity-hat-index/ ), Sinatra also wore a fedora, as did Indy (as Thumper said) or Humphrey Bogart.
Okay, another comment, though: http://www.fedoras.com/blog/hat-resources/celebrity-hat-index/
Compare the Michael Jackson hat to the Indy hat. Both are classed as fedoras, and yet the Michael Jackson hat has a significantly smaller brim. Fedora =/= fedora, it seems.
@ Rosa Rubicondior
Full sentence? Question Mark?
Keep going you’ve already missed it.
I guess I have seen fedoras being sported at atheist/skeptic/humanist conventions, but as I recall women wore them as often as men and they mostly indicated youth. It meant there were attendees under 40. I had no idea they were a stereotype for atheists in general.
The implication seems to be that atheism is a style. Be hip. Be cool. Reject God. I suppose next it will be wearing ascots, monocles, and rippling through paperbacks of Nietzsche with bored expression.
I also come down on the “No True Fedora!” side.
I used to wear Indiana Jones-style fedoras. Then I discovered cowboy hats and have never gone back.
Unfortunately, in the US, cowboy hats have a lot of political baggage attached.
(and I am reminded of a quote from Pratchett:
(and I (most likely) mangled the quote (cannot find it on line (I think it is from Hogfather)). I wonder if there is an apropos xkcd?)
@15 saganite. Oddly enough, last Saturday, me and a few friends along with two strangers had a discussion about hats. Our consensus was that a fedora was defined by the shape of the crown. Our decision was that a tear drop shaped crown with pinched sides equaled a fedora. So a trilby, outback and a Panama hat are all subspecies of the fedora. So seven people have now defined the fedora. The conversation was sparked by a bunch of young dude-bros having a bachelor party invading our local bar.
If you go back to 30s/40s fedoras, there were wide-brimmed models like my vintage Stetson Sovereign or a Borsalino. They were associated with gangsters in the 30s and zoot suiters in the 40s. Gangsters and zoot suiters liked extremely wide brims; the 50s look was a narrower brim. It’s all basically the same hat the only change is the brim-width, which has as much meaning as the various necktie-width changes I’ve seen since the 70s(big and thick) to the 80s(narrow and thin, or knit) to the 90s(mid-width)
The idea that someone can associate their hat or necktie or shoes with their politics is old as the hills. In Rome, the ‘populares’ toga edging was particularly scandalous(wide) I guess it’s a signalling mechanism. As such, anyone who falls for it is probably setting themselves up to be manipulated.
OT – reminds me of discussions in the brewing world. Is a Stout or a Porter? At one point there was a distinction between the two,maybe, Stout Porters are supposed to be slightly darker in color, have a more pronounced roasted barley flavor and use less water. But in practice, it’s whatever the brewer chooses to call the thing. Same here – it seem the distinction is almost gone, as it looks like retailers sell Trilbys as Fedoras (and even Fedoras as Trilbys)
If a fedora implies MRA tendencies, then what does my bowler hat imply about me besides dashing good looks?
Well shit. I wear both a trilby and a fedora (not at the same time, thank you.) Now those looks have been poisoned. Cowboy hats are out since they imply hyper-masculine bluster and Lee Greenwood. A bowler? Upper-class twit of the year. Baseball cap? NASCAR. Baseball cap backwards? Universal sign of assholishness. A knit cap? Hipster (yukk.)
@Thumper #9: As a fan of the fedora (I’m sure thanks to Indiana Jones and other romanticized depictions of the 30s and 40s, like the Fleischer Superman cartoons, that fostered a love of early 20th century design, particularly in clothing, personal accessories, and architecture), this has bothered me ever since it became a feminist meme. But fighting for the proper terminology is a losing battle, as it so often is. Still, I imagine having something you like adopted as a trend by MRAs is even worse. :-/
Well…
More importantly, because other people are intellectually lazy and/or still petty middle schoolers at heart, they find it easier to throw an entire, broad category of sartorial choices under the bus than to make non-oblique references to the traits that are actually objectionable.
Sastra:
I think this nails it. To some people, atheism is just a fashion statement. Or, as I thought of it years ago, some atheists are just atheists because they are contrarians and want to be seen as different. Rebellious. Or alternatively, they just want to be seen as intellectuals, get a sense of superior over religious Sheeple.
Azkyroth:
Hats are serious business.
Also, unfortunately, the state of the fedora movement…
Folks are actually doing “it’s a trilby!” This is a serious conversation being had here. Good Christ.
borax @19:
(20-mul team borax? (sorry))
And all hail Borkquotia, child of Tpyos!
My favorite one:
https://i.warosu.org/data/vr/img/0015/16/1396533810593.jpg
The last line really cracks me up for some reason.
re @21:
reminds me of the distinction between Whiskey and Bourbon. Bourbon is Kentucky ONLY. full stop. Anything identically distilled, from another state is, de jure, Whiskey.
Odd thing is; a friend of mine insists on Bourbon, ONLY. We had to drive through Kentucky, specifically, to acquire some fresh, local, Bourbon.
re hats in general:
to bring historicity into it. remember how JFK made hats obsolete? By having a good head of hair that he flagrantly displayed for all the world to see, hats suddenly became unfashionable. We gots to thank Indiana Jones for bringing hat back into the limelight, to make hats popular again. The pop just focused on Indiana Jones’ fedora as the “hat-of-style”. Hipsters just trying to make fedoras “cool” by turning to those Trilby quasi-Fedoras.
Vaping is starting to become associated with these assholes too.
I found that out when I was quitting smoking.
If there is a fad, these douches jump on it and quickly make it suck.
It’s an outgroup insult, at this point. There was a huge comic detailing all the ways it’s used as an insult, but it isn’t limited to to MRAs or atheists (e.g. antifeminists sometime use it in a similar way to “white knight”).
@ scr… Archivist #11
Sinatra wore a fedora; the back of the brim wasn’t turned up. The difference isn’t so much the width of the brim, it’s how it’s folded. A fedora’s band is level all the way round and, yes, normally broader. A triby’s brim is turned up at the back, but not the front. A pork-pie hat is turned up all the way round.
Thinking about it, the stetson is related, too. It’s just a wide-brimmed fedora with the brim turned up at the sides.
@ saganite #14
Genius idea. I don’t wear them so much any more, and I’m not sure the meme is so strong here in the UK, but I may very well do this just to see if I get a reaction :)
@John Horstman #24
I can sympathise; I used to wear a trilby a lot, even if I don’t now, and being lumped in with MRAs isn’t pleasant, even if it is unintentional. And it is ludicrous to assume that anyone wearing a hat in the fedora family must be an MRA; but I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I think that feminists have picked up on the fact that a high proportion of internet MRAs wear fedoras (and have neckbeards, apparently) and have jumped on an opportunity to take the piss. Sure there’s a bit of splashback, but I don’t think the fedora-wearing public can be counted as a vulnerable minority group in desperate need of sheltering from said splashback.
Now those looks have been poisoned.
You could probably rock a tweed cap; it’s a “working class” identity look from the 1900-1930s; either the pinch-front type or the balloon type. A tall shako is probably out and those damn rebels ruined the short shako look. Although you might be able to find a zouave-style one. Straw boaters are indelibly ruined by 1940s hipsters, sadly. A nice straw panama hat would probably work; even a fedora-style one would be different enough that the hipsters won’t mistake you for one of their own. Of course that doesn’t address your winter needs.
I recommend: the fez ( http://fez-o-rama.com/ )
I recently obtained a very fine black wool laripipe. Thanks, hipsters!
That you secretly wish you were an English butler?
@Jacob Schmidt #35
What, “fedora-wearing”? MRAs accuse people of “fedora-ing” instead of “white-knighting”?
At least white knighting made some vague form of sense, even if it was ludicrously hyperbolic.
Right Ho, Larry!
the stetson is related, too
Stetson != “cowboy hat”
They made some very very fine fedoras back in the day; I have at least one. They even made top hats.
You are correct; the “cowboy hat” is a wide-brimmed fedora that’s pinched on the sides not the front, and the brim is variously rolled.
American Hat Company does great work and if you want something unique you can get a basic felt hat with whatever brim width and shape you want. ( http://www.americanhat.net/hats.html )
Personally, I like a nice hat. I don’t care about trilby vs. fedora.
I’m actually a bit peeved that a good looking hat has come to be associated with assholes.
Marcus @41:
Only a cattleman’s-crease cowboy hat has the pinch front. There is also a rancher’s crease, a gamblers crease, a cavalry crease, uncreased, and a few others that I do not remember.
I have both cattleman’s-crease and rancher’s crease cowboy hats. By both Stetson and Durango. Comfortable. But, as has already been said and just like a all hats, lots of baggage.
@ Marcus Ranum
Apologies; I do mean “cowboy hat”. I reflexively refer to them as “Stetsons”, and forget that they are merely a brand famous for that design. The power of marketing, eh?
PZed @43:
I feel the same way ’bout me cowboy hats.
I’m waiting for the next hipster-doofus trend of wearing hats like fedoras at an angle, much like baseball caps. I’m pretty sure that is the signal for the apocalypse.
Yah — please tell me I can continue to wear my plaid walking hat. It keeps rain and sun off, keeps my head warm and my hair out of my eyes.
But I’ve been noticing sidelong looks lately, and I’m pretty sure I don’t go around with salad stuck in my teeth.
I haven’t yet had an atheist movement today, but I’m working on it. I’ll be needing two hats, “One to ‘move’ into and One to cover it up.”
This is why I only wear Boss of the Plains hats.
If I may say, I went to fez-o-rama when I posted that link, and discovered that their current design is a cthulhu fez. (whines) (scratches at floor) want! want!
@ Larry
I often wore my trilby at an angle, often with a black bandana tied underneath. I thought it made me look like Synyster Gates.
Pretty soon they’ll be going ‘off the hook’ and wearing bowler hats backwards.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the Urban Sombrero as the headware of choice. It was on the cover of the J. Peterman catalog, as you know.
I wear fezzes now. Fezzes are cool.
Marcus Ranum:
Yes! Fezzes are cool! Provided it doesn’t make you look like Peter Lorre.
@toiger #22:
I would assume that you enjoy drinking tea, watching and/or playing cricket, and listening to “chap hop”.
I don’t care what the fuck you call it, just take the damned thing off when you’re sitting in a restaurant.
(that goes for ANY hat.)
Ugh, I hate the MRAs/PUAs (well, okay, I already did because of the misogyny and toxic masculinity, but in addition to that) for ruining a perfectly good hat. I have a trilby that I’ve worn a few times, but have been reluctant to do so since learning of this association a while back. Maybe we could reclaim it? I kind of like the idea of putting a “SJW” or feminist pin on it or something.
I also have a flat cap (or ivy, or tweed, or any of another dozen synonyms for it), which I like and wear more than the trilby anyway. I just hope no one comes around and informs me that it’s stereotypically associated with racists or something :-P
If I could find a newsy cap in local retailers, I’d have one of them, too.
I used to occasionally wear a bucket hat (or, as my friend and I liked to call it “The Reni Hat”*). I should dig that out again.
*After Stone Roses drummer Reni, who wore one nearly all the time.
Huh. I’ve just discovered that my Akubra Casual is really a fedora. MRAs can pry it from my cold dead tentacles.
If they avoid getting their pinbrains sucked out, that is.
@Marcus Ranum
I haven’t found a fez that wasn’t cheap and stiff and therefore didn’t fit on my dolichocephalic head.
@Ogvorbis
“Also?” Hyper-masculine bluster and Lee Greenwood are the definition of the US right wing.
But do continue to wear your cowboy hat. I think we need a movement here “Take Back the Hat!”
As far as I can tell 90% of the association comes from people mocking MRA-types using “fedora” as a lazy shorthand, so “we” wouldn’t have to reclaim it; “we” could just stop.
A beret, or rather more specifically a tarte alpin, is where it’s at. Keeps the weather off your head and rolls up neatly when you don’t need to wear it or need to thwap someone. A 16″ txapeldun is even better. (Talk to Daan at South Pacific Berets.)
Respect.
Hmmm…I’m going to be briefly visiting Basque country in a few weeks, and maybe now I know what to pick up as a souvenir.
Will no one think of the beanies?
I have a couple of cowboy hat blanks, or whatever they should be called, unformed and unlined felt, that were rejects. I put a fedora crease in them because that is the natural crease for grabbing them right there.
I understand that the original Fedora was a princess in a play, and the style was actually a woman’s hat originally.
My straw hat is from Ghana, and is knobbly enough that I wear a bandana under it.
I have taken to carrying plain baseball-style caps, just to have a bill over my glasses in the rain, and shade in the sun. Soft cloth ones fold over themselves and store flat. (L L Bean hats, not trucker hats.)
As an ausie feminist athheist I wear Akubras.
I have a very nice black leather hat with a wide brim to keep rain and snow out of my eyes.
I want to send everybody commenting in this thread to Lidsville.
From my limited perspective out here in the backwoods, I got the impression that the current fedora fad started off with Matt Drudge doing his half-assed impersonation of a ’40s-movie reporter, and grew from there.
Which makes the fashion-statement leap to cultural-assholishness no leap at all, but only overlap.
I think the fedora (wide-brimmed or no) and duster jacket has been the outfit of the manly nerd since the late ’90s at earliest. At least when they’re worn over a Linux penguin t-shirt.
Nes — we totally need that as a cloisonné pin, worn on hat or not. Social Justice Warrior…plus of course Rogue and Bard and whatnot. Red Social Justice Warrior Elf needs food badly!
Dictionary Fedoras vs Fedora+ ??
There was a sexist book out on the noughties in the UK, aimed squarely at the xmas stocking filler market (ok ok I binned it as soon as politely possible) on how to be gent , or some such shite. It recommended Fedoras (I vaguely recall) as the best hats for doffing…at the ladies.
John Small Berries, you have brought happiness.
Peak caps. They are the one true way.
Whilst absentmindedly reading a list of Mens Fashion No-Nos for the summer of 2015, I came across this quote:
Which I found unreasonably funny.
*Bolding mine
My favorite hypothesis is that fedoras are how these MRA guys set themselves apart from Tess Munster-style “fat acceptance” pseudo-feminists. They’re both out-of-shape and proud of it, sexually frustrated, and chronically blaming the opposite sex for not drooling after them, so only fashion articles remain to visually distinguish them. /neckbeard-shaming
Brandon Pilcher @80,
Speaking as an old fat feminist, awww, bless your heart. [checks off “both sides do it” box on bingo card]
I need to clarify that I wasn’t poking fun at overweight people, male or female, as a whole. Obesity may be unhealthy and therefore sexually unattractive to most humans, but it’s a very easy trap to fall into these days (I’m still climbing out it myself), and you certainly can’t assume every fat person you pass by doesn’t recognize they have a problem. The first step to solving any problem is recognizing you have it after all. So no, I can’t endorse bullying or harassing fat people unprovoked, and provoking people for how they look has always been bad form anyway. People like Tess Munster who gloat about being obese and whinge about how “conventional beauty standards” keep them sexually frustrated are obnoxious as hell, and could fairly be interpreted as sweeping a serious pandemic under the rug, but they’re only a vocal and insecure subset of overweight people.
What I meant to speak out against was this double standard with regards to obesity that I see on both sides of the Internet gender wars. For all intents and purposes, the stereotype of the neck-bearded fat MRA with a fedora is functionally identical to the stereotype of the fat hairy-legged feminist that Roosh V and MRAs like him peddle. As much as I despise MRAs, I’m appalled to see self-proclaimed feminists embrace the very body-shaming they claim to oppose, as long as the targets are men. I don’t care whether men as a group are still the more privileged sex on a socioeconomic level (as if privilege theory could be appropriated to cover one’s hypocrisy); you cannot consistently claim to anti-sexist and body-positive if you think body-shaming one sex is more acceptable than the other.
Brandon, I am against body-shaming. I think anyone who tries that sort of thing at Pharyngula will be asked not to, no matter who the target might be.
Brandon Pilcher
Just stop digging.
please
pretty please
stop
Brandon Pilcher
“prokoving people is bad form”? That’s what you fucking call it? Really?
It’s just bad form to “provoke” people about not fitting body standards. Yeah, and it’s totally always been bad form.
Fuck you.
Fuck you. She’s a goddamn model who loves her body and is happy. Shove your “insecure, whining” projection to your fucking self. And fuck your whole comment #80. “pseudo-feminist”? Fuck you.
Also, dumbass at least know what the fuck you’re talking about. Oh wait, if you did you wouldn’t say such stupid shit because 1) she’s fucking married! She’s not complaining about not getting laid, asswipe and 2) well, fucking read it for yourself:
And coventional beauty standards are a fucking problem, you asshole.
1.) Body shaming is not accepted. Where are all these feminist shaming fat men? Fucking prove it.
2.) Pointing out the fuckers who hate, bully, and shame women for being “overweight” are also fat is not body shaming. They’re being sexist hypocrites and feminists are right to point it out.
3.) Fuck you.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/01/31/planet-of-the-hats/
Yup. what hat you wear totally matters.
Wow, I can’t say I’m surprised to have received these reactions once I pointed out your double standard. You can claim to be satirizing “neckbeard hypocrisy” all you want, much as certain redditors have taken up calling your team “legbeards” to show you their gratitude, but frankly I don’t fucking care whether the chicken or egg came first here. In the end, I can barely tell either of you shit-flinging savages apart. I’ll even go so far as to say the Pharyngula community’s devolution mirrors that of Thunderf00t and his fans over on Youtube. You both started out champions of reason and science, only to gradually degenerate into rival troops of baboons shrieking bloodlust at each other.
No, I take that back. I apologize to any cercopithecine monkeys of the genus Papio browsing out there.
Brandon Pilcher #87
OK.
Good-bye, then.
Bless your heart.
JAL and chigau, thank you. I couldn’t have said it better.
Brandon, yes, that’s what I thought. “Both sides do it”, but without any evidence of same. Bye bye.
by the way
Brandon Pilcher
is a marvel of stupidity per word.
Well ™® done.
Anne #89
You honour me by placing me with JAL.
thank you
Brandon Pilcher
1. You’re the only one who’s used neckbeards in a derogatory way on this thread. (There’s one other mention that it’s an insult but not used as one.)
2. If you can’t tell MRA’s from Feminists, you have a fucking problem.
3. OoooOoooooh “both sides are shit-flinging monkeys”, I’m so convinced and insulted, I’ll go put out for a PUA right now. *eye roll*
Liar. You deliberately baited the horde, then was a hypocrite when you pointed out the reaction you knew you would get for your stupidity. Don’t worry, nothing you say is taken as anything other than bullshit, since real evidence is not your friend, but your enemy….
Wow, missed Brandon Pilcher coming here to take a shit. We alternately joke about fedoras and handwring about jokes about people based on their hats. Then he barges in to whine about us insulting MRAS for allegedly being fat and having neckbeards, mocking the idea of fat acceptance and associating that with feminism, and incoherently shrieking about BOTH SIDES and talking about how Pharyngula used to be Cool.
Okay then. I swear, we couldn’t make this shit up if we wanted to.
anteprepro #94:
Brandon reminds me of Ron Lindsay’s “welcome” speech to WiS2. Nobody would claim that there wasn’t some type of feminist somewhere who wanted to silence men, but I think Lindsay was so eager to say it that he ignored the speakers and attendees who essentially responded with “Why are you saying this to us? Where’s your evidence that we’re doing that?”