About

Pharrell Williams' Hat is a photoshop meme featuring the oversized mountie hat worn by American singer and rapper Pharrell Williams during the 56th Grammy Awards in January of 2014. Photos of Williams in the hat are often shown besides photos of cartoon characters known for their distinctive hats.

Origin

On January 26th, 2014, the 56th Grammy Awards was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. During the red carpet ceremony, Williams made an appearance while donning a large brown hat designed by Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons that resembles the brown hats traditionally worn by Canadian Mounties. The similarity was subsequently pointed out by Ed Robertson^[3], a member of the pop-rock group Barenaked Ladies, in an interview with the rapper, who commented:

""I think you styled yourself after Canadian mounties."

Williams continued to wear the hat throughout the ceremony, eventually appearing on-stage with it to accept the Record of the Year along with Daft Punk and Nile Rodgers for their song “Get Lucky.”[^[1][2]

Spread

At 7:12 p.m. (ET) parody Twitter^[6] account @Pharrellhat sent out its first tweet, and in less than 24 hours, the account has accrued over 15,700 followers. Around 7:58 p.m. (ET) viral news website Buzzfeed^[5] posted an article titled “Pharrell’s Hat Is The Most Important Thing At The Grammys,” highlighting a collection of image macros inspired by the hat and the novelty Twitter account @Pharrellhat. Thirty minutes later, fast food chain Arby’s^[4] tweeted:

"Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back? #GRAMMYs"

Many websites covered the hat and sorrounding meme over the course of the evening including E! Online^[7], The Washington Post^[8], and Variety.^[9]

Over the course of the evening, many entertainment news and celebrity gossip sites picked up on the story, including E! Online^[7], The Washington Post^[8] and Variety,^[9] among many others. At 4:31 a.m. (ET) on January 27th, Williams tweeted an image macro of his head, complete with the mountie hat, superimposed on the body of Woody from the animated Pixar movie Toy Story (shown below, left), followed by another tweet highlighting a fan art illustration of Williams wearing the hat (shown below, right) by Twitter user @MINAKWON as “my fave.”^[12]

On the next day, the post-Grammy coverage of Williams' mountie hat continued with BuzzFeed's compilation of “33 Things Pharrell Is Hiding Under His Hat”^[10] and Esquire's identification of the headwear as a park-ranger style "Campaign" hat designed by Vivienne Westwood.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References