Liz Watson’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
There is no article of male clothing more maligned in contemporary online culture than the fedora. Once the favored hat of gangsters and sexy archaeologists, around 2011 the fedora came to be internet shorthand for a Certain Kind of Dude: a basement-dwelling, Cheeto-eater who loathes his contemporaries and seeks refuge in TV and video games. A guy who believes in the friend-zone, Richard Dawkins, and sexualizing young cartoon characters. A jerk, but a specific kind of jerk.
However, I’ve noticed that recently the fedora has been used as a net term for all kinds of creeps. This is unfair to the fedora, which isn’t THAT bad a hat objectively and shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden. For the sake of the fedora’s reputation and expanding our own misandrist vocabulary, I present to you the Leather Golf Hat.
The equally-loathsome ENFP to the Fedora’s INTJ.
(A caveat: there is one man who looks fantastic in a leather golf hat. That man is Samuel L. Jackson. Thinking you look like Samuel L. Jackson in a leather golf hat is as foolish as thinking you look like Humphrey Bogart in a fedora. If you wear a leather golf hat, the odds are you look like a child’s thumb with an acorn top stuck on it.)
Fedoras shy away from social interaction. Leather Golf Hats love social interactions, especially ones where they can try to start a drum circle or show off their juggling skills.
Fedoras quietly sweat at girls they like. Leather Golf Hats will aggressively quote Terry Pratchett at you and ask if they can french braid your hair. They’re great at french braiding hair.
Fedoras like anime and My Little Pony. Leather Golf Hats don’t watch TV. Except Firefly.
Fedoras live on the internet. The Leather Golf Hat is way more interested in living life.
Leather Golf Hats love talking about how poor they are, because they convinced themselves a long time ago that a lack of financial wherewithal was a sign of a vital interior life. (Leather Golf Hats always have enough money for Burning Man tickets.)
If a Leather Golf Hat does not own a ukulele, he will own a unicycle.
The Leather Golf Hat took two months of swing dancing lessons and has been milking it for eight years.
Leather Golf Hats have big plans for NaNoWriMo, which fall apart when they buy a pair of stilts instead. The stilts are soon as neglected as the novel.
Leather Golf Hats love organizing “booze and boardgame” nights, which inevitably turn into spittle-soaked screaming matches over that year’s $50 Spiel des Jahres .
The Fedora’s personality comes from the media he consumes. The Leather Golf Hat’s personality comes from the things he buys.
Leather Golf Hats love “banter.”
Fedoras are atheists. The Leather Golf Hat is agnostic, because who is he to say if there’s a higher power in the universe, you know?
Leather Golf Hats love making fun of people who do not read. (Leather Golf Hats have not read a new book by anyone other than Neil Gaiman since they graduated college.)
The Leather Golf Hat used to smoke clove cigarettes. He has recently upgraded to nice cigars, which affords him another opportunity for gently oppressive pedantry.
Utilikilts.
Leather Golf Hats love feminism, especially the kind of feminism which involves more girls being in touch with their sexuality and therefore open to polyamory.
The Leather Golf Hat likes to say he is “bisexual, but in like, a conceptual way.”
Leather Golf Hats get an almost erotic pleasure from inside jokes.
The Leather Golf Hat almost certainly majored in Gender Studies and did not notice how often he interrupted his female professors.
Leather Golf Hat have a single piece of jewelry (probably a necklace, but maybe an earring) which he always wears. He would really like you to ask about it.
The Leather Golf Hat owns vests. So many vests. Sometimes in the summer, he wears a vest with no shirt. A banner day for the Leather Golf Hat!
The Leather Golf Hat once harbored theatrical aspirations. He auditioned for high school plays with Bottom’s “Let me play the lion too!” speech and probably played one of the Board of Education Barbershop Quartet in The Music Man. When he was not cast as Harold Hill, he smiled broadly, but something inside of him wilted and soured. This is because his dreams are so thin and material that they cannot sustain even the slightest disappointment. He sinks back into the comforts of goods, which will inevitably let him down as well, but are more easily replaced than dreams.
(The boy they cast as Harold Hill majored in Musical Theater at Michigan, is actually bisexual, and is now in the touring company of Once. He never wears any kind of hat.)
Tags: fashion, hats, humor, liz watson, misandry
I’m so glad you included that caveat when you did, because I was on the verge of thinking/saying out loud, “But what about Samuel L. Jackson?”
The one Leather Golf Hat I currently know looks and smells like he only showers once a month, but he’s very much a fan of the Firm Handshake, even though his hands feel like he’s been doing pottery and just let the clay dry on his palms for an hour or three.
I can’t decide whether that’s because of his Leather Golf Hatiness or if he’s a special case. He certainly ticks the rest of these boxes.
Leather Golf Hats are DEFINITELY Firm Handshakers, in my experience.
And they love to comment on the firmness of your handshake, with a constant, almost-imperceptible air of “you’re not like the other girls.” They will always do this in a way that avoids detection by anybody other than yourself.
I know a lot of people who fit the drum-circle-recumbent-bike scene you’re describing here, but the only person I have ever known who wore a leather golf hat was the priest at the church I went to as a kid. He looked very jaunty in it.
Fedoras are actually very lovely hats which have been unfairly sullied by their confusion with Trilby hats, which are just silly. https://futureworldblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/…
THANK YOU. I mean, it’s like a part-time job for me, going around and correcting people who call trilbies fedoras, so, THANK YOU for beating me to this comment. =)
Thank you for that. I’m an old fart who regularly wears fedoras, and almost none of those things apply to me, aside from atheism. Also please note that only fur felt will do — wool felt fedoras are not even good enough for the demi-monde.
Neil Gaiman has a leather golf hat of the soul.
I’m pretty sure I have seen a pictue of him in a leather golf hat
Genuine question: is Neil Gaiman, himself, a Leather Golf Hat? Are his books Leather-Golf-Hattish? Or does he have the Whedon problem of a legion of juicebox fans despite minimally juiceboxy work? I’ve read a lot of Gaiman’s stuff and still don’t know.
I’ve liked the couple books I’ve read by him fine, but I tend to assume he’s the worst based mostly on the fact that he’s married to Amanda Palmer, #1 Garbage Human.
I have actually loved some Neil Gaiman books but it totally threw me for a loop when he married Amanda, and now I hardly want to read him anymore. I had to read her memoir for work and it made me want to throw things, especially the parts about their marriage.
Have you seen her TED talk where she poses like a street performer while talking about how great it is that people give her free stuff all the time? THE ACTUAL WORST.
Her book is based on it! 350 pages about how insecure she is and how basically everything she owns/does is given to her for free by her friends. UGH UGH UGH.
nooooooooooooooo
Had a moment of sad reflection when I took him off my Twitter feed, because sometimes he linked to interesting things, but now I have 100% less AP mentions which is a net positive.
What’s the deal with Palmer? I’ve only glanced in her direction, but I’ve only heard good things about her. I don’t care either way but just want to know the other side. She seems like she has a big personality.
Here’s a quick summary. And this post from Tiger Beatdown is what brought the Evelyn Evelyn thing to my attention — what’s notable about it is how she responded on Twitter and her blog (“removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery”).
I actually met her once at a party. She seemed okay (I was very, very drunk), but she definitely has that kind of magnetic super-personality that some pepole seem to have.
Amanda Palmer seems to be the problem, the comments below agree! Interesting. I don’t know much about Palmer. I find Ayelet “Mommy Wars” Waldman deeply insufferable, but it doesn’t affect my feelings towards Michael Chabon (those feelings being: his books are good!)
I can’t stand Waldman, and yet in interviews Chabon seems to come across as so reasonable. Boggles my mind.
Whedon /is/ a juicebox, though. His entire personality is “majored in Gender Studies and did not notice how often he interrupted his female professors.”
Thank you for this – it’s how I’m going to describe Whedon to everyone I know.
*gleeful snicker of recognition* thank you!
I used to be a devoted lover of Gaiman, and I can pinpoint the exact place in time where I thought “ugh, this jackass?” – when he married Amanda Palmer. She’s terrible. And she’s either made him terrible, or brought out the terrible he had inside him all along.
Together they are a duchy of insufferableness.
I feel bad about this, because I don’t want to be all “YOKO BROKE UP THE BEATLES” about her, and it’s such a stereotype to blame a woman for “ruining” a man’s work or whatever, but I do think she’s had negative impact on his work.
“a duchy of insufferableness” is the best phrase. <3
I think he had it in him all along. They just reinforce each other.
Yes.
TBQH I never found the appeal in his novels that others have – I assumed that I loved GOOD OMENS because of his half, because everyone was like OMG GAIMAN <3 5evaaarrr, then hated his other novels (except STARDUST which I have a love/hate thing for), and then I actually read some of Pratchett’s stuff and realized I love GOOD OMENS because of his contributions/guidance. Gaiman’s stuff is…well, fifteen-year-old-emo-kid pretentious in a lot of ways.
Yeah. I read about five volumes of Sandman, hoping it would get to something that would make me understand why people love it, before I gave up.
I remember enjoying Neverwhere, but that was a long time ago and I’m not sure it would hold up to re-reading.
I read that for the first time a few months ago and LOVED it (first Gaiman I’d ever read, too). Then also had a pretty good time with American Gods.
On the other hand, the Neverwhere TV series from like 1992 is dreck.
Oh, yes, I tried the TV series and it was awful.
The odd bit is that the book is actually a novelization of the TV series.
When the series came out, the BBC was still emerging from its “no worries, we’ve got these hunks of styrofoam and a roll of tin foil, so we don’t need a props budget!” period (c.f. ALL the pre-Eccleston Who), and basically they didn’t have money to do anything, and Gaiman’s said that his mantra was, “It’s okay, I’ll just put it in the book.” So he wrote the book to describe what he’d hoped the TV series would be.
“hunks of styrofoam and a roll of tin foil” is 100% my favorite era of sci-fi television. Awful, but unironically and enthusiastically awful. I find the apparent excitement so infectious. DELIGHT.
I’m not opposed to styrofoam and tin foil. It was a long time ago, so memory may have faded, but so far as I recall that the plot moved very slowly and the characters were dull.
Actually, that was pretty much my impression of Sandman, too.
Oh! I didn’t mean to imply that you were disparaging the, uh, “effects.” I just can’t keep my mouth shut about my glee when that particular era comes up in basically any kind of conversation. I haven’t seen or read Neverwhere, my opinions are STRICTLY about goofy nerds using a guy under a bedsheet covered in spray-foam insulation and cheap dry moss as an episode’s antagonist. And the use of fake facial hair turned in unexpected directions to make us understand “this is an alien species” (see TOS Klingon eyebrows, and that episode of classic Who with, I think…Patrick Troughton? I guess it could’ve been Hartnell but I think it was later than that, and the dudes in nude unitards with fake beards applied upside-down but in otherwise standard beard locations.)
I can’t believe Steven Moffat thinks DW is supposed to be a Real Serious Sci-Fi Drama, what a flippin DORK
I’m a big fan of TOS in part because every time the ship was under fire, they just shook the cameras a little and made everyone fall down. A method, I should note, which was also used with unabashed enthusiasm in ST: Voyager.
Voyager, of course, has the additional undeniable perk of Kate Mulgrew’s incredible voice. Which could have carried the series, honestly.
The great thing about those ship-under-fire scenes is, no matter how many times you watch, there’s still something new and amazing to see every time. Actors flailing around like “this is how crashing happens right? I’m gonna do something with my arms, that’ll work” and “I will just rub myself all over this console, cool”
Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds
I remember reading American Gods and coming to the conclusion that he is a wannabe dumber Terry Pratchett. But then I read Coraline which is my favorite horror-fairytale and I will never stop loving it and that’s about it.
YES THIS
I wanted to like him, and I admit to loving Coraline completely, but everything else is triangulated between “eh” and “stoopid boys” and deeply creepy.
I love Good Omens and Terry Pratchett; have tried to read Neil Gaiman, but it just makes me feel unsettled and/or bored.
Actually it’s in human form and named Amanda Palmer.
“The Leather Golf Hat took two months of swing dancing lessons and has been milking it for eight years.”
I guess there’s a little Leather Golf Hat in all of us. Care to dance, anyone?
I know so many Leather Golf Hats without having ever seen a Leather Golf Hat on a human head in read life. STEALTHY. Where do they keep them??
I created an IntenseDebate account (hello!) purely to report that the VERY FIRST SHARE of this article on Facebook, within MINUTES of its being posted, was to a group entitled Casual Misandry.
I’m not sure I have enough Lols to do this fact justice, but rest assured, it deserves a lot.
Lolololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol
I don’t know what would be better: a dude at his computer speed-reading and sharing the very minute a Toast article is posted, or a misandry page that is set up to auto-share literally every Toast article.
Clearly, The Toast is doing it right. #teamcasualmisandry
THAT is a t-shirt!
That fact definitely needs more lols. Recursive lols, even.
the only thing causal about my misandry is that i often wear comfy pj pants while mocking men on the internet
I’m sure those are some healthy dudes with totally not-messed-up feelings about women and people in general…
Anyway I can’t speak for the writer but there’s nothing casual about my misandry.
I would like to point out that I just visited that group, and it’s for Casual Misandrists, not “victims” of casual misandry. Do you like to misander? Then go hang out there!
“Leather Golf Hat have a single piece of jewelry (probably a necklace, but maybe an earring) which he always wears. He would really like you to ask about it.”
THIS. He may describe it as “tribal” or “ethnic,” and it was probably purchased during a voluntourism trip to Asia or Africa (which country? He will fail to specify), where he got in touch with some vital part of himself.
Ugh. Ugh. I went on a few dates with a guy who wore a Heroes necklace (like the tv show? It was some kind of weird symbol. IDK) and he offered a 20 minute monologue about it.
“I learned so much more from them than I taught, you know?”
Or he will not only specify which country, he just refer to it by the like, county or municipality so you’ll have to ask which country it is in and he gets to play Knowledgeable Traveller to your Ignorant Rube. He’ll also randomly pronounce words using his (incorrect, tortured) version of the local pronunciation rather than the anglicized pronunciation
My husband frequently wears a leather golf hat. (I actually think he look quite nice in it. He’s not Samuel L. Jackson but, you know, only Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson.) He does, in fact, own a ukulele.
“The Leather Golf Hat took two months of swing dancing lessons and has been milking it for eight years.”
He will lead you in the pretzel and other arm-jerking moves, and then when you refuse to follow something that will likely cause injury, he gives you a lecture on the social floor about technique. >.< (I hate this guy)
He is the worst guy, and he is sadly in many (oh, so many) dance scenes. My life improved so much when I decided if a lead can’t be bothered to care about the safety of my shoulders, I can’t be bothered to dance with him.
And his lead will be either tyrannically firm, or so weak and vague that you have to intuit his next steps from etherical vibrations.
oh and then when you don’t respond to the etherical vibrations/arm being wrenched out of its socket he explains how you’re doing it wrong! yeah that will definitely make me recommend you to my fellow follows.
I was once swunged against my will at a wedding, when a LGH of my just then acquaintance grabbed me without warning from the edges of the dance floor. That was NOT OK. Also, I cannot swing dance. But regardless, it was NOT OK.
There is one of this guy at every swing dance.
Would LGH be obnoxious paleo guy, or obnoxious vegan guy? Either way, he is obnoxious farmers market/ artisanal guy.
Depends on which one has more social caché at the time; either way, if you are a non-asshole paleo/vegan, he will lecture you on how you are doing it WRONG. Because you eat honey.
He also might be an anarcho-primitivist and/or my asshole former roommate.
Might former roommate be the kind of guy who won’t even date a woman unless she is on board the paleo bus? That guy exists and he was quite proud of himself.
I’m pretty sure that That Guy refusing to date you counts as a bullet dodged…like getting held up by TSA and missing your flight, only to find out later that it crashed.
truth. in “i threw it on the ground,” during the “at the farmer’s market with my so-called girlfriend” verse, andy samberg’s hat-wearing jerk is, in fact, wearing a leather golf hat.
“The Fedora’s personality comes from the media he consumes. The Leather Golf Hat’s personality comes from the things he buys.”
Oh my god that’s a good line. That just clicked a bunch of things in place for me, dang.
Grandpas look good in leather golf hats, I feel like.
Anyways, the Leather Golf Hat I knew in college was a theater guy who always got away with not doing his English assignments because the professors just luved hims so darn much (kissy noises). Angry little college me despised him, even though he was actually really nice to me on a regular basis. Eh, I’m still mad.
The leather golf hat is kissing cousins to the flat cap, which is a very Grandpa thing.
Leather Golf Hat is fond of telling women about feminism and instructing them that they don’t have to stand for that! He will stand with them! He will tell you, women, how he once experienced being excluded from a woman-only group in coyllege and now he applies that to every injustice visited on women.
Leather Golf Hat likes to tell women wearing the hijab that they don’t have to wear it if they don’t want to because he says he’s a feminist.
I have to share with you one of my favorite random law school stories. So, my first year of law school, this dude in my section got very upset that there was a Women in Law Society, and decided that he was not going to stand for this MISANDRIST OPPRESSION, etc. So he shows up to the first meeting of the group with the intention of causing a scene, being refused membership, getting tossed out, then making all sorts of noise about reverse discrimination, etc.
Except. He shows up to the meeting and aggressively announces he is here to join, and is told “Awesome! That will be $35. What size t shirt do you want?”
He was so taken aback by the aggressively cheerful response that he quietly paid the fee, picked up his t shirt, and sat through the meeting without making a peep.
Like when Lisa got all “I’m going to join the pee-wee football team!” and there were already 3 girls on the team, plus the ball was synthetic and profits went to charity.
Leather Golf Hat also gets bothered on the street! By people with clipboards! It is entirely the same. Perhaps you were wearing something revealing?
Leather Golf Hat is also quick to tell you that he is sex-positive and has read The Ethical Slut more times than he can count.
OKCupid is about 30% this guy and he WILL have a picture of himself climbing a large rock and he WILL send you a message saying he is “rather intrigued.”
“Hello, madam! I have to say, yours is one of the most interesting profiles on here.”
This is an actual message I actually received. There are several variants of it, as well.
You may call me “madam” if you are handing me out of a carriage and under zero other circumstances.
Or if I’m running an old-timey brothel.
or he will compliment you by disparaging all the other girls: “Finally, a girl with soul”
“Finally, a girl who gets [WHEDON REFERENCE]! You don’t see a lot of those around here 😛 ”
YES YOU DO.
Dang it nerds, why must you ruin every possible kind of hat.
It would be kind of fun to see them take on Easter bonnets, though.
We’ll have to keep digging for increasingly obscure hat styles, like the hennin or the pith helmet.
just gonna have to get myself a got-dang homburg hat or SOMETHING, I don’t know
I look good in hats! I’m not letting this go!
You could proudly wear their Nerd Hats and then disdain their conversation, just to see their brains try to keep up.
The leather golf cap is actually a very foolish cap, in my opinion, though. Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, insufficiently good at keeping rain or snow off of you.
Wearing a fedora around and the just looking skeptically at other nerds who want to talk to me about Richard Dawkins is definitely something I have considered, though.
I mean, yes. But you could wear a regular flat cap, which is a very nice hat, although not very good at keeping the ears warm.
It’s good, but I feel like I’d really be guilty of appropriating the culture of old Irish boxers from the 1890s, is the thing.
What if you wore an argyle sweater and swore at upstart youngsters, as well?
That could work. I’d have to get a scruffy old dog (obviously) and practicing glowering a lot, but maybe. Just maybe.
I believe in you.
Tilley makes one with fold down ear warmers, if the ear warmth thing is a serious concern.
My tragus piercing gets painfully cold during the winter, you see.
Is that what Poirot wore. I adore everything that little fictional man wore
I believe that Poirot does, in fact, where a Homburg hat. Some people find it challenging because they think it doesn’t look good unless you’re also wearing a three-piece suit, and to those people I say, “Why aren’t you wearing a three-piece suit, though?”
Also spats. Spats are a very important part of this.
I think the Pickelhaube is still relatively unsullied by nerds. I mean, it has some other issues, but nerd-sullying is not one of them.
I hate to be all “not all nerds,” but. I’m a lady nerd and most of my friends are feminist nerds and mostly ladies.
Yes, but do you/they wear hats?
I cannot get my boyfriend to wear any hat. And then he complains of cold ears.
I have a knit hat that resembles a tardis. As well as a couple of lovely cloche-style hats.
Well, I suggest you find the nerds responsible, and advise them that they are tarnishing the reputation of your entire people. AS WELL AS tarnishing the reputation of all of my good hats.
I’m both anticipating and dreading the day people finally start going after Kangol bucket hats.
It will be accompanied by a resurgance in Skipper hats as well. Be on the lookout.
those are seriously ugly – they must have redeeming features
I think I dated a Leather Golf Hat, except that guy constantly wore fedoras.
My dad wears a lot of leather golf hats, but he’s more of a FoxNews/Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck kind of guy.
Man, I’ve gotten suckered by LGH’s Pratchett quotes only to realize later he really didn’t understand wtf he was reading and also told me it was totes ok to concede on late-term abortions, make rape jokes, and also make fun of celebrities for having colon cancer. He was neat.
This whole thing is so real it’s making me angry
I am actually physically shuddering.
Having been out of circulation for some years, this particular Guy is new to me, but: yes. But what I was really thinking as I read it was about the saw about how men fear that women will laugh at them, while women fear that men will kill them. I mean, think about it: this is embodying some man’s (most men’s?) deepest, most horrifying fear in life. Countdown to mansplaining/impotent rage in 3…2…1…
IOW, carry on. Well done.
this is incredibly real and true.
there is a wider genre here, though. hat guy. just: hat guy. depicted perfectly by andy samberg in that snl short, “threw it on the ground.”
also: intense smiling eye contact
prominently displayed copy of The Ethical Slut
Oh jesus christ yes I hate intense-eye-contact people so much. Right up there with use-your-name-every-goddamn-sentence-because-they-heard-somewhere-that-will-make-you-like-them people. You are not making me like you, Leather Golf Hat. You are creeping me the fuck out.
I feel like this needs the “shudder of recognition” tag the Hey Ladies posts have. Anyone else feeling unsettled because they want to ruthlessly mock this dude but see juuuuust enough of him in dudes they genuinely like(d)?
Oh my god this post could alternately be titled Dudes I Hung Out With in Freshman Year Because I Didn’t Know Any Better. Their mixture of nonthreatening weirdness and cranked-up outgoingness means they get the vulnerable shy nerd ladies, just scoop ’em right up into their dysfunctional peer groups and you don’t realize until it’s TOO LATE.
[shudder of recognition] right? “That quirky intellectual dude is paying attention to ME!”
This dude as nerd-girl rite of passage, maybe.
I have been trying, with varying degrees of success, to not be in love with this dude for well over a year. The worst part is that he’s actually a decent guy.
YES. One of my best friends is Patchwork Plaid Golf Hat (really, he wears one) and he is also paleo, owns ukuleles, juggles, likes nice cigars, etc etc – BUT he is a fantastic person and I sort of want to send him this link and be like “please don’t go any further in this direction.”
Yeah. Also there are a few points that are uncomfortably close to describing me, which… maybe I need to do some reflection here, I guess. And probably sell the ukelele which I’ve never really put effort into learning to play.
I don’t think I fall in either fedora or leather hat guy camp, but for many of these my reaction is
This was great, but as with all of these sorts of character descriptions on The Toast, I enjoy them until I find part of one thing that applies to me and immediately have my entire sense of self thrown into question.
“But… I’ve played a board game before as an adult… have I always been a monster?? Would Mallory Ortberg spit in my face if she met me? I should just go crawl under a rock and DIE.”
Obligatory “this is actually by a writer who isn’t Mallory” comment.
Actually considered specifying that, but then foolishly didn’t. All credit to Liz Watson’s crafty wit. I meant this generally insofar as ‘what does X behavior say about you, you irredeemable snotbin?’ type articles on the Toast. Cited the Mallory anxiety because that’s… just always living quietly in the back of my mind. Certainly didn’t mean to hijack Ms. Watson’s byline!
I’m sure you are a perfectly lovely person! Think of these as yellow/red lights: it’s ok and even perfectly normal to run a few in your lifetime. Everybody does. But if you’re running every one, then that’s a problem.
Sorry for the dumb comment! I’m not a writer, but I imagine this sort of thing is high on the list aggravating things that happen in comment sections. Sorry again, and just lemme know if you’d prefer I delete it. Really liked the piece!
It wasn’t a dumb comment at all!
I’m just trying to remind everybody to look at bylines, because I often forget myself.
It’s appreciated, clearly it’s something I should be more conscientious about!
Fuck “banter.”
Also: I went to see Ta-Nehisi Coates speak on Thursday, because a friend’s husband was TA’ing at that time, and I got his ticket. During the Q&A section (which involved very few questions, and mostly discourses), this bearded white dude stood up and talked about how many white people refuse to understand their own privilege, because they feel like they have it rough, too. He then talked about how he used to believe Affirmative Action was reverse racism, until he lived in China for 6 years, was detained by police for some reason, and couldn’t get anybody to believe him that the police weren’t treating him the same as they treated Chinese citizens. And then, after this “background,” asked how we (gesturing between himself and Coates) could get people (gesturing at the audience) to understand the concept of privilege better.
Mr. Coates listened to all of this with a relatively impassive expression, then said that actually, he doesn’t find the term privilege to be all that useful. Racism, he said, is a perfectly good word, and the word privilege often becomes, in discussions, a way for white people to make it all about themselves and their individual experiences of living in a racist society, rather than focusing on the heritage of racism that informs most aspects of our society. It was beautiful.
Bearded white guy, as soon as Mr. Coates had paused long enough to be plausibly finished, followed up with “I don’t think I’m articulating myself clearly,…” and clearly would have gone on, had the moderator not interrupted him to say that they were running out of time, and needed to move on.
I now realize this man is absolutely a Leather Golf Cap.
god I love TNC
My favorite question in the Q&A was from an older man who, in essence, said, “you’re super-awesome. How do you do that? Are there other writers the rest of us could read in order to learn some of your super-awesomeness?”
if you don’t mind, do you remember any writers TNC recommended in response?
I’d really like to super-awesome as well, even a little bit, and I love new things/people to read
Actually, his response was mostly “I read a lot, and then I write a lot, and then I hate what I’ve written, and then I write some more.” He also said he wasn’t ever really good at anything but writing, so he had to spend a lot of time practicing that. So, unfortunately, the way to become as brilliant as TNC is to have no real career options other than being a super-awesome writer and prophet.
He quoted Jefferson a lot, though. Specifically, the bit about how slavery is damaging to the minds and souls of the enslavers, as well as the enslaved.
thanks 🙂
i figure ‘a lot’ is a very good answer to ‘what should i read’
Haaahaahaa that is a fantastic response and I love it.
Also, it’s given me a lot to think about wrt the way I discuss privilege and bigotry in society. I don’t think I’m going to stop using the term, but I’m certainly going to be more conscious about what’s going on in every conversation where I use it from now on.
TNC is an inspiration. such a calm, clear, practically luminous response.
He’s really amazingly good at cutting through layers of bullshit.
I loathe people who take up Q&A time to talk about themselves and how smart they are, and then tack on a question at the end. Nobody is here to see that.
Seriously. We were all there to listen to the wisdom of TNC, not the rambling backstory of some random white dude who wanted to explain his anti-racism Damascus story.
There’s always one of those guys at every public lecture or book reading. Within seconds you realize that you’re going to have sit through some relevant portion of his life story as he vainly tries to form an impromptu club with the person he’s addressing.
Peple have got to stop dogging on us INTJs. I didn’t ask to be this way (although I fit the profile well enough to quite enjoy that I am one). But for real, we are not all Vladimir Putin or Professor Snape, for pete’s sake. We do have feelings, even if we do often find them a bit tiresome.
This entire piece is making fun of ENFPs, not INTJs.
Yes, but the caption positioned INTJs as the Fedoras to ENFP’s LGHs, and I was under the impression that the essay took it as read that Fedoras (the stereotypical guys, not the actual hats) are still loathsome in their own specific way. Besides that, it’s just not the first time that I’ve seen negative traits hung on INTJs; it seems to be a thing lately. I don’t know exactly when it started, but it sure does jump out at a lady who is one.
I’ve noticed the same thing and had the same (unwanted) feels.
You can be an INTJ and not be a Fedora. The joke is that there are assholes across the Meyers Brigg spectrum.
But you highlighted two specific MBTI types, and they’re not polar opposites — both are Ns, so it gave the appearance that you were picking on those types specifically and not trying to encompass the range of all sixteen flavors of possible jerkitude. Heck, maybe this whole thing comes down to a typo; if it was meant to be INTJ against ESFP it might’ve been clearer to me. It just landed wrong for me, especially in the context of the “INTJs are asshats” trend that I (and it appears a few other readers) have noticed.
It’s not a typo.
I am sorry (and this isn’t meant to be glib, though it might sound as much) that the Meyers Briggs type I assigned to a hat for a comedy piece upset you so much. Clearly this is something you feel much more strongly about than I, so I’ll give the point to you.
ANYWAY http://fun-mbti-analysis.tumblr.com/post/10249157…
I think there’s a predictable life cycle of things leather golf hat guys always go through in their quest to assemble a personality. I think it’s something like Terry Pratchett > Ukelele > Expensive Weed-smoking devices > Jewelry > “Feminism” > Craft Beer > Cigars. By the time they hit cigars they’ve got a splendid pot belly growing and are ready to transition to “the one old guy at the party.”
I am so pleased that The Many Imaginary Deaths of Christopher Hayden is in the related posts. How fitting. Bless.
I tried to make out with this guy in college but I was too available and grounded.
This is the guy who tells you that you aren’t fun enough because you didn’t laugh at his jokes. He will also bail on you the second you need emotional support of any kind.
thank you for this beautiful articulation of a particular kind of asshattery(leathergolfhattery) rampant at my itsy little liberal arts school. wish i’d read this a couple years ago when i was dodging fire poi circles, staring at the middle distance through unwanted classroom monologues, and working to stay cordial and unpunchy in the dining hall.
THANK YOU FOR THIS.
Anyone else feel like the Bay Area is absolutely ground zero for breeding these dudes? Epicenter: North Berkeley.
Also: Unsolicited neck/backrubs.
ahhhhh the dude i worked with who we nicknamed ‘lbr sean’, short for ‘lower back rub’
the thursday farmer’s market at san pablo and rose. they grow out of the compost and when the last truck leaves, there’s still one left, hand outstretched to touch the back of your neck while he explains the difference between mange-touts and french string beans. they’re both french, so he knows, because he took 2 years of french in high school and became obsessed with godard, which is also why he thinks short hair on girls is “sexually refreshing.”
If it’s not San Fran, it’s definitely Portland.
When the temperatures rise, you can find roving packs of them in the parks, shirtless and sporting cut off jean shorts, playing ultimate and slacklining, and selling weed cookies to strangers. Many of them may also have a restraining order against them by a former girlfriend. But you don’t need to worry about that, because she’s crazy and he’s a pansexual feminist who made the mistake of loving her too much.
I think this is an older version of High School Massage Guy. (Who is probably still offering unsolicited massages, along with french braids.)
Leather Golf Hat Guy can also appear as Patchwork Golf Hat Guy. It’s the same Guy, so don’t be fooled.
He’s the vegan version.
All of this is just reminding me of the (tweed, not leather, but even so) golf-hatted jerkwad I had to put up with for one of the years my girlfriend was in her very tiny grad program (the size of which made not seeing him nearly impossible without resorting to life as a hermit).
I’m so, so, close to just emailing him a link to this post.
when i was on okc i had a “no newsboy/golf hats” blurb on my very brief profile. i had so, so, so+infinity many messages of “let me change your mind about my hat” “why my hat is excellent and fashionable” “you’re lame and wrong about my hat”. it was the most perfect way to weed people out.
my friend did the same thing and we would go through her hat messages and cackle. “my hat is distinguished and women who don’t appreciate it are dumb bitches” was a word-for-word prize entry.
I thought those hats were for bald guys. Do I have to rethink my hat now 🙁
A good rule of thumb: if your gut reaction to any negative stereotypes/images associated with your hat of choice is to say “WELL ACTUALLY THE REAL PROBLEM IS (ALMOST INDISTINGUISHABLE TYPE OF HAT), *MY* HAT IS A LOVELY AND DISTINGUISHED FASHION STATEMENT, LET ME TELL YOU WHY…”, you are almost certainly every single one of those negative stereotypes.
i know a dude who wears BOTH fedoras AND leather golf hats. for the record, though, their effects don’t cancel out and he’s basically the biggest douchebag in the entire universe.
does he wear them at the same time?
My thought process exactly. “I get together with people to play board games…I love quoting Terry Pratchett….oh gosh I did that thing where I watched Firefly despite not ever watching TV. I’M DOOMED. I AM NOT WORTHY.”
I think by “leather golf hat” you really mean “white boy dreads.”
Because I’ve experienced a lot of this with the white boy dreads, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a leather golf hat in the wild.
aaaaaaah aaaaaaaaaah aaaaaaaaah WHITE BOY DREADS aaaaaah aaaaaaaaaah. aaaaaaah. and then they don’t wear shoes aaaaaaaah aaaaaah aaaaaaaah and talk about how they’re so like, empathetic that they’re going to, you know, do a counselling course so they can use their talents to like, help people and I may have recently had a bad experience at a party with this person. (mystical pendant on a leather cord. fire twirling. permaculture. aaaaaaaaaah)
The Leather Golf Cap I know works at Google, invites himself over to parties we tried to make sure he didn’t hear about, and once went on about how he thought women with rape fantasies were sick. (To be fair, his golf cap was tweed last I saw him.)
He’s gotta have a soul patch, right? I feel like he definitely has a soul patch.
Just as likely as a whimsical goatee!
IS NO HAT SAFE
What about those goofy hats Renaissance Cardinals wore? The huge red ones with the dangly pom-poms.
I knew a Leather Golf Hat in grad school. He was actually a really, truly, incredible swing dancer (better than me, I will readily admit), and we did boozy movie nights instead of boozy boardgame nights and we enjoyed our inside jokes. I actually rather liked him. But, oh god, the vests. And the absurd inability to LET AN ARGUMENT GO in polite company. I took him salsa dancing once (he was good at that, too), and he absolutely ruined the night because he met an another argumentative person and sure enough the two of them monopolized the whole conversation with their stupid political opinions. Bah.
A Leather Golf Hat, if he hears you like bourbon, will immediately ask you which ones to see if you like bourbon *right.* He will then recommend to you either Bulleit if he’s a former vodka drinker or Black Maple Hill if he’s got money, as if you’ve never heard of them and as if you cared. Meanwhile, you’ll try to ignore him in favor of the bartender, because the bartender doesn’t give a shit about branding and always knows the best value for their dollar, and is so sick of Leather Golf Hats that they’ll bring you samples of three or four of their own favorite bourbons, just for being friendly, respectful and polite.
lol, this is so familiar. Guys that are really picky about booze or beer are the worst. Like, saying “Hey this brand is good, you should try it” is one thing, but some guys, esp. leather golf hats, turn it into some sort of measure of personal worth and will ALWAYS jump into a lecture about it.
I am anxiously awaiting the “pork pie hat” article in which you take down men who honestly believe that going to a few punk rock shows in high school makes them iconoclasts, despite the business school + franchise ownership + country club membership lifestyle they have lived since college.
Dated that guy. Also this guy, also Trilby. Dreading transition into being one of them with cold heart.
You know, and I don’t want to disparage Coraline or anything, Neil Gaiman definitely had a lot of particular ideas and ways of putting things in that book that I understand are very appealing, but did you ever read Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always?
Because I had finished that book about a month before picking up Coraline and, uh, dang, but there are some similarities.
The personality has made it across the pond to Ireland and the UK, but the hat hasn’t – thank god. Mostly because the hat alone would get them labelled a dick.
That said, I know a lot of female ‘leather hat guys’ who believe Joss Whedon is a feminist icon (he isn’t. I mean, he does write some great programmes about women, but they are still tropes) and won’t let an argument drop. EVER. So this isn’t exclusive to men. In fact, I like Terry Pratchett, AND I go swing dancing, so I might even be one myself (oh god!!)
Never, ever, EVER lets an argument drop. Will always play devil’s advocate, but in a friendly! bantering! way! Because we’re all friends here, he’s just trying to keep the discussion going.
Also, I really like the boy they cast as Harold Hill. You go, Harold Hill guy.
I'm a big fan of TOS in part because every time the ship was under fire, they just shook the cameras a little and made everyone fall down. A method, I should note, which was also used with unabashed enthusiasm in ST: Voyager.
I think the Pickelhaube is still relatively unsullied by nerds. I mean, it has some other issues, but nerd-sullying is not one of them.
Leather Golf Hat does not actually play golf, and real golfers do not wear Leather Golf Hats.
Leather Golf Hat does not actually play golf, and real golfers do not wear Leather Golf Hats.
Voyager, of course, has the additional undeniable perk of Kate Mulgrew's incredible voice. Which could have carried the series, honestly.The great thing about those ship-under-fire scenes is, no matter how many times you watch, there's still something new and amazing to see every time. Actors flailing around like “this is how crashing happens right? I'm gonna do something with my arms, that'll work” and “I will just rub myself all over this console, cool”Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds
The sad thing is that in high school I dated a TEENAGE boy who legitimately owned a Leather Golf Hat (it was his father’s, which makes it 1000x worse) and had many of these qualities and I didn’t realize how fucked up that was until I read this article. “Shudder of recognition” is too too apt. The sadder thing is that I’m still in in touch with him, still like him and am about to send him the link so we can laugh about it together. Misandrist sisters, help me.