Bad Buys: The Pink Cowboy Hat
Bad Buys is a series exploring things I bought that I regretted in some way. In it, I hope to highlight my favorite theme in this blog, the fact that the person making a purchase rarely has a good grasp as to how their future self is going to use it, often leading to waste.
Previous entry: My Bloated, Unplayed Steam Library
I bought a pink cowboy hat because Digimon nostalgia had embraced me. Digimon was a staple of my childhood. It’s a franchise where the Digidestined, grade school kids (like me, at the time), are absorbed into the digital world and must fight alongside monsters known as Digimon. In late 2018, Digimon Adventure Tri, which told the story of the now older, middle school Digidestined, had just finished its theatrical run. I started watching the more adult works made by the creators of the series, like Oscar-nominated Mirai, and Serial Experiments Lain, a prophetic cyberpunk meditation written by the showrunner of Digimon’s third season. These works validated my nostalgia: if the director of Mirai—a sensitive film that understands the emotional nuances and turmoils of children—was architect of my childhood, and if the visionary, almost prophetic Lain had influenced me when young, then Digimon’s seminal place in my heart should be considered a net good.
To honor Digimon, because it was worth honoring, I saw Digimon Adventure Tri in theaters, played through Digimon Story Cybersleuth, and I named my new air plants Togemon and Palmon, two vegetal Digimon, one of which is the most delightful character design maybe ever wrought, a giant cactus with boxing gloves.
Look at this utter champion!
Mimi Tachikawa is Togemon’s and Palmon’s partner. I love that, in the parlance of Digimon, the Digimon and their human counterpart are neutrally referred to as each other’s partners, bucking the hierarchical relationship of Pokemon’s trainers and trainees. She has a pink poncho and a pink cowboy hat.
You tell ‘em Mimi! Shatter the digital glass ceiling!
Mimi was a big childhood crush. Watching some old Digimon cartoons, I kept coming back to my love for Mimi. She’s strong-willed. She’s a brat, spoiled, and over the course of the series she must learn to be kind to others. She’s likely the reason I have so many bratty friends to this day, why being spoiled is a character flaw I accept without fuss. She likes fashion. There are multiple plots where Digimon accept her as royalty and she rules with the capricious fist of a 4th grader. She’s a girlboss.
I loved her, was in love with her, when I was eight, because she was a ten year old who knew what she wanted and got what she wanted, and because she had Togemon at her side, who again is a giant cactus with boxing gloves.
So, it just made sense, in 2018, to buy a big pink cowboy hat and wear it to work. Looking up to Mimi’s spoiled confidence had done me a lot of good as a child, and having recently moved and started my professional life, mimicking royalty to regain the confidence I had while in college seemed sensible. I cried a lot the first year of my professional life, and while Mimi is not immune to tears, she always cried for good reasons, and so to cry like Mimi would at least justify myself.
I bought the pink hat in the middle of winter, and I bought it from Amazon. Thus, I erred thrice:
One: I bought it from Amazon, so I gave Jeff Bezos money for nothing more than nostalgia. Amazon prides itself in fulfilling customer desires, no matter how flimsy and flippant. It lured me in, that pretty pink hat, that One-Click buy button.
Two: In winter, there was no way that I could wear such a hat. To shield against icy Wisconsin, I already had so many things on my head: my Fjallraven hood, my balaclava, there was simply no room for a hat. I’d have to wait till spring.
Three: The thing I hate most about my body is that I have a bulbous Jimmy Neutron head that no hat seems to sit well upon. Purchasing a hat from Amazon ran the gamble of owning another hat that didn’t fit my head. I would lose that gamble.
By the time spring rolled around and I would be able to walk around with this cowboy crown—whose royalty would be lost on those who didn’t know of Mimi’s many kingdoms—the nostalgia factor had worn thin. I had developed resilience that wasn’t based in cosplaying my childhood crushes, for one thing. I wasn’t crying as often. The ill fit of the hat sealed the deal. I never wore the hat outside my house. No one saw me wear it. Ultimately, I would give it away, with a big bag of clothes, when I moved from Madison.