This morning, we woke up to terrific news: Justin Timberlake has recorded a new song. It is the theme for the upcoming Trolls, it’s called “CAN’T STOP THE FEELING” (all caps — according to YouTube, which is my Bible), and the video features members of the cast rocking out to JT and his printed button-up dress shirt.
It also features a fedora.
On Justin Timberlake’s head.
Which means that yes, in 2016 (“the year of our Lord” as my friend Danielle Henderson so brilliantly says), Justin Timberlake is still wearing a fedora.
A fedora. The Pabst of all hats. The cake pops of all chapeaus. The hat only (only!) retirees can wear without the rest of us feeling extremely uncomfortable about them. (Like, my uncle wears one, but he is also bald and almost 70 and grew up when grown-ups wore fedoras for real — and also he’s the best, so don’t you dare talk shit about my uncle, you goddamn animals.)
Basically what I’m saying is that no grown man 16 years into this specific millenium should be wearing a fedora unless he is also taking a daytime cooking class with his retirement buddies while basking in the warm glow of seeing his grandchildren later.
Which forces me to ask the question: why is Justin Timberlake still wearing a fedora?
And because nobody cared as much as me, I was forced to do research entirely on my own and come up with the following theories. Also, all of them are probably right:
– He is the worst? (It’s a probability. Where there’s fedora, there’s concern.)
– He physically cannot take the fedora off
– It’s the fedora who’s writing and singing these songs, and this man-shaped specimen is the hat’s mouthpiece
– The fedora gives him powers like Samson and his hair
– He is balding (I mean, who can never be sure) and won’t just run with it like Jason Statham
– He is trying to embarrass his child only months into the child’s precious life
– He literally does not know that fedoras are bad
– He just came off a Godfather binge and is convinced this time he can “bring them back”
– Jessica Biel got mad at him and said “You should wear the hat in your video” and then laughed and laughed when he left the house
– Pharrell was also mad at him and said, “Oh yeah — Jessica’s right, that hat looks great on you”
– Joey Fatone once said “You look stupid in hats, Justin” and Justin is now determined to prove him wrong
– Voldemort is attached to Justin’s head like in the first Harry Potter book and the hat is what conceals him
– He wants to make an accessory “his thing” and has realized too late he chose the wrong one
– He is desperate for my attention and realized this was the only way to get it
– I am the fedora
God help us all.
That is a trilby, not a fedora. Fedoras are cool, trilbys not so much.