Why do most people in bars wear hats?

Hats keep you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. They prevent hair from falling into your food. They can accessorize your clothing and declare your team allegiance.

It's just fashion.

It’s neither an “alpha” nor a “cool sports thing”. For most guys it’s simply a matter of habit or not wanting to have to comb their hair.

alpha American thing

Yes, we all wear ball caps and T-pose on Europoors.

It’s neither an “alpha” or “cool sport” thing. We’re very casual about our dress, baseball caps are essential Americana, and people like to wear them. There’s no underlying code or anything, it’s just a basic accessory.

Alpha? Lol really?

It's a fashion thing, some people like wearing hats. No more than that.

We invented the baseball hat. It is a cultural norm to wear them causally.

All sorts of different fashion/aesthetic sub cultures have added baseball hats as fashion piece.

My hipster urban co-worker has a denim Rugrats baseball cap. Rugrats was a cartoon from the 1990s. She's a woman.

If I wear a hat outside of my house, it's gonna be on my head. It's just a bar. No one in there gives a shit.

We're allowed to wear what we want.

Its a bar, not having dinner with The Pope. You don't need to dress up for a bar.

Because people like to wear hats. That’s it

For me it’s a “my hair is dirty and I can’t be bothered to wash it yet” thing

I hate it when people try to guess the answers to their questions. Alpha American thing? What does that even mean?

Anyway, we do it because we can, and we don’t cling to the antiquated notion of hats indoors being offensive.

Imagine doing Jager bombs and shitty coke in the dive bar bathroom and not wearing your top hat

I am always in a hat. I wear one because I want to.

I'm bald but the reason I wear a hat is not to disguise that fact. It is to prevent sun damage, though. Even in the winter, I can tell my skin is getting too much exposure when I don't wear a hat.

Because I like to wear hats. 

And because it annoys pretentious people.  

Baseball caps are popular and in fashion. People like to wear them. And they are allowed to wear them in informal settings such as bars. That's really all there is to it.

There's a lot of interesting assumptions in your question: 1. Assuming baldness and a desire to conceal 2. Assuming an "alpha" thing 3. Or, finally, assuming a "sports" thing

Where are you from? Are hats not a common fashion/clothing option for men? Why the negative assumptions for people in a different culture who do where hats? Do folks there not wear sports apparel for their favorite sports teams?

I also struggle to believe that "most" people wear hats in bars on any given night. With the possible exception that it's a sports bar on a big game night. This smells more like a confirmation bias than a believable observation.

It’s fashion and utility thing. The US can be very hot and sunny during the summer days so if people are out and about and then stop at a bar for a drink in the evening they likely were wearing hats during the day. Lots of people look good in hats too so why not

People just wear hats. Nothing deep

Guys like hats. Next question

Its just the fashion

I wear a baseball style cap because it keeps the sun out of my eyes. If I go into a bar I just leave it on.

Before I went bald I usually took off my hat indoors. Now I keep it on for other's protection

Have to admit I think baseball hats look bad, shouldn’t be worn at a restaurant, and tend to smell bad too. Do men even wash them ever?!?

You're in very specific type of place, or neighborhood. I see hats commonly at sports bars and that's it.

I think it’s a mixture of function and different fashion styles compared to where you live.

Like 90% of the time I’m with a baseball hat. It’s either going to be a Padres hat, a metal band hat, or some other random hat. It’s both for fashion and because I like them, simple as.

I am in bars 2x a week for things (karaoke and trivia) and while there are some men who wear hats, it is nothing near half of them. Generally though, they wear sports caps, and are doing so to show their support for their teams. They don't remove them because they don't want to deal with that hair.

I have it on good authority that you'll get thrown out of bars in NYC for wearing a hat

That’s gonna depend on the bar and the region.

In the MidAtlantic, at least in bars I frequent, I see very few hats.

Its simply the current fashion like fedoras were back in the 1940s. Everybody wears it because everyone else wears it people don't want to look out of place or different.

If you think about it, the historical precedent is wearing hats everywhere. The whole not wearing a hat or any sort of headwear thing is a fairly recent trend

So the better question to ask is, why don't some people in bars wear hats?

I’m a woman, but if I wear a hat when I go out, I’m not going to take it off again if I go to a restaurant or bar or whatever afterward. My hair is gonna look like shit.

Hats are popular and common clothing items in America and have been for decades. It’s normal for us to wear hats day to day as a normal part of dress.

The answer is honestly because it was socially unacceptable to wear them indoors for so long that we do so because we can now.

Because they wear them in from the outside and don't want to lose them.

I like hats. I'm sure plenty of other people do. They look cool and keep my hair out of my face. Reason enough for me.

Hats are just a thing men sometimes wear in America for any number of reasons, not all of which are to hide baldness. If they’re wearing it during whatever they were doing before they went to the bar, they’ll just keep wearing it when they go to the bar.

I wear a hat sometimes because my hair is very thick and curly. It takes a lot of product and blowdrying just to get it into a style I’m okay with. And it gets very frizzy and unpresentable in humid weather, in even a very light rain, or if I’m sweating. If any of those things are true or if I just don’t feel like spending half an hour to tame it, I’ll just wear a hat instead.

It doesn’t matter if I’m going to the grocery store, a friend’s house, a bar, or anywhere else where I’m going to be around other people.

Some dudes wear a belt even if their pants fit fine. Some girls always wear bracelets. Some men wear hats. It's a personal preference. It literally doesn't mean anything.

I’ve work in restaurants with bars several times in my 35+ years as a professional chef, in that time I’ve not noticed that there are more people wearing hats than you see at other venues. Wearing hats indoors has become more common over the years and bars are not considered formal areas so people will wear hats at bars but as I said it doesn’t seem more common than other locations.

I'm currently in a bar. 2/4 men at my table are in hats. 2/3 male staff are in hats. Out of the 7 other male patrons, 2 are in hats. There is one female worker in a hat. There are 12 women not in hats. Idk if your assumption is accurate. Some people just wear hats.

Because they're under 40 and going bald.

It's cold out so let me put a warm hat on, it's hot/really bright out so let me put a cap on to keep the sun off my face, my hair didn't look great so I'm just going to cover it, I just like the way the hat looks, or I'm going to a sports bar so I'm putting on the hat as something with the logo of the team I support. Could also just be where you are going because I rarely see anyone wearing a hat inside a bar in the US where I live. Remember the US is really massive, seeing something happen in one or a handful of places in the US and assuming everyone in the US does it is like me assuming most people in Europe wear lederhosen in the fall because several people from places I've been there wear it.

Not sure where this alpha American assumption is coming from.

It just looks cool that’s all

The baseball cap started from baseball in the late 1800s (IIRC). From there is slowly branched out into other hats like the snap back, trucker cap (mess back), and hunting caps. It has sort of become the worker mans hat if you will.  

It has become so popular that people wear them around the world. Even many police agencies use them a variation of them. o.o I googled it and I guess even the British police have a variation of it, but it sadly doesn't have the button on top. :(  

Overall, I think americans just like hats.

• Baseball Hats
• Cowboy Hats
• Stocking Hats
• Beanies
• Palm Straw Hats

I don’t know if this is actually the case, but in my experience it is a sign of physical labor and it becomes a habit. 

My brother with a desk job does not go for hats. My brother who works on cars and has a physical labor job does wear them. My father wears one when working. My husband has a desk job only wears one if he wants to block sun when vacationing… And the rule seems to stay the same among the other guys I know except in cases of balding.

Americans wear hats anywhere and everywhere. I've known many people who wear a baseball cap rain or shine, night or day. It's just a style, I guess. I don't usually wear a hat unless I need to.

Alpha america.....cuz we wear hats, like dude seriously????? Alpha america.....you get how dumb this ideaology even sounds. Like Americans use hats to dominate.....so fucking stupid. If you're afraid of a hat are you really the top of the food chain.

People (especially men) wearing baseball caps is so prevalent that I don't even notice it. There's not a special meaning to it. It's just like wearing a jacket or a watch. People just do it because they want to.

I’m bald and I don’t love being bald. So…hats for me

I have never walked into any public venue and taken note of how many people were wearing hats.

It seems like you have a cultural hangup on wearing hats in bars or perhaps even wearing them indoors. So I'm interested - why do you take notice and why does it matter to you?

To me it's like asking why most people in bars tie their shoes starting with the left lace over the right lace instead of right over left - it's inconsequential and noticing it is bizarre.

"Cool sports thing" - no, but it is probably a sign you're in a sports bar if that's what most of the attendees are wearing.

It's just a fashion thing nothing very involved.

What kind of bars are you going to? Sports bars?

I don’t see that many hats. 

It's an American thing. Everyone in the country owns at least one baseball hat and most wear one regularly.

I don't know but I'm grumpy about it.

For some guys, it provides a visible style to take the place of something else that was styled when they were younger but is now missing.

I strongly disagree with your premise that “most” people in bars wear hats.