The Hat That Went Viral

You know the hat I'm talking about. It's the big beige bow that Princess Beatrice wore to her cousin's wedding last week. It seems everyone has forgotten the wedding and the royal couple...but they're still buzzing about The Hat...and not kindly, either.

The Hat even has its own Facebook Page where it's formal title is Princess Beatrice's Ridiculous Wedding Hat. Ironically, you have to "like" the hat to see the page, and those who do (nearly 135,000 now) are having too much fun photoshopping the hat into all kinds of pictures. 

So far, my favourite is the "Stargate" variation, but all manner of things have been pasted into the hat's open ring...dart boards, targets, signs, a couple of cats, and a disembodied finger (maybe to remind Bea not to wear that hat again) to name just a few.  One took the princess out of the picture altogether and made the hat into a frame for a wedding photo of William and Kate (above). Less clever lampooners have simply pasted it onto celebrity and animal heads.

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, and let's face it, The Hat, hideous as it is, has made designer Philip Treacy a household name.