Woman walks up to Boston man to compliment his ‘cool hat’. Then she realizes what it actually is: ‘I don’t see no hat’

A Boston man thought a stranger had mistaken his headband for a hat. It turned out she had mistaken his entire hairstyle for one. TikTok creator London LaMarr says the woman walked up and said, “Nice hat.” He assumed she meant his headband. “I thought she was slow. That’s what I was thinking.” He says he wondered why anyone would call a headband a hat.

In a follow-up video, LaMarr explains how the mix-up happened. LaMarr says she told him, “Oh, that’s a bun in your head.” He answered, “You thought the whole shebang was a hat.” They both laughed, and he calls the moment “a Kiki.” The confusion was harmless, unlike the experience of a woman who realized an elderly stranger’s complaints about how women dress were actually a dig at her own outfit.

Later, he checked a mirror and still saw nothing unusual. “I don’t see no hat,” he said to himself. He then posted about it, and he expected strangers to agree. “I thought y’all was gonna see no hat.”

The internet saw a hat

But it didn’t go the way he expected. “Everybody seen a hat except for me,” he says. He also claims, “Half a million people said it was a hat at this point.” People had plenty to say about LaMarr’s hairstyle, much like a woman in Paris who was criticized by a stranger over her outfit. In LaMarr’s case, though, the comments focused on whether his bun looked like a hat.

One commenter wrote, “It was almost an optical illusion.” Another user suggests the effect did not fade once the truth was out. “I’m sorry, even knowing it wasn’t a hat, it looked like a hat.” Photos shared in the comments show a green and black headband with a puff of hair on top. The shape does resemble a knit pom beanie.

A third commenter seems to refer to a point in the video where LaMarr takes the bun down. “sir, I watched the hat suddenly turn into your hair & a headband RIGHT in front of my eyes.” The comment has more than 6,800 likes at the time of writing.

LaMarr says the attention left him doubting himself a little. “I feel bad even defending myself because now I’m like, is there something wrong with my eyes?” He then jokes that he may simply be wearing a “Crochet beanie.” His plan seems settled for now. “All I do know is no more headband bun combo,” he says. “Straight bun it.” He has not said whether the headband will make a return.