I Made a Hat That's Powered by Sadness

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About

I Made a Hat That's Powered by Sadness is a line of dialogue spoken by Sthugar the puppet in a 2006 episode of Wonder Showzen, a clip from which became popular online starting in 2015. In the clip, Sthugar shows two other puppets at a science fair a hat powered by sadness. When she puts the hat on she floats away, the other puppets watching in disbelief.

Origin

On April 28th, 2016, the fifth episode of the second season of Wonder Showzen, titled "Science,"^[1] premiered on television. In the episode, the protagonists (three puppets: Chauncey, Sthugar, and Wordsworth) are throwing a science fair. In one scene, Sthugar shows off her invention for the science fair, a red hat with the word "SAD" on it, saying, "I made a hat that's powered by sadness." She puts the hat on and floats off-screen, revealing the word "sadness" on-screen. The clip was first uploaded to YouTube^[2] on April 22nd, 2017 by user i don't care anymore, garnering over 54,000 views in over 3 years (shown below).

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Sometime prior to September 10th, 2017, meme creator buirritos uploaded a version of the clip to his Instagram page in which after Sthugar puts on the hat the scene becomes black-and-white, slows down, and an ear rape version of Billy Joel's Piano Man plays. The account has since been deleted and the original upload lost, but it was re-uploaded to YouTube^[3] on September 10th, 2017 by Meme Jesus, garnering over 373,000 views in 3 years (shown below, left). On December 22nd, MR. OMAR KING uploaded a version of the clip to YouTube^[4] allegedly taken from Vine replacing "Piano Man" with the audio of a boy badly singing "Mad World" by Gary Jules (shown below, right). On December 28th of that same year, a YouTube account claiming to be buirrito re-uploaded the video to their channel.^[5]

The popularity of these memes inspired further edits of the clip. On December 27th, LaserFace23 uploaded a Doki Doki Literature Club! version of the meme to YouTube,^[6] garnering over 21,000 views in just under 3 years (shown below, left). On December 28th, NaKraM Productions uploaded a version of the clip with Naruto character Sasuke's hair edited onto Sthugar to YouTube,^[7] garnering over 14,000 views in the same rough span of time (shown below, right).

Starting around 2018, people began making original animations recreating the scene. The earliest one on YouTube^[8] was uploaded to the platform on January 1st, 2018 by Bumble Bee (shown below, left). On January 15th, Tommie Kobain uploaded another original animation based on the clip to YouTube,^[9] garnering over 24,000 views in just under 3 years (shown below, right).