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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Chimera

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    Apr 2019
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    Default Story Time: Why I Hate Paper Hats

    This little tale takes place in the fifth grade, and it's stuck with me for the longest time because of just how ridiculous it ended up being, and because you never quite forget the week you invent the word "Hatzi" to reference paper hat nazi's.

    Our story starts in art class, we working on some paper mache project and we were cutting these massive sheets of newspaper into strips for it, like you do. Well, inevitably, someone folds a paper hat, because were fifth graders and theres free newspaper around and it's almost the end of class. This someone was my equal parts best friend and sworn enemy depending on the day(Elementary school man), and pretty soon about five or so people had folded hat's themselves before the class was over, because, hats are fun for fifth graders.
    Now, I'm not very coordinated with my hands, and origami or any folding isn't easy for me, so I decided not to bother trying to fold a paper hat since I didn't know how and I was having fun with the paper mache. This decision changed the course of that week for me.
    You see, my buddy/enemy who folded the first hat decided that "Hey, hats are cool, and easy to make, and all you guys made hats, lets only talk to people wearing hats" and that's what happened. Those initial five hat wearers and my friend refused to talk to anyone not wearing a hat, and since most people were friends with at least one of them, people started making hats to talk to their buddies, and it was mostly just a fun fad for them I guess. Pretty soon the first five became what they called "Paper Hat Royalty" and made elaborate hats of office. My friend was "Paper Hat King" and made himself a crown.

    Now, I wasn't exactly aware of any of this because I went to the library to read instead of to recess after lunch because it was really hot where we lived and I love books. So the first thing I know about all of this is when I leave the library and basically everyone in my grade is wearing a paper hat, and no one will talk to me except to tell me to get a paper hat. But I can't fold a paper hat, and I was really stubborn back then and got very upset because I shouldn't need papyrus headgear to talk to my friends.
    So I stormed off feeling terrible but I figured it would stop by tomorrow. It didn't. The art project was going to go on for the whole week, and the number of paper hats only grew.

    So I stayed solely in the library during recess that second day, where I found the few other students who decided the whole hat thing was stupid. the "Hat Rebellion" had it's first meeting using the stress relief computer program to destroy pictures of paper hats.
    On the third day the Hat King came to talk to us. The man walked into the library with this guy wearing this super tiny paper hat behind him. He opened his mouth to speak, paused, and then took off his crown and put it in the outstretched hands of the dude who I guess had the soul job of holding this kids crown and bowing. BOWING. He actually put his head down in honor. It was a tad disturbing actually.
    So the hat King tells us that he's "Heard you guys are being anti paper hat, that’s not right, join the paper hat family, we only want to you guys to have the fun and joy of paper hats". The man then gave us an ultimatum of two days to accept the hats he would make for us, and warned us no one would speak to a "None Hat" and then put on his crown and left.
    Some info on his "paper hat family": they had an actual caste system. the fancier your hat, the more important you were, and instead of making you're own hat, the King, or as his full title "almighty and powerful grand poobah king of paper hats"(we were fifth graders), would make it for you. So you had no hope of advancement if the King didn't like you. Oh, and if you saw another person wearing a hat you had to tip hats at each other, the person with the smallest hat going first.

    I remember turning to my friends and going "Guys, did, did that sound vaguely Nazi like or was it just me?"

    Now I understand that in no way was my fifth grade troubles anything like what happened with Hitler, what happened during WW2 was a terrible thing and I'm not trying to marginalize that in anyway. But, as a fifth grader who loved history, the mannerisms of the Paper Hat Royalty struck my young made as similar enough. So that's what we started calling them "Hatzi's"

    We vowed there and then to end the Hatzi reign, partly because we were pissed off and partly because we were bored fifth graders and that sounded awesome. The first thing we did was "join" the paper hat family. then we secretly put up anti-Hatzi posters so no one knew who was doing it.

    As I've matured I realize now that I basically ran a propaganda campaign in the fifth grade against paper hats, but I wasn't aware of it at the time.

    After we did that, we set the next part of the plan into effect: Destroying the hats. We tried to take out a few, stole them in ways no one noticed and melted them in water fountains, but they just made more. We had to destroy the source. So some of us volunteered to cut all the paper into strips for the class one recess to "Save time for everyone" it did actually save time for everyone, but it also stopped the Hatzi supplies.

    I know it sounds like they could've gotten more from home, but where we lived the newspapers weren't printed in the native languages of most those who went to the school, and very few people where we lived got the newspaper anyways. And per Hatzi rules only Newspaper hat's(Besides the golden craft paper crown of the king) counted.

    After that the rebellion was smooth. See, every time we destroyed a hat, the person who lost their hat could no longer talk to their friends or make a new hat, so their only option was to throw in with the rebellion to destroy the hats of their friends. The whole thing was over in about a day after the destruction of the newspaper reserves. King ended up giving up when he was the only one with a hat and everyone talked to everyone else again.

    And as traumatic as it sounds, and since I was very fragile back then those first days made at least me unnecessarily upset, I think everyone ended up having fun in the end.

    But never the less, to this day, I still hate paper hats. Darned Hatzi's.
    Last edited by moonfly7; 2020-07-15 at 08:53 AM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: Story Time: Why I Hate Paper Hats

    Wow what a story. Do tell more.
    Get your physics out of my D&D!

    Proudly Chaotic

    Optimism is delusion pessimism will save the world

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Fyraltari's Avatar

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    Default Re: Story Time: Why I Hate Paper Hats

    Moonfly7, I need you to watch the movie Die Welle/The Wave.
    Last edited by Fyraltari; 2020-07-15 at 03:01 PM.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Chimera

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    Default Re: Story Time: Why I Hate Paper Hats

    Quote Originally Posted by el minster View Post
    Wow what a story. Do tell more.
    There really isn't anymore to the tale of the Hatzi's, and I don't have many particularly interesting life experiences like this one, leading a rebellion against paper hats more than a few years ago is probably my greatest adventure, at least the kind that would be interesting to most people outside of DND and that doesn't belong on this forum. However I might have a few more here or there that I can share with you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Moonfly7, I need you to watch the movie Die Welle/The Wave.
    I just read the synopsis. That, is 1, absolutely terrifying in a social horror way and sounds like a fantastic movie, and 2, terrifies me with it's similarities, as tame as they are in comparison, to my experience with the Hatzi's. Not that I needed more proof that it was like fascism, but honestly I'm a bit disturbed by how close we got.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Kobold

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    Aug 2020

    Default Re: Story Time: Why I Hate Paper Hats

    This story sounds just like it could be one of Cummunity episodes :)

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Chimera

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    Default Re: Story Time: Why I Hate Paper Hats

    Quote Originally Posted by asda fasda View Post
    This story sounds just like it could be one of Cummunity episodes :)
    What are community episodes?

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