What is "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies?

Image edits of an oversized fishing hat bearing the slogan "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me," which started as a Facebook Photoshop and later turned into real merchandise sold through brands like Kommandostore.

Where did "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies come from?

The earliest documented hat image came from the Facebook page Jekyl Doesn't Hide on June 23, 2020, and the breakout version was a Doge-wearing-the-hat edit by BenBdaMan on r/Dogelore from July 3, 2020.

What does "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies mean?

The slogan is a classic fishing-dad boast, and the parodies play on the gap between that macho line and the ridiculous proportions of the hat.

How do you use "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies?

People either Photoshop the hat onto a character or use the online hat text editor to swap in their own slogan on the cap shape. Early edits placed the original hat on Doge and similar reaction-image mascots.

Is "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies still popular?

The format peaked around the July 2021 Kommandostore release and settled into a recognized meme reference afterward, with the hats sold as real merchandise.

"Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies

2020image macroclassic

Published October 22, 2026

An oversized Photoshopped fishing hat with the slogan "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" first appeared on Facebook in June 2020 and spent a year as a niche image-edit joke before exploding into merch and remix territory. Apparel brand CoolShirtz sold a wearable long-brim version in April 2021, and by July that year Kommandostore released a second cap design that revived the format with new hat variants.

catchphrase memes snowclone memes photoshop memes meme merchandise exploitable templates

Overview

The joke works through a mismatch: the hat carries a mock-serious fishing-dad boast while its brim is absurdly tall or wide, often cartoonishly swallowing the wearer's head. Each edit keeps the same slogan and changes the character wearing it, with the Doge version by BenBdaMan on r/Dogelore reaching 10,000 upvotes in a year1.

Variants fall into two camps. Some paste the exact oversized hat onto other reaction-image mascots or celebrities as a one-off Photoshop. Others keep the hat shape but rewrite the slogan into new absurd boasts, which is why fans eventually coded an online hat text editor so anyone could generate a custom version without opening Photoshop5. The source phrase itself predates the image by years as a verbal dad joke circulated among fishing hobbyists, which gives the "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies their deadpan, trying-too-hard tone5.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Facebook / Reddit (viral spread)

Date

2020

The slogan "Women want me, fish fear me" circulated as a spoken dad-joke boast in fishing communities well before anyone attached it to an image. The earliest documented hat picture came from the Facebook page Jekyl Doesn't Hide, which posted the oversized cap on June 23, 2020, and racked up around 800 likes over the following year2.

Ten days later, Reddit user BenBdaMan posted a Doge wearing the hat to r/Dogelore on July 3, 2020, where the edit reached roughly 10,000 upvotes in a year and became the version most people first saw1. The original artist of the Photoshopped hat itself is unconfirmed, so the Facebook page counts as the earliest known poster rather than a verified creator5.

How It Spread

After the Doge edit in July 2020, the format stayed quiet for about nine months. Streetwear brand CoolShirtz sold a wearable variant with an exaggerated long brim on April 1, 2021, and the run sold out within hours3. Two weeks later, on April 16, 2021, Twitter account @Reactjpg posted an early text variant of the hat, which collected around 1,500 likes over the next four months4.

Momentum tapered again until July 1, 2021, when militaria shop Kommandostore listed its own version as The Big Fish Hat6. The new product listing kicked off another round of "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" Hat Parodies online, and additional text variants beyond the fishing slogan started appearing5. The online hat text editor arrived around this second surge of interest, which lowered the barrier for anyone wanting to generate a custom hat without image-editing software5.

Timeline

2020-06-23

Facebook page Jekyl Doesn't Hide posts the earliest documented image of the oversized "Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me" fishing hat.

2020-07-03

Redditor BenBdaMan posts a Doge wearing the hat to r/Dogelore, reaching about 10,000 upvotes in a year.

2021-04-01

Streetwear brand CoolShirtz sells a wearable long-brim version of the hat, selling out in hours.

2021-04-16

Twitter account @Reactjpg posts an early text variant of the hat image.

2021-07-01

Kommandostore lists The Big Fish Hat as a product, prompting a second surge of hat edits online.

How to Use This Meme

People typically either Photoshop the oversized hat onto an existing character or run the slogan through an online hat text editor that places custom text on the cap shape5. A common convention is to keep the original fishing slogan when editing the hat onto a mascot like Doge, and only rewrite the text when the joke is about the slogan itself rather than the wearer1.