Real Cowboys Not Buying Bezos' Western Wear: 'It's Just a Costume'
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Jeff Bezos may be one of the richest men in the world, but he has about as much authentic cowboy flair as a mechanical rodeo bull.
The Amazon founder and billionaire recently posed for a Vogue profile of his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez while wearing a white T-shirt and a cowboy hat.
However, despite the fact that he owns a 150,000-acre ranch in Texas, Bezos’ attempt to channel his inner cowboy largely missed the mark, according to The Guardian.
The photo shoot, shot on Bezos‘ West Texas ranch, was similar to the billionaire’s 2021 trip to space aboard a Blue Origin rocket, for which he also sported a cowboy hat, prompting the San Francisco Chronicle to wonder if he had “ruin[ed] cowboy hats for everyone.”
According to cowboy regalia expert Michael Grauer, a curator at the National Cowboy & Western History Museum, Bezos’ hat fails to reflect the ideals associated with the American cowboy. “It’s a way to co-opt the mystique, to appropriate the symbol of the man on horseback who symbolizes freedom and liberty,” Grauer said.
“You can wear the clothes, the hat, the boots all day, but unless you embrace what a cowboy really is, frankly, it’s just a costume,” he added.
Jeff Bezos wore a cowboy hat again. Real cowboys are rolling their eyes👇
“Billionaire’s look compared to ‘a sprinkler head’ after he wears getup in a Vogue feature with his fiancee”https://t.co/kQMywrN6Jk
— Vega4141 (@19__north) November 19, 2023
Some people also pointed to the hat’s ill-fit on Bezos’ 5-foot-7-inch frame. According to Bill Reynolds, co-author of “The Cowboy Hat Book,” hats with big brims can make shorter people “look like a sprinkler head.”
The internet was not kind to the billionaire and his fiancée.
“[T]his is a really weird look. Costume-y,” one X user wrote.
this is a really weird look. Costume-y. Like he wishes he could read more Ralph Lauren 🤣 pic.twitter.com/VeCRxlgzbs
— Whitney of WorthyStyle (@worthystyle) November 13, 2023
Another tweet compared the owner of the Washington Post to a “Make-a-Wish kid in a rodeo.”
I want to make fun of bezos’s Dukakis tank helmet cowboy hat but he looks so sad and pathetic like a Make-a-Wish kid in a rodeo. You just know he looks in the mirror and despite all his trt muscles sees the same light bulb headed guy he started out as. pic.twitter.com/6dVnsi04xj
— Bronx Age Mindset (@dipiombo) November 14, 2023
Apparently, slapping on a Stetson and standing on some Texas dirt doesn’t make you John Wayne.
If Bezos was trying to portray a more man-of-the-people type image, no one was buying it.
Entrepreneur magazine described Bezos as a “visionary, an entrepreneur, a cutthroat competitor and a game changer.”
Attempting to look like a ranch hand seems like an over-the-top attempt at rebranding his image.
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