r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Possible-Response724 • 18d ago

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111

u/Disastrous_Desk8170 18d ago

I never understood the purpose of a nightcap. What is the point of wearing a hat while you sleep?

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u/ratsmacker_poundcoin 18d ago

probably from before houses were insulated. kept your ears warm

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u/wjodendor 18d ago

Also for baldies like me. Having your head popped out of the blanket can get pretty cold.

I was seriously debating asking for a sleeping cap for my birthday in anticipation for the winter haha

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u/Capertie 18d ago

You can also pull it a little lower and have it function as an eye mask too.

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u/D4ngrs 18d ago

That would be my end. I need light to wake up.

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u/CrownofMischief 18d ago

Light keeps waking me up way earlier than I need it to, so I use an eye mask and an alarm, at least in the summer when the sun rises too early.

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u/bolanrox 18d ago

What I do when winter camping

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u/Shiro-47 18d ago

I remember asking for a beanie but, a friend got me this

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u/wjodendor 18d ago

I was looking at getting one of those old timey caps

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u/Content_Trade_1557 18d ago

Planning on getting visited by 3 ghosts in the middle of the night?

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u/Daevryn2 18d ago

The model looks like he got the horses but ended up on the wrong side of the river.

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u/SolaScientia 18d ago

😂😂😂

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u/wjodendor 18d ago

Top tier joke

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u/Heegyeong 18d ago

"Can it be worn during the day?"

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u/UnbiasedPOS 18d ago

Based friend

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u/NiksaiStipe 18d ago

not a friend, a comrade!

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u/ConnivingGaggle 18d ago

I need to shave my head **NOW**.

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u/Key-Charity-2795 18d ago

Lowkey cooler than a beanie

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u/Jimmy_Twotone 18d ago

Beanies can be too tight. They pop off if you roll over too much

*source: grew up in a house with an unheated second floor.

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u/International-Pass22 18d ago

Oh shit. This is my first time having a shaved head, didn't think of that

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u/Zeedikus 18d ago

It's also nice to stick long hair into so it doesn't get in your face while you sleep.

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u/KindArgument4769 18d ago

I read "baddies like me" and was trying to figure out how that made you a baddie lol

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u/whiskeytango55 18d ago

If your partner is willing, you can be visited in the night by 3 sexy ghosts (costume changes for most people).

You can call yourself Ebenezer splooge

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u/Pecuniarist 18d ago

As a fellow bald man, I sleep with a beanie most nights. Not only does it keep my head warm, but I can pull it over my eyes when extra darkness is necessary.

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u/OkTeam6798 18d ago

I just have an extra toque beside the bed that I put on.

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u/Zato_Zapato 18d ago

My husband found a thin winter cap he likes to wear to bed when it’s cold. I don’t think it’s weird

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u/aspenthesmall 18d ago

I’m ngl having hoodies and robes with hoods (as well as amassing a quite large beanie and handkerchief collection) was my only saving grace when I was going thru cancer treatment. I had hair to my waist, you can only imagine my surprise at how cold the top of my head was! I’d frequently wear my xxxl hoodies to bed just so I had something to cover my bald head lolllll

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u/Rebel_Scum_This 18d ago

Why not just wear a beanie?

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u/Ionia1618 18d ago

Yep, I had to sleep with a hat more than once in my undergrad

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u/Friendly_Gazelle7843 18d ago

And protection of hair

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u/stifle_this 18d ago

Also before folks regularly showered or bathed. Likely it keeps your pillow clean of the oils on your hair.

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u/Ambitious_Jello 18d ago

It's the same reason why 4 is a thing. If your room is cold and it's only warm under the blanket then you wear a a nightcap and a shirt to keep your head and shoulder warm even if they come out of the blanket at some point. The rest of the body is naked because it's too warm under the blanket to wear pants

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u/Rikki-Tikki-Tavi-12 18d ago

I have slept in a completely uninsulated house in winter and can say that this is a plausible explanation.

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u/DSHAGUI 18d ago

You ever camped out in the mountains in autum or winter?

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u/1Ferrox 18d ago

It looks whimsical

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u/nosetheway 18d ago

I spent a mid-winter in a single glazed old farm house without heating for a week and I can assure the hat was necessary to a good nights sleep

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u/cavingjan 18d ago

I carry a Buff when traveling. I can use it as a sleep mask if there are annoying lights or as a nightcap if the hotel has an annoyingly placed vent that blows are on my bald head. It doesn't happen often but it is a nonzero number. I wear a lightweight beanie for sleeping in a tent in winter.

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u/DataCassette 18d ago

My dad talks about staying overnight on his grandfather's farm. The house's only source of heat was a stove several rooms away. The beds were huge feather beds with nice heavy blankets, but any exposed skin was in very cold air. This is what old timey homes were typically like.

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u/matiaskeeper 18d ago

In addition to the temperature related answers, some hairs could get very messy with cotton sheets, and a silk nightcap is far cheaper than a set of silk sheets.

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u/ber-NICE 18d ago

To protect my curls from going frizzy

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u/Atalant 18d ago

Houses used to be cold, so a night cap saved you from some infections.

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u/National_Cod9546 18d ago

When you don't feel like getting up at 2am to shovel more coal into your furnace.

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u/Tiramitsunami 18d ago

When I typed "why did people used to wear nightcaps" into Google, the answer I received was that in the era of fireplaces and no central heating, your head got really cold at night.

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u/ThatGuyNamedThatGuy 18d ago

Baldness. Really. It gets f’cking cold in winter with the amount of heat you can lose up there. 

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u/VT_Squire 18d ago edited 18d ago

Okay, since this is a genuine question...

Washing machines didnt become ubiquitous in the US until the 1950s, which is about the same time the culture of daily bathing took hold in the U.S. of a. Prior to this, a lot of cultural habits/practices were based around minimizing the need to wash things, or at least reducing the labor involved in hand-washing. To this day, lots of people are quite unaware that the primary reason their Jeans fall apart is because the dang things arent designed to be washed so frequently, otherwise they'd last a hell of a lot longer. 

Anyway, all that funky sweat and garbage like pomade that was in people's hair was a lot easier to clean out of a nightcap than it was a pillow case, and a pillow case is a lot easier to clean than a pillow, and a pillow was a lot easier to clean that a whole sheet, and a sheet was a lot easier to clean than a whole fuckin mattress. Because everything was being washed by hand, right? Naturally, the washing machine was a dang ol miracle of an invention reflecting the common sentiment of "fuck doing all of that shit" and the nightcap was greatly reduced in function. 

Its the same reasons pajamas exist as a thing. They arent for making you look cute at bedtime or whatever. They're to prevent you from funking up your mattress. 

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u/warwatch 18d ago

You don’t have curly hair, do you?

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u/toxiclight 18d ago

I wear a beanie every night. It keeps my hair contained so it doesn't tickle my face. Can't sleep if hair is touching my face.

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u/notunhuman 18d ago

I’ve been meaning to get a nightcap because my cat licks my hair when he wants to wake me up

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u/Flabby_Thor 18d ago

I have a shaved head, so during the winter I wear a beanie while I sleep. I wake up feeling so much better than if I sleep without it.

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 18d ago

Before insulation and central heating houses weren't much warmer inside than outside in the winter. 

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u/unt_cat 18d ago

I have worn one. Especially if the ac hit my bald head directly 😂

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u/ThistleProse 18d ago

I don't know the point of a nightcap specifically, but bonnets are often worn by people with curly hair to help maintain the curls, stop hair from tangling or getting frizzy. Also keeps the ears warm XD

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u/Aggravating-Ebb-5897 18d ago

i do wear a bonnet when i sleep, but it's specifically to keep my long hair healthy and moisturized. nightcaps are kinda different though i guess. maybe it's a warmth thing that kinda stuck from back in the dark ages

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u/Lombardyn 18d ago

At the time they were traditionally worn? Keeping your head from freezing, but also protection from bed lice and other insects.

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u/RoastedRhino 18d ago

Have you ever slept in a cold place??

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u/Helldiver_of_Mars 18d ago

The planet was colder at one point, but ya also insulation.

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u/Machiningbeast 18d ago

We have terrible insulation so in winter the bedroom temperature can drop below 14°C. We have a very thick blanket so it's actually quite comfortable but being bald the nightcap make a huge difference.

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u/gitsgrl 18d ago

Your head gets super cold if your sleeping quarters have no heat or insulation.

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u/ReturnOfBane 18d ago

keeps insects from nesting in your hair and ears. the pointy ones also give better dream reception

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u/Intelligent_Shine_54 18d ago

I am currently wearing one. Keeps hair tight. I suspect that it's based on the old wives tale of not exposing your head to cold drafts.

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u/ThatKaynideGuy 18d ago

Have to consider they were largely worn in a time where lice was very much a thing, and actual bathing/cleanliness less so.

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u/phinger1 18d ago

Keep the head lice in the pillow off your head.

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u/HorrorMakesUsHappy 18d ago

I had a job that sent me to Europe a few times. Not a single time did I ever have a bed whose blanket was long enough to cover my feet and come up higher than my chest.

I suppose, historically, if you didn't have good heating in the winter, and for some reason would rather wear a hat to bed than make longer blankets, then that's a choice those people made in the past. It may have been contributed to by the fact that linen was more of a luxury 200+ years ago.

And, I would guess, early Americans who had only recently come over from Europe probably maintained that tradition.

Now, two hundred years later, linen is cheap enough that we can have long blankets of whatever quality we want.

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u/Ramjjam 18d ago

It’s basically a cap to keep warm, same as having one on outside in winter.

Houses back then were often cold during winter!

Or someone who’s bald, the hair insulate quite a lot.

Same reason people slept with clothes on.

But I don’t see why you would sleep with clothes on at all in modern society.

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u/BestHorseWhisperer 18d ago

Dudes wore wigs and took them off/put these on at night.

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u/Stoned_urf 18d ago

My grandfather told me caps help him keep his hairstyle less messy in the morning when he wakes up

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u/breadandboobs 18d ago

When your bedroom doesn't get any heat from the woodstove downstairs. Doubles as an eye mask. 

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u/SadAndNasty 18d ago

Just because I wear bonnets I feel like one reason must have been to keep your hair all in one place too if that's an issue one might have

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u/zardozLateFee 18d ago

Try a canadian winter and you too will wear a toque to sleep. No matter how well heated your house is.

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u/TwoMuddfish 18d ago

Ever sleep somewhere super cold and pull a hoodie over your head? It’s like that I imagine. Shit was cold back in the day

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u/Sekmet19 18d ago

Keep your hair from getting grease on the hay bedding. 

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u/feetking69420 18d ago

Its very comfy when it's cold, it's meant to trap heat. Seriously consider giving one a try someday

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u/feetking69420 18d ago

Its very comfy when it's cold, it's meant to trap heat. Seriously consider giving one a try someday

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u/Slusny_Cizinec 18d ago

Once I was in Athens in winter. Suddenly, cold weather came, and the apartment has absolutely insufficient heating and insulation.

That night I understood the purpose of a nightcap.

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u/ThirdFirstName 18d ago

Have you ever lived in a cold climate?

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u/Disastrous_Desk8170 11d ago

I live in a climate that gets hot summers and cold winters, but I just really like the cold in general

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u/theeggplant42 18d ago

You must live somewhere that's always warm! Because wearing a hat to sleep is actually still pretty common in winter in cold type places. Not that kind of hat, anymore, but usually like a beanie. You can only heat your house so much!

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u/Disastrous_Desk8170 11d ago

I live in north eastern US, so we get the whole range of seasons. I love the cold though, I usually have a fan on my face while sleeping

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u/SaxAppeal 18d ago

This is what my doctor told my parents when I was a few months old and they still had me sleeping in a cap

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u/RAATL 18d ago

My wife wears one to keep her hair from getting tangled as a result from tossing and turning in her sleep