The term "gimme hat" comes from folks walking into the feed store, John Deere(a popular midwestern US make of farm machinery)dealer, etc. where they have free hats with appropriate advertising and saying "Gimme one a'them hats." William Gibson, the SF writer, coined the term "meshback" (from the design of the hat)to describe the culture of the wearers of these in one of his near-future novels, e.g. "Smoking...yeah, it's sort of a meshback thing." Some students of the "gimme hat" culture believe the practice of wearing them backwards came about when the wearers wished to display the high-technology "one size fits all" feature.