There are so many thing that are generally classified as "cool" that I don't think are cool at all. It' so subjective.

Indeed - just like Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
;)

Or, Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and, above all things, Love.

Oh my, look at the time. We'll just be going now.

I love you guys.

I agree to a point, especially when you're trying to give a definition for what's cool now (forest for the trees and all that). But historically, the picture, on the large scale, becomes clearer. Surfing was cool in the 80s. Bell bottoms were cool in the 70s. Green Day was cool in the 90s. Whether I as an individual ascribed to it as cool at the time isn't important on that scale.

It will never be definitive, and even in hindsight it's a moving target depending on how large of a segment of society you're looking at. But it's kinda like quantum physics. It's true that once you filter down to the level of an individual atom, the physics of Mr. Newton no longer apply. But that discovery has not invalidated classical mechanics in the least, it's still a valuable tool for working on the scale that most of us work most of the time. They're both referred to as "physics", and they both share some characteristics, but they are distinct concepts. Not very different than what I see as two distinct definitions of cool.

I don't think those things are necessarily "cool" (with the exception of surfing) but more "popular" - which isn't necessarily cool. The two shouldn't be confused.

I'd argue that cool is only definable in the rearview mirror. That in the now we are all just fulfilling our own personal preferences and then 10, 15, or 20 years later we can look back and decide which of those many activities, trends, subcultures, etc., were actually the cool ones.

At the time you'd probably pick disco as the winner based on popularity but 20 years later it is cooler to have been into punk.

I do agree that popular and cool don't have much overlap. Because we all know, instinctively that being cool is reserved for an exalted few. Therefore if it had mass involvement it can't have been cool. However, being cool also requires being ahead of the curve, being a trendsetter not a trend follower. So the cool among us are doing things that few people do now but in five years everybody will either be doing or will claim to have done (the total claimed population of Woodstock: 2.6 billion; number of people who voted against Reagan in 1984: 98%).

So, since in the rear view mirror that which was cool eventually ends up looking like that which was popular, even though the cool phase preceded the popular phase, as we move to trends closer to contemporaneous periods we are tricked into confusing the currently popular with the currently cool. When in fact, what is now popular will be mocked as a bunch of sheep in 4 years when VH-1 does a nostalgic look back on 2007.

Good point, I find it interesting how age plays a role. Since I'm older than GD, I would have put surfing as cool in the 70's as opposed to the 80's, probably has to do with when someone went to HS.

And where I came from, surfing wasn't cool at all. The kids driving to the Oregon Coast to surf were considered poseurs.

Well, one of the surfing girls was considered cool, but she was also the school door knob so that may have muddied the issue.