What it is to be cool

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by alphabassettgrrl

I think the first kind of cool is decidedly uncool though people seem to like it. I much prefer the second kind of cool, both for myself, and in who my friends are.

But the first has nothing to do with what individuals find "cool". In that case, the word "cool" has an entirely different meaning, they're simply homonyms. Whether you personally ascribe to it or not, the fact remains that there are certain things, transient as they may be, that at any given time are defined by society as "cool", individual tastes aside. These things don't define individuals, but they define trends and societies. It doesn't matter if I lived in LA through the 80s and didn't surf/thought it was boring. The fact remains that surfing was "cool".

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

But the first has nothing to do with what individuals find "cool". In that case, the word "cool" has an entirely different meaning, they're simply homonyms. Whether you personally ascribe to it or not, the fact remains that there are certain things, transient as they may be, that at any given time are defined by society as "cool", individual tastes aside. These things don't define individuals, but they define trends and societies. It doesn't matter if I lived in LA through the 80s and didn't surf/thought it was boring. The fact remains that surfing was "cool".

Yes, but in those "what is cool" situations - there usually is a newer synonymy for cool used to describe it - so it's cooler than cool - Boss, Rad, Groovy, Bitchen, Phat, gnarly, etc. thus "cool" is sort a secondary generic.

But if we want to get pedantic, we can just argue that cool is about temperature.

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

But if we want to get pedantic, we can just argue that cool is about temperature.

Things might not have gotten out of hand if Daisy had simply said to Gatsby, "You always look so temperate."

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

But if we want to get pedantic, we can just argue that cool is about temperature.

I wasn't trying to be pedantic, really. I just see a difference between the, "I'm comfortable with who I am and define my own coolness" vs. the, "What particular pop-culture phenomena does a society and generation share as a whole that guide large social ebbs and flow." Whatever term you want to use ("cool" falls in and out of favor, but it's always around and certainly covers the most ground of any other word), the latter is both interesting to ponder and far easier (still not easy, but easier) to pin down and quantify/qualify seeing as it's shared vs. personal.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

I wasn't trying to be pedantic

Oh - I'm just being snarky (set badness level at 60%)

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

the latter is both interesting to ponder and far easier (still not easy, but easier) to pin down and quantify/qualify seeing as it's shared vs. personal.

I'd say it's interesting to debate, but not easy to pin down as these things are almost always defined by their subculture - which often arise to oppose another subculture. I think it's through that process we reveal that there is no "objective cool" and does in fact distill down to the individual level

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I'd say it's interesting to debate, but not easy to pin down as these things are almost always defined by their subculture - which often arise to oppose another subculture. I think it's through that process we reveal that there is no "objective cool" and does in fact distill down to the individual level

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.

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Surfing was cool in the 80s. Bell bottoms were cool in the 70s. Green Day was cool in the 90s.

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.

[Alex]

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.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

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.

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.