A Study on Cool
For years my father has maintained, over the objections of most people he meets, that the concept of cool ultimately amounts to the possession of valued knowledge. Despite the objections, I think the idea is correct. It explains why we would describe a cool person as "knowing what's going on" - the "what's going on" is the valued knowledge, and the knowing of it makes the holder cool. This theory also accounts for the concept of relative cool. While James Dean is cooler than almost everyone because in some tragic, Dionysian way he seemed to be familiar with the dark, unspeakable mysteries of life withheld from us mere mortals, the nerd who has made Level 16 Dungeonmaster is considered cool by the nerd who just got interested in D&D, and the 10th-grader who knows all the lyrics to Will Smith's "Men in Black" and can recite them on command is cool to all the 9th-graders, and probably to his little brothers as well.
If I would add anything to this theory, I would simply add the qualifier of exclusivity. Cool depends upon how exclusive the valued knowledge is - in fact, the very reason it is valued may be because it is exclusive. As Aristotle says, men desire that which is rare - this is a concept inherent to value itself. Valued knowledge that is available to everyone ceases to be truly valuable and becomes merely indispensable. For this reason Wikipedia is not cool, and neither are summer blockbusters, no matter how good they are. No matter how clever the Gap's slogans are, the words can no longer be cool, because everyone shops at the Gap. Whether you are Wilco or Ryan Adams or the Police, if you sell your CD at Starbucks, you instantly lose all coolness, fatally bludgeoned by ubiquity. Even Led Zeppelin, though they may remain the greatest rock band ever, are no longer very cool, for who can survive that many box sets with 80-page booklets, that many VH1 specials, and that many 60-year-old men driving Cadillacs in Brooks Brothers polos humming along to "Black Dog?"
Exclusivity is so important to the concept of cool that the thing known need be of no great significance. For instance, if I met someone who knew Jack White's favorite beer because he spent so much time with the guy, that someone would be very cool, even if Jack happens to drink MGD. But if that same guy only knows Jack White's favorite beer because he read it in Rolling Stone like millions of other people, then that guy is just a gomer for even bringing it up.
Andy Warhol also illustrates this very nicely. Suppose that I buy a print of one of his Campbell's Soup Cans and put it up in my room - I'm not very cool for that. All that I have demonstrated is that yes, I am in fact aware of the most important figure in pop art, just like everyone else who took Art History 101. Moreover, the only substantive value I have attained is a big red and white glossy that says Beef Consommee in large letters. But if, on the other hand, I have an original Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup Can on my wall, I am cooler than cool by the rite of exclusivity though, either way, all I get is Beef Consommee. (Side Note: since Andy Warhol promoted mass production of his work, it was meant to be inherently uncool, but the New York art scene has subverted this by valuing his limited originals rather than the idea itself.)
Since exclusivity is of such great importance to cool and actual value of such minimal importance, many of us try to control our level of coolness (in a way that I find distasteful) by manipulating exclusivity. We do this in two primary ways:
(1) Picking a knowledge so inherently valueless that it is bound to remain exclusive simply for lack of substantive desirability. I think that this is one of the main forces behind the popularity of indie music, which has been described by Ashley Hebert as a good song with some obnoxious element thrown in. For a long time, this abrasive quality in indie music let its fans listen to it in utterly cool, thrift-store-t-shirt privacy, happily insulated from the encroachments of both the bourgeois and the pleasant, because even though that Modest Mouse song was ever-so-slightly danceable, Isaac Brock's voice was just annoying enough that frat boys wouldn't want to touch it. That is, until they did. Now there's nothing indie about indie anymore when every myspacing teenager has a fave indie band and every primetime drama an indie soundtrack, and consequently indie, its wall of obnoxiousness breached by the Almighty Dollar, has had all of its coolness plundered. Deathcab really wasn't meant to be selling out Madison Square Garden.
(2) Artificially controlling exclusivity by regulating availability. No matter how beautiful the dress you buy at Costco may be, it's just really hard to feel good about yourself as you throw it in the cart which you push through the warehouse as thousands of your fellow American consumers do the same thing in a thousand Costcos around the nation, throwing in completely duplicable jewelry for the wife and a five-pound bag of cheddar cheese. Because the Costco and Walmart experience is so culturally loathsome, we love the idea of small, independent, locally-owned vendors selling us our every need. Sure, there are some quality benefits to independent stores (and thus the value component of the coolness), but you can rent the same Official Sundance Selection at Blockbuster as you can at the shop on the corner. And even where quality is identical, cool people prefer the small shop, because it is exclusive. As long as less people shop at Trader Joe's than shop at Winco, Trader Joe's remains cool.
The main theme that emerges out of this discussion is that mass-production is inherently uncool - it is antithetical to exclusivity. Mass production is only cool when it is contextually exclusive. For instance, if I pull a CD out of my messenger bag and you ask, "who's that?," and I say, "Oh, well, they're big in Germany but practically no-one's heard of them here," I have managed to extract coolness from mass production. Compared to my countrymen, I have exclusive, valued knowledge, and am therefore cool (but of course if I go to Germany, I may as well be listening to the Dave Matthews Band). Similarly, if a punk girl walks around the Lower East Side now with a vintage Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox strapped to my backpack, she might be very cool. At one time, every girl on the block had one, but since they have all ended up now in New Jersey landfills and she has the only one left, she is cool - the valued knowledge is her half-ironic reference to 80's pop culture.
Similarly, we also see that you can't control cool through broad statements to the public. For instance, any widespread global outreach for global warming awareness or even for Christianity, if it wishes to show the world that either concern for the environment or Jesus are cool, is contradicting the statement by making it. It's also like those Truth commercials that are always on TV, trying to convince us that smoking is not cool via Michael-Moorish propaganda. If the ads are successful and lead to a huge decrease in cigarette sales, then smoking will be cooler than ever.
Another lesson we can pull from this is that anything that markets itself with a "be the first on your block to . . ." slogan can only make you cool until everyone else on your block has one. The iPhone will therefore be cool for about 3 months. Capitulating to such marketing demands rarely provides you social dominance, it offers you only the bare minimum of not looking like a nerd. But since is cool is the possession of valued, exclusive knowledge, you might actually be cool for being the one person who doesn't follow the trend, as long as you refuse to follow out of some sense of the superiority of your position. Matt Gaither is very cool because he still doesn't even have a cell phone (as far as I know). He's a heck of a hard time to get a hold of, but man, so cool!
If I would add anything to this theory, I would simply add the qualifier of exclusivity. Cool depends upon how exclusive the valued knowledge is - in fact, the very reason it is valued may be because it is exclusive. As Aristotle says, men desire that which is rare - this is a concept inherent to value itself. Valued knowledge that is available to everyone ceases to be truly valuable and becomes merely indispensable. For this reason Wikipedia is not cool, and neither are summer blockbusters, no matter how good they are. No matter how clever the Gap's slogans are, the words can no longer be cool, because everyone shops at the Gap. Whether you are Wilco or Ryan Adams or the Police, if you sell your CD at Starbucks, you instantly lose all coolness, fatally bludgeoned by ubiquity. Even Led Zeppelin, though they may remain the greatest rock band ever, are no longer very cool, for who can survive that many box sets with 80-page booklets, that many VH1 specials, and that many 60-year-old men driving Cadillacs in Brooks Brothers polos humming along to "Black Dog?"
Exclusivity is so important to the concept of cool that the thing known need be of no great significance. For instance, if I met someone who knew Jack White's favorite beer because he spent so much time with the guy, that someone would be very cool, even if Jack happens to drink MGD. But if that same guy only knows Jack White's favorite beer because he read it in Rolling Stone like millions of other people, then that guy is just a gomer for even bringing it up.
Andy Warhol also illustrates this very nicely. Suppose that I buy a print of one of his Campbell's Soup Cans and put it up in my room - I'm not very cool for that. All that I have demonstrated is that yes, I am in fact aware of the most important figure in pop art, just like everyone else who took Art History 101. Moreover, the only substantive value I have attained is a big red and white glossy that says Beef Consommee in large letters. But if, on the other hand, I have an original Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup Can on my wall, I am cooler than cool by the rite of exclusivity though, either way, all I get is Beef Consommee. (Side Note: since Andy Warhol promoted mass production of his work, it was meant to be inherently uncool, but the New York art scene has subverted this by valuing his limited originals rather than the idea itself.)
Since exclusivity is of such great importance to cool and actual value of such minimal importance, many of us try to control our level of coolness (in a way that I find distasteful) by manipulating exclusivity. We do this in two primary ways:
(1) Picking a knowledge so inherently valueless that it is bound to remain exclusive simply for lack of substantive desirability. I think that this is one of the main forces behind the popularity of indie music, which has been described by Ashley Hebert as a good song with some obnoxious element thrown in. For a long time, this abrasive quality in indie music let its fans listen to it in utterly cool, thrift-store-t-shirt privacy, happily insulated from the encroachments of both the bourgeois and the pleasant, because even though that Modest Mouse song was ever-so-slightly danceable, Isaac Brock's voice was just annoying enough that frat boys wouldn't want to touch it. That is, until they did. Now there's nothing indie about indie anymore when every myspacing teenager has a fave indie band and every primetime drama an indie soundtrack, and consequently indie, its wall of obnoxiousness breached by the Almighty Dollar, has had all of its coolness plundered. Deathcab really wasn't meant to be selling out Madison Square Garden.
(2) Artificially controlling exclusivity by regulating availability. No matter how beautiful the dress you buy at Costco may be, it's just really hard to feel good about yourself as you throw it in the cart which you push through the warehouse as thousands of your fellow American consumers do the same thing in a thousand Costcos around the nation, throwing in completely duplicable jewelry for the wife and a five-pound bag of cheddar cheese. Because the Costco and Walmart experience is so culturally loathsome, we love the idea of small, independent, locally-owned vendors selling us our every need. Sure, there are some quality benefits to independent stores (and thus the value component of the coolness), but you can rent the same Official Sundance Selection at Blockbuster as you can at the shop on the corner. And even where quality is identical, cool people prefer the small shop, because it is exclusive. As long as less people shop at Trader Joe's than shop at Winco, Trader Joe's remains cool.
The main theme that emerges out of this discussion is that mass-production is inherently uncool - it is antithetical to exclusivity. Mass production is only cool when it is contextually exclusive. For instance, if I pull a CD out of my messenger bag and you ask, "who's that?," and I say, "Oh, well, they're big in Germany but practically no-one's heard of them here," I have managed to extract coolness from mass production. Compared to my countrymen, I have exclusive, valued knowledge, and am therefore cool (but of course if I go to Germany, I may as well be listening to the Dave Matthews Band). Similarly, if a punk girl walks around the Lower East Side now with a vintage Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox strapped to my backpack, she might be very cool. At one time, every girl on the block had one, but since they have all ended up now in New Jersey landfills and she has the only one left, she is cool - the valued knowledge is her half-ironic reference to 80's pop culture.
Similarly, we also see that you can't control cool through broad statements to the public. For instance, any widespread global outreach for global warming awareness or even for Christianity, if it wishes to show the world that either concern for the environment or Jesus are cool, is contradicting the statement by making it. It's also like those Truth commercials that are always on TV, trying to convince us that smoking is not cool via Michael-Moorish propaganda. If the ads are successful and lead to a huge decrease in cigarette sales, then smoking will be cooler than ever.
Another lesson we can pull from this is that anything that markets itself with a "be the first on your block to . . ." slogan can only make you cool until everyone else on your block has one. The iPhone will therefore be cool for about 3 months. Capitulating to such marketing demands rarely provides you social dominance, it offers you only the bare minimum of not looking like a nerd. But since is cool is the possession of valued, exclusive knowledge, you might actually be cool for being the one person who doesn't follow the trend, as long as you refuse to follow out of some sense of the superiority of your position. Matt Gaither is very cool because he still doesn't even have a cell phone (as far as I know). He's a heck of a hard time to get a hold of, but man, so cool!
posted by Lincoln Davis at 12:27 AM
13 Comments:
Excellent.
I would add a small addendum: knowledge and exclusivity are not enough to create “cool”. Jealousy is a crucial element. The exclusive knowledge must by desired or coveted by those who do not possess it. What is the use of being privy to exclusive knowledge (hence abbreviated to EK) unless others know you have it, and what’s more, want it themselves? Cool is elitist. Cool is extroverted. Cool needs and demands public adulation.
In distinction, EK that is NOT coveted is “nerdiness.” Nerdiness (or Geekdom; I’m a little hazy on the subtle etymological distinctions) is largely the opposite of Cool. Although elitist, Nerd is introverted and largely indifferent to public notice. Nerd is obsession with the EK itself; the EK is the “end” or purpose of Nerdiness. Cool, however, uses EK as a “means” to achieve something else: adulation and applause. Which is why, as you noted, it really doesn’t matter what is cool; all that matters is that it is cool.
This explains why Cool is transitory. People want to be Cool, and in the process of becoming Cool (helped by mass production), they destroy one of its fundamental characteristics, thereby rendering themselves unCool. Nerds are forever, because no bothered to imitate them in the first place.
There’s something almost Freudian about this: the quest for cool inevitably results in the achievement of its antithesis, the uncool. Or perhaps something more on the lines of Carroll turned on his head: “running as fast as we can to stay in the same place—although if you stood still you’d be swept backwards around to meet everyone who ran ahead.” Like some cosmic treadmill. “In the beginning, there were Cool Cellphone People. Now… there is Matt Gaither.”
Good stuff.
davis, you are making a key fatal error in your assessment of cool. What is cool in your eyes may not be the 'standard' for cool. You could have the dungeons and dragons view of cool because you are an intellectual even tho you dont play dungeons. You like metallica, and you also like dashboard confessional, some people might think your opinion of cool is shot due to a lack of psychiatric care. A lot of the things you were describing as cool, i thought were the dumbest things. And davis, I dont know anyone cooler than I.
I also disagree with most of your post due to invalid premises. It isnt just the possession of valued knowledge, its what you do with it/how you use it.you are telling us that mainstream is in effect, gay, but a cool guy could make the mainstream desireable or cool because he knows how to work it. A cool guy can make the uncool, undesireable, and lame; into something awesome and desireable by all. Being cool also has to do with a temperment. It is the laid back temperment. Such that nothing gets to you. You are cool and calm in the face of a storm. Davis you need to reassess coolness. Just because someone is doing something cool, doesnt mean that they in fact are cool. It usually means they are doing something cool by mistake. like wearing a vintage shirt or lunchbox. they might actually think its great and it might be a collectors item to them, and to you its cool, but to them its their life. whereas if someone who just thought "rad, a GI joe lunchbox, im buying it" , he might be cool. Its not what you do, its who you are. It is me. I am rad. you need to consult cool people about this issue davis. -Ill be here all week.b
Jason,
I don't fundamentally disagree with most of what you said. Perhaps you thought I was stating that cool was objective - I don't think it is. Cool is entirely relative to its social context. That's why in a group of yuppies, the guy who goes to indie shows is the coolest, and why in a group of Metallica fans, the guy who can play the solo on "The God That Failed" is the coolest. I'm not expressing a standard of cool that is inextricably tied to organic food, indie music or Andy Warhol. All of these, in your social circle, are certainly uncool, because the knowledge of them is not valued.
As for the cool guy who makes the normally uncool thing awesome, I totally agree. But it still stands on the same principle. When you go out and buy the "Pirates of Dark Water" DVD, you are one man standing confidently and exclusively doing something otherwise thought lame by society, and you have taken a claim to valued, exclusive knowledge. To the extent that anyone believes you, you are cool - Tyler has always been excellent at pulling off this move.
And you're right about the relaxed, confident attitude of cool, but the attitude is something implied by this principle. Self-consciousness is anti-cool. Say a guy does something exclusive and valued, like composes and records an album on his own. If he is aware that this is exclusive and valued, and by the manifest social insecurity his conduct (his constant brags), he proclaims it to society, he loses all the cool points he normally would have earned - he has shown us that he didn't really want it to be exclusive. He wanted to be noticed. He wanted more people in his circle.
This is why the bad boy smoking cigarettes alone beneath the bleachers is always cooler than the guy who plays Jack Johnson songs at a party - even if the latter gets more attention, he loses the exclusivity of the knowledge thereby. This is also why celebrities lose a lot of cool when they pander to the papparazzi and do big magazine spreads - they are much cooler when they fly off to a private resort and punch photographers who get too close.
Lewis,
The last two paragraphs tie into your comments. Thanks for the compliments, but I think you misread cool. You have criticized people who desire to be cool and render themselves uncool in the process, but the problem here is not the fact of coolness, but rather the misguided pursuit of it.
If we are talking about genuine cool, you are right that it is elitist, but you are wrong that it is introverted. Genuine cool doesn't care whether anyone else gets to join the party. The mistaken pursuit of cool is ever self-conscious of the party it joins and whether everyone else excluded knows that it has joined the party.
In this sense, real cool is kind of Zen. You want it because you know how miserable it is to be excluded, but to actually attain it you have to not care about it. In any true coolness relationship, the people on the outside desperately want in, and the people on the inside don't care that they are in. For those on the outside to get what they desire, they have to not desire it - rather like pursuing a woman, I suppose. Perhaps I should also add the element of apathy, which is related to exclusivity, to the theory of cool.
I know I haven't addressed everything, but those are some thoughts for you.
Hmm.
I seem to have a different interpretation of cool; understandable, considering that “Cool Patois” is nuanced and difficult.
According to your blog comment, cool is a state of mind (or an attitude). It’s similar to “humility,” in that it’s only achieved indirectly. Someone actively seeking it is deluding themselves, because “to actually attain it you have to not care about it.” Further, the Cool do not care much whether their coolness is valued or appreciated or imitated by others, the “uncool.”
Theoretically, this is the case with true cool, classically illustrated by cinematic rebels like Mel Gibson in the Mad Max films. It may even be found, a tad less frequently, in real people.
But, then cool thus understood is very far removed from the cool in your blog post. There, cool is deliberate anti-conventionalism: avoiding the stores that “everyone shops at”, or the clothes “everyone buys”, or the food “everyone eats,” or the books that “everyone reads.” This type of cool—call it “artificial cool”— depends on "self-awareness", because, unlike the Mad Max cool, it’s determined—negatively—by the actions and thoughts of the uncool. The Mad Max cool can truly claim indifference to the opinions of others. The other cannot. And while artificial cool may be content to a Mr. Bennett-ish closeted superiority, I have never yet met one who would refrain correcting anyone mistakenly attributing them with an uncool trait.
This type of cool is transitory because its purpose is "to be different"; once the "others" catch on, you're bourgeois.
anyone who uses the word bourgeois, is A) not cool and B) doesnt know what cool is. Would Jimmydean,The Fonz, etc ever use that word?-no
I'm with davis. Example: Kids who skatebaord are more and more being looked at as not cool(or at least the pros) because they are "sellouts". But back in the seventies it was amazing, and so the few kids who skateboarded were looked at as gods.
Jason, The Fonz is not cool. He was cool, but now he is annoying. You should said something like Steve Mcqueen.
Also Jason, if you're so enlightened about the world, why don't you post your thoughts instead of guitar riffs and the supposedly awesome things your kid does.
The iPhone will always be cool. Period.
Geek is the new cool.
In order to be cool, you have to not care about being cool. Tim Barley. That dude didn't care.
but tim barley wasnt cool. he was just a really nice laidback guy. most thought he was cool because he talked funny and was nice to anyone despite how annoying they might be. he made friends with all.
gunn, the fonz is cool forever, he has been forgiven of all because of the happy days. Steve was cool and could be just as lame later in life but hes dead. and skateboarding always has been gay, just because you are referring to some lame movie about the lords of dogtown doesnt make it cool. skateboarders are in the way on the streets and dress like junior highers, and we all just want them to pull up their pants and join society. Gunn i also dont need to post my thoughts. my guitar riffs are so rad, that its all the world needs. I tell about the rad things my kid does, because i like to make you feel bad that a 8 month old baby is outdoing you.
Re: mid-article: Did you mean to write "As long as [lesser] people shop at Trader Joe's" OR "As long as [fewer] people ..." ? ;) (sorry)
Having been to a couple Trader Joe's stores, I see the same industrial, mass - marketing of 'exclusivity' that the Gap or every other Mall-district national franchise outlet business is branding as their ID to people who are lost, outwardly lost in the sea of anonymity, inwardly hoping to associate themselves with identity by patronizing a recognized brand.
Names on t-shirts, tags or receipts will never do for giving a person the unique 'cool' of exclusive identity that The Name, Jesus, offers. " ... no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one. God has given us no other name under heaven that will save us." -- that is Identity to identify with; that is cool!
May His peace be multiplied here.
please explain to me why the Fonz is cool and why skatboarding is not. With you jason, you always just state random things like, The fonz is cool, and you really have no proof. What is so cool about the chatch phrase of "eeehh". Skateboarding is doing something that you before might have beleived was impossible. Anyone can invent a catch phrase, but even now they are mostly lame. I don't agree with the tight emo jeans they wear, nor do I care if someone is a sellout. And just so you know, i think Lords of Dogtown is gay.
may odd people not multiply here.
Davis,
Wanted to bring the following news blurb to your attention. Also hoped that you might feel inclined to discuss it legally and philosophically on this blog.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070729/ap_on_re_us/gang_lawsuits
NN
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