The funniest thing about coolness is a lot of people seek it out because they assume it is a shortcut to popularity when in reality coolness and popularity are very different — and at times diametrically opposed — qualities.
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I think cool kinda boils down to not being bothered by things. There are a ton of paths to popularity in that trait. Cool isn’t the only path to popularity but more often than not it’s a path. You can be cool and unpopular but I think those examples are uncommon and require more information.
That is a thing that always annoyed me about teen movies conflating the two. In my high school experience, popular meant you were clean-cut, wealthy, and had pedestrian tastes. The weird kids were the cool ones.
I think popularity requires a kind of aspirational relatability, which means Lady Gaga will never be popular no matter how many Top 40 hits she records
Lack of aspirational relatability is also why I will never be truly popular, most people cannot look at a mentally ill bisexual Jew with severe generational trauma and think “she me” (though props to those who can)
This was my question about Phish. They’re not popular (even though they can draw crowds of 30k on a regular basis) and they’re not cool in the sense of non-mockable.
I guess they’d be freaks but I feel like not caring what people think about your art and just doing it is the epitome of coolness.
Or - still thinking - maybe it’s temperament. Darkness is cool whereas optimism and silliness isn’t. The period where Trey got deep into drugs and lost the humor was the one time that they approached coolness.
Like if I try to think of cool comedians, it would be SNL in the 70s or Lenny Bruce…
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Of course you can not care and be not cool, sometimes it just makes you a nerd
I guess they’d be freaks but I feel like not caring what people think about your art and just doing it is the epitome of coolness.
Coolness is a rebel who only breaks in certain ways. Go outside that and you’re a freak.
Or maybe it’s simply cool = freak + strong sexual charisma.
Using your post as a template to think outloud.
Like if I try to think of cool comedians, it would be SNL in the 70s or Lenny Bruce…
Is Weird Al considered cool? I think that’s more popular. It might be back to my earlier thought that self destructive is inherently hot.
Really good Friday post!