Is Is Still Cool To Be Cool?

The problem is, I don't want to be cool, but I don't want to be not cool even more.

Perhaps Momus would like to expand further on his cool-is-the-new-duelling thesis, or whatever it was.

So whatcha saying is not being cool is the new cool?

Was Huey Lewis right all along?

isn't it about perceptions of what 'cool' actually is. more complex today than past.

the whole thing about being cool in the 60s/50s whatever was perhaps a reaction to the perceived staidness of adulthood, and surely linked to the fact that young people were beginning to have disposable income. and stuff to spend it on.

trying to be 'cool' now is an uncool thing to do, if you get me. i think coolness has been commodified. so, using 'cool' or hipster as a pejorative is really saying 'your style is bought, pre-decided, uncool'

'cool' is an ephemeral concept anyway

Nick: what about?

He probably was, whatever it was.

Pinefox: I suspect he means "Hip To Be Square".

I suspect you will agree he was right.

I am not cool. No-one I know is cool. Cool, to me = gullible, easily led. Fuck "cool", and fuck "the cool".

x0x0

Of course cool is still cool. It has, from the beginning, referred to some sense of emotional detatchment or control. Keep a cool head. Hey, man, be cool. Hippies were cool. The fonze was cool. Bikers are cool. Roughnecks are cool. Punks are cool. Ravers are cool. Frat boys are cool.

With the "I'm cool, nothing bothers me" attitude there has to be a sense of superficiality, since emotion is human and to hide behind a wall of toughness is a defense mechanism. The people that are so preoccupied with not showing weakness are often the first to show signs of weakness by forming exclusive bonds with others who are "cool" in their particular way. They need something to belong to, a unified interest, being part of something.

I feel I am truly part of nothing, which makes me part of everything.

If I met you on the street, through a friend, and you were some sort of "cool" person, I would ignore your false "cool" attitude, be myself, and relate you on an "uncool" level. I wouldn't try to relate to you by suddenly adopting your slang or attitude. I would talk to you like I'd talk to my parents or my boss. If you then deemed me "uncool", I would then deem you "narrow minded"... But, you'd still be "cool", don't worry. I'm not sure what's so great about that, though.

Cool, to me, is nothing to do with being gullible or easily led. I see it as different to being fashionable, which is what you're talking about. Although that is a troublesome word too. Depends on what you think constitutes fashion - the things everyone is consuming more of (eg. Stereophonics albums), or the things that the cognoscenti judge to be good? Cognoscenti judging things to be good (and I don't mean things as arbitary as the width of this season's belt) is a complex business. It's what we do in every classic or dud thread. It's all about weaving an aesthetic - oh look I'll stop here before I get too pompous.

Put it this way: despising the tastes of an idiot hipster like Nathan Barley does not mean you are rejecting cool, in my book.

hmmm....When I think of a "cool" person, I think of someone who doesn't like something for image reasons, thus potentially missing out on good &/or fun things. The same person would look down on other people who do not share their aesthetic, but at the same time, if enough people shared it, they'd drop it, which is pretty silly, really. It's kind of like narrowcast conformity.

Did anyone see the bit about "the face" & "the wag club" in that "I love thee '80's" series? Now they *were* cool, weren't they? You wouldn't want to spend much time in their company though, would you?

x0x0

it's never been cool to be cool. it's always been cool to not care if you were cool or not, and therefore am i cool or not is fool.

anyone who doesn't care if they're cool or not, though, is obviously trying to be cool. like myself, for one. though i think nick gets it right: i don't strive to be cool, rather i try to not be uncool.

i like to think i'm cool, but then i go to the knitting factory and realize that, while in many ways i am in fact cool, i just don't LOOK cool. maybe if i was rich i'd work more on my particular look, but as it is, i wear jeans -- admittedly too large for me -- and t-shirts, when the weather allows, and sweaters -- admittedly just this close to being too small -- when the weather demands. my hair merely exists, it just kind of hangs out on top of my head. my glasses are round and not really cool. if i were to enter a cool contest in new york, i would be laughed off the stage.

but, then again, is cool all about your style or about your personality? or is your style your personality or vice versa? on the internet, it's an easy answer: it's all about how you make yourself sound...unless you're fool enough to project your image across the world via a webcam. but what about in the real world? i think it depends more on your look than anything else because everyone but EVERYONE judges you on your appearance, so that's what makes you cool.

or does it?

While we're on the subject, a moment's silence, if you will, for the dear departed Wag which, apparently, is about to be converted into an Irish theme pub (see the story in today's Guardian for details). Yes, it may have given us Sade (and even worse - Robert Elms), yes it may have been vastly overpriced in every conceivable way... but, I saw a great Spearmint show there once, and it was kind of reassuring to know if there was *absolutely nothing else* going on on a Saturday night, you could always roll up at Blow Up... Now, could someone sell off the Highbury Garage? Please?

A great Spearmint show?

Anyway - I don't know what 'The Wag Club' is, but The Face cool? I don't think so.

Robert Elms: Search and destroy.

someone should introduce the pinefox to tanya, i think. could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Cool? I like Rush. *FUCK* cool. Y'all are angsting too much on the subject.

What exactly is uncool about webcams? Not that I own one, I'm just interested in why you would think that...

Cool is neither cool nor uncool, just a pre-post concept of centrality in a neo-urban, hyper-capitalistic pseudo structuralist society...cool?

nothing particularly wrong about webcams. it just seems that most people who have them:
a) put them to no good use.
b) shouldn't have them in the first place. when someone's got a good amount of internet cool built up, a mystique about them, nothing can ruin it so much as a bad cam.

Cool is ephemeral. Just as last year's irony becomes this year's sincerity, last year's uncool becomes this year's cool, and this year's cool won't last long. But that's not a reason to dismiss it, just a reason it might be scary. 'Stop the world, I want to get off!'

Cool is urban. Of course with friends and lovers we get beyond questions of style, projection and appearance pretty quickly. But in an urban environment where you might have hundreds of glancing contacts daily, cool is a way of identifying yourself to peers.

Cool is an aesthetic code with ethical dimensions. Mod, for instance, is a way of life as well as a look. This is what I was talking about saying it was like the honour of duellists and knights and samurai.

There are two types of cool, which I hope you'll forgive me for calling the 'anaesthetic' and the 'hyperaesthetic' (originally terms from schizoid psychiatry). Anaesthetic cool is about hiding yourself behind shades, leather, detachment. It's often the refuge of the shy. It can verge on autism. I don't find it positive. Hyperaesthetic cool is dandy, florid, friendly and experimental. Flip through a Japanese street style magazine like Fruits, Egg, or Cutie (or visit the Cutie Girls archive at www.shift.jp.org) and you'll see lots of this kind of cool. I personally find it very inspiring, and I'm waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with the boldness and originality of the Harajuku teens. Coooooooooooool!

Maybe not living in an urban environment *is* the reason why I don't feel I need cool, then.

it is much cooler to say that you're uncool than to say that you're cool. unless you're only saying it because you want to be cool. at which point it becomes quite uncool. there are some qualifiers, though: if you frankly admit to being uncool, that's probably cool; if you're proud of being uncool, you better be because you are immensely uncool...which will either make you happier, justifying your belief in your own innate uncoolness, or will upset you because you were just saying it in the first place to be cool.

in the end, it's probably better not to worry yourself about being cool or uncool.

The term is used derisively to talk about someone who presumably thinks about being cool, which is the kiss of death. The only *truly* cool people are the ones who never, ever, think about being cool. They just are what they are. This is like 1 in 10,000, maybe. And most of these folks are over 60 or under 10.

That's like saying that people who try to be creative never are. Why must everything be 'unconscious' and 'natural'? Beauty is pain, bro! You have to work at it, just like you have to work at art. You'll get better at it with practise and conscious application. People who don't even try are just being lazy.

I think Momus is right; and I think a lot of the moebius-loop-thinking on this thread comes from talking of cool as some ahistorical, innate quality of being 'right'. Imagine cool as a quality in some larger cartography of popular taste.... Cool has a quite specific history, invented (let's say), by Baudelaire on the streets of mid-19c Paris as a way of being an aristocrat in a mass culture, cool goes out of favour with the advent of modernism (the sturm and drang of futurism, dada, surrealism etc), while maintaining a crypto-presence at the Bauhaus. It's reinvented in the postwar jazz scene around Miles Davis as a way out of the bebop impasse, just as it's reinvented by Kraftwerk as a way out of the psych-rock impasse...

which leads us to the question we've all been dreading...

what, or even who, is cool today?

i couldn't define it, myself, but give me a list of names and i'll tell you which of them is cool and which isn't. and then by seeing who i selected and uncovering the common attributes, then perhaps some sort of definition can be put forth. but off the top of my head, i don't know if that's possible.

Cool goes out of favour with the advent of modernism? I don't buy it. If the word cool can possibly be used in relation to lc19 / ec20, then modernism *was* what was cool for that period. You could even say that Stephen Dedalus on the artist out of sight, paring his fingernails, is making a prescription for cool. But I wouldn't, because I think that would be excessively anachronistic.

and this of course foolishly means that i believe there to be an objective definition of cool. which isn't the case, surely, because there are probably out there who think that gorillaz are cool...

Gorillaz is a very good example to distinguish between what some people are understanding by cool and what I mean by it. Most of us seem to agree that they are terrible, but to me that means they're uncool, whereas under someone like norman fay's definition, they are the pinnacle of cool.

Maybe to me it just means 'good taste', without the negative, stultifying connotations of 'tasteful'.

I'm damn cool, if I sent my picture to Am I Cool or Not? everyone would say I'm cool...and I would applaud their good judgement! :)...

In the real world no one thinks I'm cool, myself included. I think those wishing to be cool are just being asspirational wanting to 'belong' to a certain group, scene etc. Those they see as cool have just obtained the respect of said group, and use this status as a way of boosting their esteem and power. It's pretty human to want to be seen as 'cool'(independent, not easily led, a trend setter etc) I think. But, in actuallity we all have our weaknesses and shouldn't really worry about it. So, if truth be told nobody is cool.

What I wrote does sort of make sense to me, apology's if it appears confusing! :)

"taste" and "cool" are inextricably entwined as far as i'm concerned. first, they're both subjective: i'll be crass and say that what is cool, what is good taste, is what i believe either/both to be.

being cool is all about making the right choices in order to cultivate a persona that is, for lack of a better words, cool. and the right choices are made by having good taste.

Hey, I've just remembered what's cool. Lloyd Cole.

Phew. That's sorted *that* one out.

Momus mentions Harajuku... I hope to god the world doesn't catch up with that kind of cool. It gives me a headache just walking through Harajuku.

But you do want us to know you're cool enough to have been there, I notice!

I like momus' point about engaged vs. disengaged cool. Someone who is, for example, to "cool" to eat a boiled chicken foot when you offer them one in some low-class chinatown joint is disengaged. Someone "cool" enough to realize that they must step up to the challenge, now that's a good cool.

I, of course, am a paragon of good cool.

There is only one thing in the world that is uncool, and that is people who use the phrase "internet cool". The internet is inherently uncool.

I it still hip to be square? I sure hope so!

James el (freedunit), I understood ya. You said the same thing I did. When it comes down to logic, "cool" is a non-issue. Think of those anti-smoking campaigns that have the animals with the cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.

To respond to Momus...I definitely agree with you about creativity. The idea that it should "just happen" is bullshit, and totally discounts the even more interesting idea of hard work. But what I was trying to convey is that my definition of "Cool" is doing what feels right w/ out thinking about what others think. Maybe that's not really possible, but the closer one gets the closer you get to cool in my eyes. Something about the self-confidence that goes along with that idea is so appealing. Ideas of cool as that depend on specific interests or cultivating tastes just don't interest me.

NiCK SeZ:

>>>Gorillaz is a very good example to distinguish between what some people are understanding by cool and what I mean by it. Most of us seem to agree that they are terrible, but to me that means they're uncool, whereas under someone like norman fay's definition, they are the pinnacle of cool. <<<

AAAAAhhh...BuT.

"GoRiLLaZ" *iZ* CooL, Y'See!!! "HiP" CoMiX aRTiST (HoW He MaNaGeS To CoMBiNe auTHoRSHiP oV "WaNK GiRL" W/KoNTiNuInG HiPNeZZ iZ QuiTe THee aCHieVeMeNT, No?) KoLLaBoRaTeZ W/TReNDy SCeNe-SPoTTiNG PoP-ZTaR.

ReKoRD iZ oN FRoNT KoVeR oV NME BeFoRe iT iZ eVeN ReLeaZeD!

HoW /|\uCH / U cAN'T GeT aNY HiGH3R THaN THee PiNNaKLe oV K3WL!

TH!Z /|\eR3LY ProVeZ /|\Y P0!|\|T THo'

"GoR!LLaZ" !Z CooL.

"GoR!LLaZ" QuiTe PoZZ!Bli ***SUX0R*** LiKe N0 ReKoRD e\/3R SuX0R B4.

THeR3FoRe "CooL = Su><"

|\|0\/\/ / WHeRe Do Y00 R3aD aBT MoMuS?????

"THee GuaRD!aN" (*NoT* "CooL")

"|\|3W ZTaTeSMaN" MaGaZ!Ne (*NoT* "CooL")

Thee !NTeRNeT (*NoT* "CooL")

****BuT****

MoMuS = RuLeZ.

MoMuS MuZiK = KLeVeR, WiTTY, eNGaGiNG, /<-RaD.

MoMuZ LYR!X = L!K3WiZe

(CLeVeR = /<-NoT Cool, BTW. STuP!D = Cool. THeR3FoRe Cool = ZTuP!D)

***4LL*** LiNKs !N MoMuS eS5aYZ \/\/oRTH KL!CK!NG oN = LeaD 2 NeW & !NTeReSt!NG PLaCeS. GooD NeW MuZiK, eTC. LeaRN aBT MoRe /<-RaD NeW MuSiK FRoM MoMuS' WeBSiTe (eG MC PauL BaRMaN) THaN FRoM NMe.

****BuT****

MoMuS = NoT CooL.

BBBY GLLSP = CooLeR THaN /\/\0/\/\|_|5!!!!

****THeR3FoRe****

"Cool" = WoRTHLeSS.

"NoT CooL" = THee WaY To Be = \/\/aY To aRT!ZTiK & KuLTuRaL N!RVaNa, LaYMuRZ!!!

PH33R MY 31337 LoGiK!!!

x0x0

Ah, finally, someone has distinguished between the ideas of "cool" and "taste". Everyone knows that they are two seperate ideas, but which is which?

One is the idea of being true to oneself, the other of being true to a (societally imposed?) commonly agreed upon format.

For me, true Cool is something like zen. The harder you try, the less you attain it. And if you try to hard, there should be large bald monks to whack you upside the head with bamboo rods.

And Momus is wrong. Creativity or Talent is inborn, just like Cool. *CRAFT* is the thing that you work at and refine. A subtle difference, but an important one.

If you have to work at being cool, then you are failing, and merely being hip. Which, to me, is a Bad Thing.

FT readers are not cool. And most exasperating they pretend they do not care about their uncoolness.

Cool is Jen Herrema. Paul Simonon. Miss AllyK is the exception, of course.

What are you banging on about?

But isn't it wrong to lable people cool or un-cool, cause ain't that a type of stereotyping and can't it lead to bullying etc.?

Is this a good time to ask when the new Am I Cool Or Not? will be posted? ;-)

I find that being cool is less work than being uncool. I can never figure out which bad records I'm supposed to like.

I want to be hot — and at the moment I am...

Cool: very difficult to say what it is. Uncool: extremely easy to identify, I find!

cool is an uncool as citrus fashion - u decide?

New AICON will be posted after the weekend.

But shurely being "cool" is knowing exactly which bad records to like? New rule for 2001 - huey lewis again - "sometimes bad is bad"