What Separates Me from You

Who’s cool? Someone who likes or does cool things, no argument. Definitions start to split when you attempt to define what cool is or what people, activities, interests, or fashion choices (among others) are considered cool.  For the sake of brevity, a rudimentary framework to understand cool would be a quality of a concept, activity, or object (from now on referred to as a phenomenon) or sensibility of a person to appear outside of the primary choice while still being admirable. Primacy is not to be confused with popularity, as Chuck Taylors are immensely popular but still cool. What was once cool may fall out of being cool, and vice versa.

            If coolness is an appointment, the question arises as to who makes the decision.  Traditionally, coolness is bestowed upon you by society at large for being involved with cool activities. The skater, the rockstar, the fighter pilot, and the break-dancer are cool characters purely by virtue of what they do. How coolness was imbued into these activities relates to the subcultures that surround them and the general reaction to them from authority figures of their time. The nuances of this process are left to a different, even less useful essay. The ascription or identification of coolness to a person is much simpler than that of a phenomenon. Often, something is cool purely due to it being liked by cool people, who have already claimed their coolness by liking some different, pre-established phenomenon. Similarly, a person who has broadly uncool characteristics may become cool by learning a cool new hobby or achieving some heroic -and more importantly, cool- feat (See: Paul Blart Mall Cop). This relationship is reciprocal; an uncool, dead subculture may become cool, even if ironically, as people take inspiration from aesthetics that have long past their heyday.

A drawing of an olive and a shark bonding over cigarettes and a game of pool. The image embodies a classic sense of cool, and implores the viewer to go "hell yeah"

In this niche, the tastemaker is born. An individual whose societal function is to determine what is cool; a priest of coolness. The tastemaker has had many names, forms, and specializations. For example, a Hipster is a now-defunct brand of tastemaker for the millennial generation, which made collecting vinyl, wearing beanies, and getting way too into coffee cool. The tastemaker’s job has only become more meaningful as the decades have gone by, majorly due to the subsumption of all subcultures into the grey amalgam of “counterculture”. Ironically enough, this has led to the death of any actual counterculture, as the sharp and rebellious aspects of those subcultures had to be ironed out to be subsumed in the first place.  

When coolness is not tied to an activity- you can be part of a cool culture just by self-identifying as a member of that culture, all that is left is to find media related to cool subcultures to consume or find cool subcultures to identify as belonging to. In this sort of cultural environment, the tastemaker’s influence exceeds his modest purpose. Paradoxically enough, to the media, what the tastemaker recommends appears cool purely by their recommendation.

Even if proximity to coolness lends the impression of coolness, the phonies always end up revealing themselves. An artist like The Dare -who blew up solely from being seen partying with Charli XCX- was exposed to be nothing more than a James Murphy impressionist after his first project dropped. Not even ingratiating himself with one of the greatest comics in the 21st century; Dave Chappelle could ward off the stench of loserdom and desperation that haunts Elon Musk in whatever he does and wherever he goes.  

So, who are the real cool people? Clearly, it is not those who just hang out with other cool people; although they certainly can be. Is it the status or power deferred onto someone that makes them cool? Absolutely not, if anything, it is the reverse. Are there certain activities a person does that make them cool? Partially, yet there are those that exude cool just by being. They curate a vibe just by the way they talk, the opinions they have, and what they are and aren’t willing to do.

I have provided a working definition for coolness that suffices for most cases, and while I may not be able to mark a perimeter for the exact boundaries of cool, I know exactly what it belies. Coolness is the expression of good taste. It is this understanding of matters, this gut feeling of what is quality and beautiful against what is hack and ugly. Anthony Bourdain’s unimpeachable coolness wasn’t derived from his time as a chef, or his knowledge of world cuisines (although they certainly didn’t hinder). It was his attitude toward life and the meager wisdom he would squeeze out of day-to-day interactions that truly enshrined him as one of the most inarguably cool people in recent memory.

Coolness, then, reflects one’s ability to discern. It is this honing of one’s discerning senses that leads to a more complete man. In a world where the ‘punks’ are telling you to go out and vote, subculture is an outfit you use to get laid and where the hippies ended up in suits, what separates the phony from the real cool cats is their choices. I implore you then, to be critical. Tear up that shlocky YA novel you’ve been reading, start making fun of the sh*t you hear on the Billboard Top 100, sneer at the powers that be, and for the love of god, do not take things as they come.