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Written with Code Igniter in PHP. Fuelled by tea.
The sudden discussion of cool going on across Afterlife is missing a vital point. We seem to be repeatedly touching on the fact that none of us seem to give much of a shit about MySpace. Well, I have a profile, of course, because if it's on the Internet I have a profile on it, and Karinski has a profile, and unlike me she actually uses hers properly, to find out about new music. But membership of MySpace doesn't make you cool. In fact, it's not even relevant.
"Coolness" is shorthand for "the respect of your peers". If all your peers are on MySpace, therefore, it is vitally important that you join up as well. This is why I'm on it (I have too many webbed-up friends not to be) and why Karinski is on it (it's vital for discovering new music). But if your peers aren't on it, then you don't need to be. In fact, a sixty year old granny on myspace wouldn't be cool, she would be sad. MySpace is for the young and musically avant-garde. We're not either of those groups anymore, but that doesn't make us uncool. It just makes us part of a different peer-group.
So, who are your peers, the ones you care what they think of you? Well, for me it's the Afterlife lot, it's a certain subset of my co-workers, and it's a smattering of other people across the world and the web with whom I'm in regular contact. In that particular group, I like to think I have their respect, for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with my taste in music. Some people like my dancing. Some merely find me interesting conversation. In some circles -- would you belive -- my modest technical skills, collection of domain names and their combined web traffic makes me so blindingly cool you wouldn't believe.
So screw humility and admissions of uncoolness. I'm not just cool, I'm unbelievably cool. I'm so hip I have trouble seeing over my pelvis. And so are you lot, and you rest assured I'm an authority on this, because I'm cool.
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Comments
Graham
"OMG ROFL LOL! Like, OMG, I love JAmes Vlunt and Niles Barkly! Myspace is sooooooo cooooool!"
...
is how all myspace pages look to my wizened old eyes. 'Young' I'll admit, but musically avant-garde it cannot be when there are so many identikit teens on there.
Laurie
Mikey
Somehow that doesn't seem quite right. That would suggest that a collection of mathematics professors would consider a fellow mathematics genius "cool." Having spent 4 years in the corridors of the vanguard of mathematical thought I am fairly sure that's the last thing they think.
Occasionally they would think an *idea* is "cool" and therefore by extension the person who came up with that idea might be associated with that word. But I think most of them would be rather surprised if you told them they find each other cool.
ed
Laurie
My point is that you define what is cool, because coolness is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder is always willing to accept what you tell them.
Talia
Robert
I know more about theories of voting than anyone I know. My peers respect this, but they still mock me as a Tory geek... respect does not apparently equal cool...
Laurie
Mikey
You cannot counter Robert's argument by simply saying "geeks are cool". Quite apart from the fact that I think that's a false statement (I think geeks can be interesting and in many ways I have a geeky side to me but just because you approve of them doesn't mean they are cool. anyway...) that's akin to you sulkingly stomping your foot and insisting you are right.
"Cool" is a slang term that has evolved from a mixed social context. Yes you can say "geeks are cool" as a personal, subjective and not binding expression of approval just as I can say "uncool people are cool" from an anti-establishment point fo view. This is not the same use of "cool" as in the phrase "cool kids". I don't honestly know what the definition of "cool kids" is (my personal opinion is that geeks are not them, nor are mathematicians) but hopefully the above example should demosntrate that you are merely confusing two homonyms.
As for your previous comment about the conformist culture, you cannot hijack a slang term with a very particular linguistic history and claim that it's universaully applicable. When it first emerged it had a very narrow meaning. It did not have a narrow meaning because of the conformist culture. It had a narrow meaning because the particular social subgroup within which it emmerged wished to give it that meaning. Granted, subsequently the use of the term evolved and developped but currently (IMHO) it has not been expanded so far as to give it such a broad interpretation. If you wish to express general approval there are plenty of other synonyms for that. There is no need to load a perfectly specific (if undefined) term with extra information load.
Laurie
How many times do I have to say "Cool is what you decide is cool" for you to get my point? Of *course* I can say "geeks are cool", because *all* definitions of cool are entirely subjective, so mine is as valid as any other.
As for "hijacking" a term: the meaning of "cool" is ever-moving, ever-fluid -- what was cool in 2003 is seldom cool now, and what was cool in 1990 is so far away from what is cool now that it's almost unbelievable we ever thought it was cool. "Cool" has a meaning that changes from moment to moment, so there is in no easier word to redefine for your own purposes, because there is an existing cultural expectation that the definition will change, and people are always willing to be reinformed of what the Next Cool Thing is.
But in any case, I did not intend to get into a linguistic argument, but a psychological/social one. My point is that people are easily swayed by a strong personality into thinking *anything* is cool, so if I say what I think is cool often enough and strongly enough, that's the definition that will take over. Which was the point of my original, tongue-in-cheek post.
M
The post was meant to be about how much my life has changed since I used to do the things that I considered and still consider cool, and how that probably means I'm growing up and how actually thats alright.