On youtube there are "gurus" which are basically people who show you how to do certain things and give tutorials. Coolness is associated with fashion and style and celebrities have a little following where people want to do things that they see celebrities have done and try to emulate them. This clip shows you how to style your hair and is inspired by celebrities. On the sidebar are the list of the products so people watching can easily buy the products and recreate the look.
This youtube clip exemplifies that part of our culture where people want to get the "celebrity look". Clips like this have hordes of views (this one has almost half a million) and it goes to show how popular clips showing people how to get a certain look are. Having your own style is associated with being cool but people tend to follow popular trends as well, which is one of the paradoxal natures of being "cool". How can you be cool when most things people do are fairly homogenous? In the grander scheme of things, anything you do is fairly homogenous as there are 6 billion people on earth, doing something that hasn't been done before is relatively one of the harder aspirations of coolness for people.
TV show- Hannah Montana
Hannah Montana is a popular kids show on Disney Channel and ABC a bout a girl leading a double life of being a famous singer and a regular girl. She is especially popular with preteen girls. Younger girls emulate people like Hannah Montana by dressing like her because she is depicted as cool, kid. Cool connotes a bit of celebrity and they want that. Why do people aspire to be cool? Because when people think they're cool they feel valued versus being uncool. People notice them and admire them. As a star, Miley Cyrus has fame and because of that plot, Hannah Montana so appealing to the kids who watch it, because Hannah Montana is just a regular kid but she's a star. Kids want that too. They want to stand out while fitting in.
Shampo, Diana "How to be cool at any age." http://www.ehow.com/how_5688564_cool-age.html Ehow. December 7 2009
This is four tips on being cool and its basically how cool people act. They don't say they're cool, they're interested in other people. They don't "fly off the handle" in a bad situation, they don't use language that's not their own, like slang.
I think cool is a certain attitude. If you're corny and you use slang to be corny and you know it, then its okay. If you're earnest in being who you are and being who you are doesn't hurt anyone, then it doesn't matter whether its cool or not and that's cool right?I think the trying to keep yourself calm and not flying "off the handle" is a good tip. She uses an example of a ten year old trying to steal your purse. If you freak out at a little kid then nothing gets solved and it justs looks pretty bad because you didn't handle the situation well. I think by that age, if you're an adult and yelling at a little kid....that's not that great since there are other ways to go about it. I think showing interest in people other than yourself is a good tip is a good tip because you're more open to the world and you might learn a thing or two.
Vognar, Chris. "Plano Resident's book argues that the concept of cool is yesterday's news." http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/121309dngdcool.3ffff0d.html. The Dallas Morning News. December 7 2009-Ted Gioa
Ted Gioia, the author of The Birth (and Death) of Cool argues that cool is dead, that blunt earnestness has made cool obsolete. He cites Pop culture as one area where he sees the fall of cool. He argues that on reality TV shows, like American Idol, uncool earnestness (Taylor Hicks) often triumphs over celebrity cool (Katherine McPhee). Cool is "uncool".
"There are always new styles and fashions," he says. "But now people are drawing them more from their own group of acquaintances rather than these corporately endorsed cool trends. It's a fundamental change."
That's interesting that having a "blunt earnestness" trumps being "cool" and that may be because when people see someone openly working hard on a goal they think its admirable. But for his second argument, that status brands are not as cool to have as it was a few years ago because its mainstream, that cool is dead it means something else is cool. That now, being anti-cool is cool.
-Steven Soderbergh, Made Ocean's Heist Movies
For Soderbergh, cool isn't what you buy, watch or listen to. It's what you do.
"Doing your own thing is always cool and always will be," Soderbergh says in an interview. "Even if whatever you're doing is no longer interesting to anybody, to continue to do it well is still cool. That's different from hip, and it's different from popular.
I find this true too, Soderbergh defines cool differently from Goia. People admire people who can do their own thing. For Soderbergh cool is like a "personal earnestness". If you do something you personally find interesting, that's important to you, than that's cool. In general "cool" is different for everyone. Its a very subjective and broad term and may not be the same for everyone. "Cool is where you find it and what you make of it." One person's cool can be another's square (Vognar).
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