What is “cool”?

While it isn’t the best source, the Urban Dictionary defines cool as “…being real. Being themselves and not caring how other people view what they say or do.” I tend to agree that we equate what is “cool” to being unique like in the frontline video we watched. But not too unique, right? I think anyone in this class could say a few trends in music or clothes, things that have come and gone.

I tend to think that one of the driving companies in our perception of what is “cool” now is Urban Outfitters. They make cute clothes at unreasonable prices and are constantly testing boundaries with sometimes ridiculous outfits or “edgy” jokes and comments, a tool that works in their favor at making them seem like they can sell you “cool” if you have enough cash. Right now, a scroll through their website will tell you what to wear and how to look to be cool: puffy faux fur jackets, corduroy everything, plaid miniskirts, and chunky shoes (either Balenciaga knockoffs or Dr.Martens will do). Wow there you go, set to look like everyone else, right? But where in that do we see ourselves as unique because I could’ve given you the same shopping list walking down the halls last week. So where is the individuality of it all? It is in the “I found it first” that we all have locked and loaded in the back of our brains (I am SOOOOOO guilty of this) because we all find something that we love before anyone else and everyone else buys that, so they can feel ahead of the game, and then you have to restart all over again because everyone has the same thing. Wow, corporate America really does have us locked in this cycle.

I feel like I can’t end this blog on that note, but I must because there is no solution. Well, the point is we are all trying to find our own solutions. I can give the closest thing that I have to some semblance of escaping the cycle, but who’s to say that won’t restart the cycle. It’s for each of us to find our own solution because this could be the only way to be “cool” all on our own. But realistically, there is no escape from the realm of cool, either we follow the pack, or we reject it, both of which are still groups, meaning that we are all inherently non-unique by ever searching for uniqueness or rejecting it.