Category: Let's talk
A friend of mine and I were having a discussion the other day about how it seems the definition of a cool person has changed, least to our perception it's changed. It used to be a cool person was somebody who was a complete individual and did and said and enjoyed exactly what they wanted to and were completely comfy in their own skin. They weren't concerned with what everyone else was doing or what the trends were, it's kind of like they were in their own solid world. Think for example of a character like the Fonz on the old Happy Days show. OK, so he was an idealized character, but he was exactly who he was, had his leather jacket and his motorcycle and didn't care about much else.
Nowadays, it seems cool has changed. Cool these days means popular or trendy, the most popular people, the ones who are in tune with all the trends and things, the ones everyone wants to be like, jocks or cheerleaders or etc. Is this true or is it not?
And then we come to the uncool, the nerds, the squares, whatever. Going back to Fonzie as our example of cool, he thought people like Richie Cunningham were nerds. No leather jacket, no motorbike, no real charisma, went along with their parents' wishes, etc, kind of flat, dull, undistinguished and clean-cut. Nowadays, an uncool person is somebody who is socially awkward, doesn't follow fashion or trend, and is into things no self-respecting human would care about like comic books, old black-and-white monster movies, science fiction, and other specialized but not-so-trendy things. Again, I could be wrong. So, what do you think, have I hit the mark or am I missing something?
Right on. As someone who's been considered uncool for all my life, for various reasons, but the main one being that I wasn't into things that most kids were into, I can definitely relate to what you're saying. If it's really true that it used to be cool to be yourself, I now more than ever wish I could have a time machine that would transport me back to the 60's. I would give anything to experience Woodstock, lol. But thats beside the point. All joking aside, I would really and truly like to experience being accepted for who I am, flaws, quirks and all. There's only been one person in my life who not only appreciates the things I'm into, but doesn't feel the need to crack jokes and say I'm weird. Most of my friends do that on a regular basis. When I was in school, I took a lot of crap from people not only for being blind, but for being different, quiet, and more concerned with things like, you know, actually giving a damn about people and their problems than stabbing them in the back just to gain popularity.
Just to give a little background on a couple of the things that set me apart from others of my age group, as I've said on several other topics on this site, I collect records, and I'm quite passionate about music in general. On this site, when I first admitted to collecting vinyl, I was accused of following a trend, which didn't even make sense, but I've dealt with worse. One of my exes used to take every oppurtunity to make jokes about it at my expense, and his parents definitely thought I was weird for it too. He once said that we should usher in the digital age by building a fire pit shaped like an IPod, gather up as many records as possible, and burn them, because they're old and crappy, and no one needs them. I will never forget that he said that, even though it happened about 4 years ago, it just made me feel shitty in a way I can't even describe. When I was a kid, my parents had pretty good jobs, and my dad bought some old arcade games from a guy who was auctioning them at the time. In our basement, we had a couple of pinball machines, a Donkey Kong game, one of the original Asteroids games, a talking dart board, this game called Tapper, where you had to serve beers to as many patrons in the bar as you could in a set time and not drop them, and of course, my personal favorite, a jukebox. That's where my original exposure to not only records, but to the music of my parents' generation began. i associate many of the songs I heard then with some of the only happy memories I have of my childhood. When my dad lost the job he had at the time, and had to sell all the arcade stuff, I understood that. But he kept the 45's that we had in the jukebox, because I think he knew that it would have broken my heart if he got rid of them. Now I have them, because my parents didn't want them anymore, and just about all the ones from my childhood have survived through all these years. So when people criticize that part of my life, as irrational as this sounds, it really hurts me. It's something I just can't seem to change about myself. It's like when people make fun of me for that, and for listening to what to them should be old, forgotten music, the stuff of nightmares and embarrassment, I'm as bad as their parents. Not only that, but whether they mean to or not, they're discrediting my childhood experiences, robbing them of the good memories attached to many of those songs. That's another thing my ex said. he said that even though his parents listened to classic rock and other types of music from that generation, so he was exposed to it as much as I was, he certainly hated it, so growing up with it is no excuse for me to like it. to be honest, and I really hate to admit this, I had no idea until I was about 13 that people were actually listening to bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and everything else in the grunge movement in the 90's. Alternatively, they were overindulging on a steady diet of fluff, like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. When I began to become concerned that no one knew what the hell I was talking about when I was asked what kind of music I liked, I branched out and began listening to those bands, and many others, just to get a feel for what was "in." I don't regret doing so. It helped expand my horizons, and helped me realize that I can listen to just about any genre of music, even if my reasons at the time were a little misguided.
Then there's the fact that I also prefer classic movies. There's just something relaxing about them. I guess you could say that it helps me to feel like I'm being transported back to a simpler time. I remember when another ex of mine and I were looking for something to watch on TV, and The Wizard of Oz happened to be on. I wanted to watch it, and he yelled, "are you fucking serious? That's kids' stuff!" I was shocked. I didn't know that adults weren't supposed to watch kids' movies. I could understand if I had been advocating watching Barney or Dora the Explorer or something, but I couldn't help but think that it was probably because the movie was old, either that or he really did think it was unacceptable to have an inner child.
Finally, there are a few things that I value, but that most people consider as old-fashioned and/or frivolous, such as the fact that I believe people deserve respect until they give me a reason not to respect them, that you shouldn't have loud personal cell phone conversations on public transportation, that you don't have the right to have everything you want when you want it just because you want it, and that politeness is a virtue. I also don't believe that touch screens are everything they're cracked up to be, though I do understand that one day I'll have to accept them, but I'll never like them. And for all these reasons and more, I'm considered practically untouchable. As I said, I'm lucky that I have one person in my life who thinks like me on pretty much all of these issues. I would probably go insane without him in my life. Knowing you're not alone can be liberating, even if you've still got the majority trying to break you from all sides.
Wow. You had a juke box? Dad wouldn't let me have one because he had no idea who would fix it if it broke. Do you have blank cassettes? Believe me, I wasn't cool either. Fell behind in school because of sickness in childhood. Wasn't considered smart or talented with singing and such. Went into the world of my own music that I had. Once i started working as a medical typist, you can certainly know I collected records I had no money for previously. Then I switched to CD's, but kept my old stuff on cassettes. Anyway, keep your identity and love the folks who share your views.
The funny thing about the hippies is, looking back, their trend was just to make it look like they were all "themselves" and "individual" and all the while they were going along with the pack, in that case the pack saying they weren't going along with the pack. If you really were comfortable with yourself and all that, one would expect you wouldn't be talking about who is comfy in their own skin and who isn't. I was no preppy in the 80s: I had more empathy with the gang of us who had the stickers saying "My kid beat up your honor student" rather than the yuppies "My kid made honor student."
Howevvfer, I'm not arrogant and self-righteous enough to imagine that I was somehow more of an individual for it: we all did it because we thought it was fun. Grouped up, joined with like minds, and had a time of it. That's what most people do.
The only difference is those who scream the loudest for acceptance often look down their noses at everyone else who doesn't watch the same old movies or whatever else you mentioned. So you like what you like, they like what they like. Why does it matter why someone likes what they like? And the irony is, those who talk the most about being comfy in their own skin are the most judgmental of others who don't fit into their mold for being comfy in one's own skin. Am I the only one sees the irony in all this?
And yet we hope the kids my daughter's age are growing out of this stuff.
Humans, being generally social creatures, are likely to gravitate towards people of their own kind. Looking back, I don't know if the yuppies were less, as some say, comfortable in their own skin than us rabble-rousers. They were just more uptight, generally snippy and at least to us, a little weird. But we ran in packs too. Taking shots at everyone else, in particulra what you call 'normal' working people, doesn't show you as being comfy in your skin or what have you, it just makes the rest of us remember the less-fond memories of high school. It's as if some people are still trying to carry out a grudge against the jocks and cheerleaders of yesterday. But you may be looking in the wrong places. You might find some of the jocks in your local prison system, and your cheerleaders might well be driving the minivan to your local grocery store and posting those "let's-just-settle-down" personal ads on Craigslist.
But honestly, no matter how you slice it, people do tend to either group up, or resent not grouping up, with similar people. And when they do, they often create an in-group of their own. And that includes those who wear the confy-in-my-own-skin or whatever other word for it, as a badge.
I think coolness is something that is based on one's perception. Some people would think something or someone is cool while others may laugh in disgust.
Well, looking down my nose at people who have what would be considered cool by society's standards interests would be a bit counterproductive, wouldn't it? What point would that serve? I'm sure people do it, but I'm not one of them. I know how it feels to be considered so weird and untouchable that I wouldn't subject anyone to that treatment unless their activities were illegal and/or immoral. But as for having different interests, that's one of the things that makes friendships unique. If you can share your interests with someone, and they share them back, that's called respect. But if you're not considered normal, too damn bad for you, I guess, because you're just going to become the brunt of everyone's jokes. That's not to say that everyone should have the same interests, or that you can only be friends with someone if you have similar perspectives and interests. But when I disagree with someone, or don't see the point in what they're interested in, I shrug it off, knowing that it's their right to feel and believe as they do, and to have preferences. If it's something that I've never looked into, but I think might be interesting, I might research, or check it out, and make my own decision based on what I think. But I have never in my life made fun of someone just because their interest wasn't considered normal, or what everyone else should be doing. I only wish that people who call themselves my friends would show me the same courtesy sometimes. But hey, maybe courtesy is just another of those old-fashioned values I cling to, right?
I think cool is whatever you want it to be depending on your own perceptions and people with whom you identify. If you are considered a nerd by a lot of people but hang out with a group of nerds, then nerds are cool to you.
Personally, I don't put to much stock in beeing cool. If I happen to fit in with a group of people, great, if I don't, so be it.
Cool is what ever your parents don't like. lol right Leo?
Actually, this raises another point that might be more on par with what the original poster was looking for. It may not have been wise to make it personal, but I'll try to remedy that a bit with this post.
It seems that normal and cool are synonymous terms these days. If you're not cool, you're not normal, and vice versa. I do have to make this personal again for a moment, but I hope this time it's more relevant. I can think of many examples in my childhood where I didn't do what was expected of me, and thus would have been normal. For one thing, I played with Barbies as much as the next girl, but I was equally interested in cars, trains, and the like. I used to love those remote-control cars that you could drive around. And yet, little girls play with dolls, little boys play with cars. that's why I clearly remember going to Burger King and getting their equivalent of a Happy Meal, and they had a choice between a Hot Wheels car for a boy and one of those miniature Barbies for a girl. But do you know what I liked even more than Barbies and Polly Pockets? Those dolls that were quite popular in the 90's that would go to the bathroom. Ok, so obviously they had a target audience, but I know my parents thought it odd that I preferred them. Then, of course, when I started going to school, even as young as kindergarten, I found that I could have fun with boys as well as girls. I dont think I had a preference for one or the other at that age, but I do remember having burping contests with a few of the boys, and being invited to their birthday parties. Definitely not normal. And then, when I was in first grade, there was this boy in my class who was a foster child. He was black, and since I've grown up in a rural area where it's pretty much expected that you're racist, I know a lot of kids didn't want anything to do with him, even if it was only because their parents said so at that age. Do you think I would heed that code of conduct? Nope. If that had been a few years later, I guarantee I probably would have ended up on the wrong side of quite a few fists. But as it was, as uncomfortable as I'm sure my parents were with it, they let me hang out with him at school. he moved away at the end of the year, so it never went beyond anything manageable, but that just goes to show that even when I didn't know what racism was, I wasn't. And that was definitely not normal in the town in which I grew up.
As I got older, girls seemed more fickle and petty than I was willing to put up with, and I found myself making friends with mostly guys. Sure, guys can cause drama, but it seemed a lot easier to have an opposite sex friendship than a same-sex one. To this day, I still don't wear makeup, my fashion sense is questionable, I still like having guys as friends, because in my experience they've been more reliable and trustworthy, and I can beer belch with the best of you, lol. And yes, I brought up beer because that's not really considered a feminine beverage. The other, deeper, more concerning thing, is that I feel anger. Now, I'm aware that as an adult, I'm not supposed to have emotions, but as a woman, anger is a definite no-no. I do my best to keep it in check, to not let anyone know it's there, but sometimes I feel like I have a bottomless well of rage stored inside me. The very fact that I chose to use the word rage should show my abnormality. And yet, it's not something that I can just flip a switch and poof, it's all gone. It's all very confusing to me.
So, as I said above, I've been shunned by most people, and I'm certain that it has to do with the fact that I'm not only not cool, not trendy, not in, but also not normal. Combined, those two things can open every door of success to you. If you have one of those things, everyone will assume you have the other, thus making the terms interchangeable. But if you have neither, you're screwed. I'll give another example from my own life about how a little normality can go a long way. My ex that I spoke of, the one who vehemently spit upon my music tastes every chance he got, comes from a stable, upper-middle class family, has 3 older brothers, his parents are happily in love, etc. He's grown up wanting for nothing, physically or emotionally, and although in my personal opinion it's made him a bit spoiled, it's also given him oppurtunities. For example, he's now in college. he procrastinates a lot in classes, but when he asks for extensions on his work, no matter how many times he does it, he gets them. It's the charm of normality. If I, or most other people for that matter, ever tried that, we would get a flat out no and a one way ticket to an F. One of the reasons I had to end my relationship with him was that it was painful for me to interact with his family. I felt like I was upsetting the carefully constructed balance they had in their lives, and that they hated me for it. There are things I could say to prove that, too, but I think I've said quite enough for now.
I think margorp said it best; cool means different things to different people. What is considered "cool" to one person could be outright ridiculous to another.
That's why I say just live your life, be yourself (not what others want you to be) and don't worry about trying to always fit in. Chances are you'll be much happier if you do.
Yup, exactly.
Shattered sanity, you and your family sound awesome. I've always been into older arcade games and things like that. I remember Tapper too, there was this old pizza hut we used to go to that had a little tabletop version of that one. Getting back to the topic, and I think this is pretty much the point, cool is all a matter of perspective. I might enjoy a lot of verried and weird things, but there's plenty of others who share that fondness. Maybe I'm an unabashed excentric, so what's cool to the majority might be boring to me. More often than not, it is, but they'd probably think the same about my taste in music, my hobbies, whatever.
On a somewhat off-topic note, Pearl Jam has a song called Spin the Black Circle, at first glance you'd think the lyrics might be about shooting up heroine, but it's really about playing records. Eddy once called out to a radio station at a concert before playing it, and gave a request that they go back to playing nothing but vinal.
He did that? Interesting.
while part of me does agree with those who are saying cool means different things to different people, the bigger part of me feels leo said it best. if you really were so comfortable in your skin as you claim, you wouldn't be bringing up topics like this. you'd just live however you do, like the things you like, and not care who has something to say about it.
Sure did. They'd been doing a lot of stuff with Neil Young around that time, and it was then a lot of their fans really got to know what their influences were.
It is up for conversational purpases Chelsae. No need to get snarky.
Of course cool means different things to different people. That's a vague answer.
I've always thought of being cool as someone who fits in well, and someone who everyone wants to hang out with. Though I'm sure the meaning has changed over time, as most things do with ever changing generations.
I'm not being snarky; I simply stated, in my own words, something similar to what leo did.
cool is the temperature between warm and cold, or rather luke warm and cold, but I don't consider it anything else,
Kind of like the bit about normal being a setting on a clothes dryer, right?