Homework #23, Exploring what is "Cool"

I think the definition of cool depends on the person who's using it. I may think that a person or thing is cool, when someone else may think that same person or thing is uncool. There are a lot of different things I said on my web brainstorming about cool. I said a lot of things that I thought other people would say, and I said a lot of things that I think are cool. I think it's cool not to try too hard to be cool. I also usually go against typical definitions or people that are "cool". Cool is seen as the clique of popular people that stick to themselves. In my notebook I had written "The cool people in movies are always the clique that has everyone who looks exactly the same, and no one else can get in. They don't talk to anyone outside their clique". For example, in Twilight all of the vampires are in one group, and everyone else wants to be in the "cool" group. All of the girls have a crush on Edward, while he seems to not care for the girls.

In my web I wrote "Nice, helpful, typical, different, unique, original, talented, trying too hard, good looking, smart, Brits, Popular, Skinny jeans, Leather Jackets, Be More Chill, Saint Marks, alternative, piercings, tattoos, punks, 'parties', dyed hair.." (I just read that we're not supposed to write all of these down. Oops.) As I was typing these words from my web I can see the words and things that I think are cool, and the things that everyone else may think is cool. When Jace was reading my web he was making fun of me for writing down leather jackets, skinny jeans, piercings, Saint Marks.. which is a good example of differences in opinions. I don't think the cool clique is cool, I think the guy with the punk hair cut and skinny jeans is cool. But that's just because that's what appeals to me. I don't usually agree with the things people think are cool. I also think it's uncool, liking things just because other people do. "Omg that (super cute person) likes Sublime?! I'm like, so going to buy their new cd now. And love it!" We cannot all not like the same band, or color, or percings, or tatoos, because there aren't enough of them out there for everyone to be completely unique. I may like a song that I hear in Andy's class, and I may go home and buy it on itunes (which I did, by the way) but this is because I liked the sound of the song, not because it was the most popular on itunes.

I feel like burying oneself is not cool. If you act like a jerk but you're cool, you're life is still going to suck. I keep using this example, but if a guy is acting really cool to impress a girl, but he is not being himself, and if the girl falls in love with the guy's not self then she isn't falling in love with who he really is, she's falling in love with who he wants to be seen as. There's this scene in Grease where Sandy and Danny haven't seen each other since the summer, and all of a sudden Sandy finds out Danny goes to the same school as her. So she excitedly screams "Danny!" and Danny in his leather jacket, white teacher, blue jeans and with his gelled hair gets really excited too. "Sandy I thought you were going back to Australia! I'm so glad.. (looks at guy friends.) I mean that's cool. That's cool.. What's a matter with me babe, what's a matter with you?" After Danny realizes his buddies are watching him expectantly, he goes into asshole mode. To please his friends. Which is really, really cool (not).

There's also a quote I love from About A Boy by Nick Hornby, that talks about being cool. "He was, according to the questionnaire, sub-zero! He was dry ice! He was Frosty the Snowman! He would die of hypothermia!... being men's-magazine cool was as close as he had ever come to an achievement, and moments like this were to be treasured. Sub-zero!" (page 7). I just found this scene to be really funny and pathetic. One of the characters in this book is named Will, and he's the sub-zero cool guy. Will cares about fashion, and being trendy. He cares about being mens-magazine cool. Yet when I read about Will, he lives all alone, but he has great clothes as well as great records. But does being cool help if you aren't other good things? Nope, not really. If you have an ugly personality, but look cool, that's not going to save you. If you're a pretty blonde model with blue eyes but you like making people miserable, you're still ugly on the inside. I don't care if that gorgeous model is "cool" because if they're ugly on the inside, they're ugly on the outside as well.

In West Side Story there's a song called "Cool", and all of the lines are talking about playing it cool, and not getting in trouble. One of my favorite lines from that song is "Got a rocket in your pocket, keep coolly cool, boy!" This scene was performed right after the death of one of the Jet's leaders got killed, and all of the guys want to get even. Then one of the guys starts singing this song trying to calm everyone down. Rockets are contained, but if you light a rocket it goes everywhere. So this is a metaphor of the anger bubbling around inside them, and how they have to stay cool, as in staying calm.

Icy. Iced. Frigid. Frosty. "Aw man that jacket is iced!" "Ooh that's icy. The iciest." "That car is frigid man!" "Oh yeah? Frr-osty" I'm kind of fond of these words. In the In Death series by Nora Roberts, there are a lot of characters that speak like this. Whenever something is awesome, or cool, they usually say one of the four words I mentioned. The In Death series takes place in the future, in the year 2059 and the years after that. I really like the characters in Nora Roberts' books, and the way they speak. A lot of people in that series are very stylish, they have pink, green, orange, magenta, blue.. hair. There are two characters that always have their hair dyed multiple colors at a time and they are very fashionable. Their names are Mavis and Trina. There is also this guy named Ian McNab who is a detective, but he always wears bright clashing colors and says things like "iced". I think those words are good substitutes for the word cool, and that people should use them.

Another example is the book Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini, which is all about acting the way society expects you to be cool, to get what you want. There's this boy named Jeremy, who is really awkward and geeky, and he has a crush on this really popular, beautiful girl named Christine. All Jeremy has ever wanted is to be with Christine. But she doesn't know he exists, or if she does, she thinks he's weird. One day someone tells Jeremy about this thing called a "Squip", with is a pill-sized computer that you can swallow. This computer talks inside your head, and helps you to be cool, or "chill". You can program the voice to be really manly, or feminine, and you can pick how you want the computer to sound. No one else knows it's in your head, except for the few people that also have one in their heads. A rule about the Squip, is that you don't talk to it out loud. In the beginning this takes some adjusting for Jeremy. The Squip tells Jeremy in order to get with the girl he wants, he needs to build up a reputation that he's the man. It basically tells him to get with all the other girls so Christine will know about he's great reputation. It makes him go to parties, dress stylish, and to turn himself from a scrawny boy to a ripped boy. I really enjoyed reading this book, because I usually wouldn't have picked something like it to read. I just read it to see how the characters in the book think being cool is.

I also decided to look up the definition of "cool" on urbandictionary.com, and the first definition is "The best way to say something is neat-o, awesome, or swell. The phrase 'cool' is very relaxed, never goes out of style, and people will never laugh at you for using it, very convenient for people like me who don't care about what's 'in.'" Anyone and everyone can say "that's cool." Or use the word cool to describe something. Cool is also a very versatile word, which is cool. Isn't it? XP