If you gotta ask, you ain't gottit

[oursin]

Or words to that effect.

Anyway, general sense of Point Thahr, Misst, in this piece: Can I learn to be cool – even though I am garrulous, swotty and wear no-show socks?

Mind you, and perhaps this is a generational thing, I murmur, thinking of dark jazz cellars and so on, I so do not associate 'cool' with:

Cool people are desirable and in demand; others want to be them or be with them. That social clout readily converts into capital as people buy what you’re selling, hoping it will rub off on them.... A much-publicised paper recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that cool people are seen as possessing six attributes: they are extroverted, open, hedonistic, adventurous, autonomous and powerful.

WOT.

And further on, we have an interview with somebody author of article considers Peak Cool:

[S]tudying fashion in London, she learned how to talk her way into fashion week events, pretending she was “supposed to be there – like, no doubt about it”, she says, eyes glinting. She then parlayed that talent for networking into styling and creative consulting work. “All the coolest people I know are hustlers,” Delaney says. “If you’ve just had it given to you, then it’s not that cool.”

Hustlers??? The truly cool do not hustle.

Perhaps this strikes me as particularly Not Getting It because I have just been reading Eve Babitz?

And IMHO, you do not 'learn' to be cool: if you are cool, what you do is imbued with coolth, even if it doesn't tick the obvious boxes.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

It seems to me that some learning may be part of things because no toddler is cool inherently, unless coolness is defined purely in socioeconomic terms that others wish to aspire to. Charisma without seeming to try at it still requires some striving to occur, I think.

[dancesontrains]

I think that article writer's idea of 'Cool' is pretty current, yeah. Granted I have never been that myself, but current definitions would include people like Instagram or TikTok influencers - aka people who can sell to you.

It's a deeply material age; 'cool' ended up being bought /shrug

[kerk_hiraeth]

Perfect timing in that just over twenty-four hours ago I watched a reaction to the Buffy episode containing the 'Conversation on Cool' between Oz and Xander.

Apart from knowing I have no 'cool' whatsoever I'm not sure I recognise cool in any of the six listed. I feel it's one of those things that people can analyse until the Sun dies and never truly capture what it is.

I'm not sure anyone will ever be able to define it.

kerk

[genarti]

The article writer's definition of "cool" struck me as one way to be cool, but certainly not the only way. "Hustlers," however, feels like the absolute antithesis of coolness to me!

[kore]

I'm reminded of the Monks of Cool joke in Pratchett, where the novice is taken to a room with three outfits and asked: Which of these is the coolest? And the right answer is, Whichever one I pick, man.

[oracne]

I feel like Being Cool is being yourself to the nth degree.

[silveradept]

One of the things that I had thought was absolutely essential for being cool was that it could not be seen as something you sought, or really acknowledged in any way that you believed you had it. No hustling, no careful manipulation of others' opinion, no PR firm, nothing like that. If you had a "brand," or even some amount of being able to make some bank from your art, that meant you were a sell-out or a shill, and therefore you couldn't possibly be cool. A lot of other things - admired, envied, thought of as a fool, but you could not be cool.

[anna_wing]

Surely cool must be something ascribed to you by others, rather than something consciously sought. Describing oneself as cool proves that one is not.

[oursin]

Absolutely that!