Through being cool

Is “cool” not cool anymore?

Last night, at a gelato establishment a friend and I frequent, I got brave and asked the cute scooper if he had a girlfriend. He smiled and said, “Yeah, I do, but you’re way cooler than she is.” Thanks! So…you’re going to go break up with her now, right? Mmm fail.

Yesterday, a coworker also sent me the link to the video for Devo’s 1981 single “Through Being Cool.” COINCIDENCE? (Yeah, probably.)

But it got me thinking that “cool” isn’t enough anymore–and maybe it never was. After high school, when “cool” is the only currency there is, I’d argue that its value sharply declines. Look no further than the recent hipster hate-a-thon for an example of the backlash. Most people had their lives made a living hell by the cool kids in high school (or so the stereotype goes), and in the blissful period following that, things like money, job success, marital status, and presence of kids are the new measurements of success, not coolness. Coolness is almost uncool, because in the grown-up workplace it not only harkens back to a painful youthful period ridden with superficiality (for some) but it can serve to distract from other, more important qualities, like how productive you are, or how well you work with others. Cool is almost irrelevant (unless you work in marketing or advertising, which is completely different).

I unfortunately did not realize this until now. Following a clichéd nerdy youth (I medalled at Math Olympics and was voted Most Likely to Be a Librarian), cool became the apex. I moved to a cool city, started listening to a cool radio station, and started going to semi-cool shows. Only now, in my late-to-middlin’ 20s, has it become clear that “cool” wins me no points at work and in fact is interpreted by some as shallowness and perhaps compensating for a lack of substance. Oh shit. After substance, intelligence, and a concern for social justice were shown to have absolutely no currency in high school, I slowly started smothering them in pop culture references and matte-gray nail polish. (Not that I’m cool now at all relative to actual hipsters.) Is it too late to become uncool again?

But “cool” of course can mean a host of different things. Perhaps what GelatoGuy should’ve said was “hip.” Or perhaps he what meant by “cool” was actually “interesting, informed, and cute.” I’ll never know. But for the time being, it seems like cool is not enough.