Why do young people get to decide what's cool? They usually have such limited perspective, no sense of history and little concept of what's practical.
I've been pondering this idea of coolness since the beginning of my alt weekly internship. When you leave college or enter some kind of world in which everyone around you is no longer building an identity made out of bits of cool, it's hard work to keep up. The people I work, it's their job to keep up, to find out what's cool and then tell everyone about it, but isn't that so totally, inherently uncool? I think it may be. But then again, cool isn't cool either. It's all a big convoluted mess that I don't usually try to work out anymore, unless Sophie brings it up.
Or unless a younger sibling calls me out on it. Kim and I like to discuss how our siblings, still in their junior year of college, are way into being too cool for school. And they like to drop hints occasionally that they are disappointed with our fading coolness. Which is okay. Because I am actually not leading of the life of some hip person and there is no reason for me to pretend like I am. I wear a lab coat to work. I like to sit at home and watch Gossip Girl. In my spare time I wash dishes and clean my fishbowl to avoid studying for the GRE. I would have no place to wear top-siders (the footwear preference of our siblings) because I don't go boating and I like to wear socks. Not exactly the marks of the inexorably cool.
But in any case, both of our siblings were rather appalled that we didn't listen to Dan Deacon. Because that's how cool he is. So I had to check him out. I'm still undecided. Here is a video of his for you to judge for yourself.
the robotic cat drawing had me convinced - until he sang, that is..
ReplyDeleteRebuttal:
ReplyDelete1) I don't think Dan Deacon ever came up once in any of our conversations. I only listen to him casually anyway and I haven't heard any of the new album at all. I didn't even go to his show because I had a Linear Algebra exam the next day. Nerd move. (Side note: I don't like that song a whole lot. You should listen to Wham City.)
2) As I have said before, I wear Top Siders because they are like slippers for the outdoors, but more presentable and less prone to getting your feet dirty than flip-flops. And I wear socks with them since the salinity from my foot sweat doesn't do the leather lining much good. Given my aversion to water I also do not spend time on boats. In fact, I believe it was you who professed a desire for a seagoing vessel.
3) Theorem: I am not cool. Proof: I am a mathematics major. I spend more time doing (and grading) math hw than cool things like doing cool drugs, listening to cool music, and macking on cool people and will always give up opportunities to participate in the latter in favor of the former. I get paid to grade math homework. The people I want most to be friends with are teachers. And lastly, I have a girl mustache. But don't make fun of me because I'm sensitive about it. QED.
4) I insist that I am not disappointed with what you refer to as your "fading coolness." Gossip Girl? Blowing off studying (which even I don't do)? Lab coat and slightly dorky moniker? So uncool that it's cool. How could you forget? Geez, you've been away from Oberlin too long.