Coolness Envy

I experience coolness envy.  If you know me and perhaps think I’m cool, this might be surprising.  On the other hand, you may know me and think I’m not cool, in which case you’d probably agree that I have a lot to envy.  (As always I love to get comments on blog post, but don’t put comments after this blog like “I think you’re cool” or “you’re right, you’re totally lame.”  I’m writing this as an exploration of social structures as they extend into adult life, not to fish for positive reinforcement.)

 

First, and unfortunately, the concept of coolness began to form in my mind when I was an adolescent.  Accordingly, supposedly superficial things like popularity, appearance, etc. inevitably inform my ideas about being cool.  Of course, coolness isn’t only these things.  It’s also being into interesting things, being smart, witty, and generally empowered in cultural situations.  However, now matter how I look at it I can’t help but see the world as split between cool kids and everyone else.  Historically, I conceived of myself as part of “everyone else.” 

 

The problem is that I still have a bunch of cool-envy.  I still identify some people as cooler than me, and subsequently wish I had what they had.  For example, I’m in a band (a cool thing to do), but few people come see us and I know some people actively dislike us (not so cool then, especially since those people are “cool”).  I constantly wish that we were more popular, more respected, etc.  I am well aware of how silly it is, but I actually lose sleep over the fact that some people don’t like us and don’t think we’re cool enough.  Frankly, if suddenly everyone loved us we could probably just stop playing shows.  Electron Deception could morph into a coolness-collective where we just go around town showing off how cool we are.  (And the band is only one example.  There are many, many others.) 

 

Of course, the reason I say that is because there are people who do go around town being cool and, though I know its ridiculous, I envy them (they probably do other things too, I just don’t see that stuff).  I always wonder what cool things they’re up to.  What cool parties are they attending?  What cool restaurants are they eating at?  What cool dishes do they order at those cool restaurants?  I have no idea if the cool people I know of are happy, or if they’re actually out doing any of the things I imagine them to be doing.  What strikes me though is that while I’m not fifteen, I just can’t help thinking like I am. 

 

Part of the problem, I think, is that when I first began to think about who I was, not being cool was a large part of what I thought about.  Like so many people, I had to be someone and since I wasn’t a cool kid I embraced my uncoolness.  In its own way it was actually cool to be uncool; it was a kind of alternative, niche community that wasn’t the mainstream.  The problem today is that, as an adult, not being mainstream can be problematic.  In other words, it can make you cool (like the people who are in cool bands, for example), or it can brand you as a poser.  For example, one time while I was teaching, I told my students to get into groups but to not leave anyone out because everyone knows the pain of being left out and “uncool.”  It was a joke, but they coyly retorted that I was “so cool, how could I know that pain?”  Though this example might suggest that I succeeded in being cool myself (or it might have been a meaningless interchange), the first thought that crossed my mind was “am I trying too hard?  Am I a lame old guy (albeit in my twenties) who epitomizes uncoolness?”  I’m not sure what to take from the experience, but it was at least an example of how the idea of being cool exerts a strong influence over my life. 

 

No matter how irrelevant coolness really is, its always rearing its oh-so-cool head in my life.  It happened in the past, it happens in the present, and I don’t see it really ever stopping.  Sometimes I can even imagine myself as an old man, muttering under my breath in mock superiority about how shuffle board and bingo are for those stupid cool kids, while I walk away wishing I was in on the game.