Final Cool Paper

Cool is a way of life that only creates two paths for us. Each path branches out into sub-paths that are like the requirements for either the cool path or un-cool path. These paths don’t allow us to be authentic in any way and force us to become actors performing a character.

“Cool” has no limitations. It doesn’t stop at the way people look, it goes deeper then the outside and goes inside a person. Down to the way someone looks, dresses, acts, talks, walks, lives and feels. Cool is like a competition to be the best at the inside and outside. it’s a never ending domino effect to see who’s going to be the coolest in the end. Is there a supreme “cool” that has a final say in who is cool and what isn’t cool?

I personally think cool is a feeling. That the reason why we look at the way someone walks, talks, dresses and acts is because it gives us a feeling. We may have been taught to feel a certain way towards someone’s appearance and there over all persona , we still do it either consciously or unconsciously. When we look at someone in the street and we think there cool, we might feel that way because what we see in them we wish we had in ourselves. So its secretly an emotional thing. We would never dare say it out loud because that would be un-cool of us. It would be un-cool to surrender to our inner feelings and admit that we wish we could be like someone else, because of the attention they get and the life style they live in because they are considered cool.

This leads me to theorizing about cool. Where does this sense of emptiness come from? and our need to have meaning? I think the main source of feeling meaningless is the want to be approved of. We desperately seek approval because it makes us feel important. To say it would make us happy is an understatement. Some people would feel more then happy because they would feel life would be perfect if we were liked by everyone. I also think that our extreme need for a sense of meaning comes from our families and friends who are the closest people to us (in most cases). we have the need to be accepted in both our social and cultural worlds. when one doesn’t work the other seams a lot harder to do because we know in our heads we cant do both. In the end its just a fight to keep up. In extreme cases Some people become over whelmed and feel that they have no way out. They are not seen as popular and everyone thinks a certain way about them and think about things like suicide and hurting themselves. This whole idea of cool can be deadly.

Therefore where are we getting this idea about being cool? Marketing companies create commercials and make teen magazines targeting our insecurities and give us the idea of how we achieve being "cool" and for some teenagers its really stressful physically and mentally. a lot of teens strive so hard to be just like what the magazines show and when it doesn’t happen it can send people into a state of even lower self esteem. It makes people want to try even harder. A lot of teens ask themselves why cant I be like that, why cant I look like her because she has the perfect life but we never really look at the person being marketed to us. that person might have the same exact problem that a lot of other teenagers too. Either way no one FEELS perfect, everyone has some kind of insecurity.

Which leads me to my next point. When people feel they need to measure up to everyone else, we start to alter our outside to fit into one of the categories we have created for ourselves. it becomes a desperate race to alter our bodies as fast as we can s that we don't have to bear the pain of un-coolness any longer. a very common form of self expression is tattoos. usually the idea behind the tattoo is the most significant part but people who feel pressured might do it to fit in. Guys who pledge to a fraternity usually have to preform some kind of initiation. The initiation is usually some form of public humiliation so there desire to fit in has increased because if they don't succeed they are seen as a "pussy" or a "punk" because they weren't man enough to finish.

what do we do when the real person we are isn't who we really want to be? how do we deal with knowing that we don't measure up? is it so bad that we want to be like everyone else if it makes us happy... it's not in my place to say but there are always pros and cons. The cons may be that our decisions will always be influenced by the people we wish to be. it renders us incapable of thinking on our own. The only pros would be that there's a possibility of achieving the goal of being cool.

when we look at ourlives really closly theres one thing we cannot deny is, that were all going to die sooner or later. So whats the point of making cool our mission to be when were going to die anyways? why do we waste our time? what is so controlling about being cool? i feel that some poeple may think if they are able to make that a accomplishment in there life that theres lifes will be more meaningful and that when they die they accomplished what they wanted.

In conclusion, its already pre determined who is and isnt going to be cool and we cant do anything about it. all we can do is make the best of the path that were given and if we must rebel then go big or go home., life is too short for small changes that arent significant.

HW 34- The Cool Pose

Is there a path to coolness? Are these paths pre picked to give us all the same results and turn us into characters preforming for other people?

Well from reading the three links that andy gave us i started off with the "Poverty of The Mind" article about the young black youths, and how they all seam to be connected in the way that they all go down the same paths in life. what i noticed when reading this article was that these paths that the young black youth follow are almost like a right of passage. It seams that they "Bahave so self destructivly" as the article said might be because they feel they dont have any other options or other paths to follow. They have been showed the life style of a typical young black youth and they find that to be "cool" because everyone goes down the same path and if you dont then youra loser or your trying to be someone your not which i dont find true. The atricle found that the young black young that graduated high school and went to college were precived as "acting white" becuase thats the path white people follow.

From what we have been learning in class the idea seams tobe that your level of cool has to do with the level of your social status. you typically find more black and hispanic people in the lower class range. It makes it harder for people catigorized in the lower class to be looked at like a normal person as respected becuase people assum your social class represents you as a person when it doesnt.

And this is where we see the "cultural pattern" That things cannot be changed and its sad because it just becomes a never ending situation. we probably will never be able to be as authentic as we want to be.

HW 33-Cool Paper Outline

Thesis/Central idea: The fake is real. Its a never ending chain of us trying to be cool so we can never really be authentic so we accept that who we are is partially becuase of others so its kinda fake so our fake is accepted so its real.

Main Ideas:

The Merchant of Cool videos from PBS. Specifically targeted to us teenagers, seeing how we change over time so that marketing companies know how to modify the next concept they want to advertise to us so that we can stay updated and be "cool" with the latest things. Also that they create a "Mook" as a person we can look up to depending on the type of sterotype it is weather its the jackass,prep,vally chick,jock or rebel.

Theorizing about cool and where does this sence of emptiness come from and our need to have meaning. these lifestyles are set up for us and if we dont meet those standards then we arent considerd cool or meaningful. we have a natural desire to be wanted by people physically and emotionally.

The reading we did in class about hpw we are all actors preforming a character and our goal is to make peeople believe that we are the characters that we are preforming and not the people that we really are.

we did interviews with people and asked them if they changed the way the acted and the way they looked to make other people liked them and the typical responce was "no" but we all do it in some way or another we just dont like to admit it

we chose a specific part of a person like tattoos and tried to theorize why people got tattoos and what the true meaning was behind them. alot of people saw it as a very meaningful piece of there body and we could only assum that other people got them to create an image for themselfs.

HW 32-Tattoos

I decided not to just do tattoos but to go through all the parts of a person that we typically modify so that we can fit in better and be seen as "cool"

Starting off with the tattoo subject i do believe that some people do it for the meaning behind it and the for what it personally means to them but i also think that some people might get them to portray a certain image of themselfs that really isnt them. I feel like if there was no one left on them planet but this person there tattoos wouldnt mean anything because they have no one to show themselfs too, no one to prove themselfs too. i think there real inside person would be there.

My mother got a tattoo for her fifty-ith Birthday and it wasent for the purpose of creating an image cuz shes way old now and she got it because it was a milstone to turn 50 and she got a tattoo of Tinkerbel on her lower arm because she always wanted one and she chose tinkerbel because shes always loved disney world and how it made her feel as a child.

Next body part which goes for Guys and Girls, which is the way people present themselfs in the way they dress. Alot of people pride themselfs on making sure they look well dressed when they leave there house and other people dont really spend tones of time trying to look there absolute best. it comes more naturally to some people.

il use myself as an example, making sure i leave the house looking my best is a challange for me because there somethings i cant control but i buy things like lipgloss and hair products and expensive things so that when people look at me they think im a put together person because i want them to think that. i want them to think how i feel about myself becuase if they thought i was a sloppy person i would be upset with myself that people arent seeing my like i see myself. but then its more like if i accept myself why do i neeed other people to accept me, well i dont exactly know why its more of the feeling it gives me.

We have this idea of what the perfect Woman looks like and what the perfect man looks like and everyone tries to be up to par by modifying there own bodies. Woman get breast implants to have larger breast so they can be more appealing to men. Guys get face lifts and lipo suction so they can be more appealing to the ladies.

And last but not least we change how we act towards everyone we interact with. if we notice that the trend is trying to be funny then everyone is going to try but not everyone succed because its hard to be another person because it eventually catches up with you.