Life Lessons: How To Be Cool
Posted on November 12, 2008 - Filed Under culture |
Here’s the second installment of the regular back page column I did for Snowboard Canada in 2007/2008 under the banner of “Life Lessons.” Again, none of these had much at all to do with snowboarding, but what the hell, it’s the back page, folks…
Life Lessons # 2: How To Be Cool
By Jeff Beer
Coolness. Just what does it mean to be cool? Is it a stylish shirt? A new band? A glistening cluster of ice cubes gently nestled in the small of an exotic nubile’s back while she lay in a sunny meadow? Webster’s dictionary, after the requisite temperature references, defines cool as “great; fine; excellent.” But this hardly encompasses all that it means to be cool in this 21st century. No, being cool is a nuanced wizardry that dances the elicit line between many things among other objects, towards several… uh, situations.
It is widely acknowledged throughout the worldwide trend industry that there are three types of categorized cool classification — Classic cool, Fad cool and lastly, the dreaded Dead Horse.
Classic cool is just as it sounds. It has a lasting quality of cool over time, due either to sheer inventiveness, amount of influence exerted over subsequent trends and styles, maintenance of that essential nugget of shiny coolness for decades on end without denigrating itself on reality television and/or psychic infomercials, or all of the above. This is basically the Hall of Fame of Cool. It is a privileged club that suffers no poseurs. Inductees include Miles Davis, Joe Strummer, shell toes and the movie Bullitt. In snowboarding, the list includes Jamie Lynn, the Noah Salasnek Sims skateboard base graphic and a stylish Method. The ever-changing mystery of classic cool status is due to its indefinable requirements. It cannot be universally declared or presented by a committee of one’s peers. It merely happens. You just can’t predict it no matter how many people may try.
Fad cool, on the other hand, is all about prediction and coercion. It’s the perfect game for any culture junkie who also happens to harbour a deep and horrific gambling addiction. Instead of roulette, poker or Colombian cockfighting, simply try and guess what style, music, brand, or whatever will be next on the mantle of cool. Remember baseless bindings and no highbacks? How about 58-inch stances? Limp Bizkit? All once wildly popular, only to crash and burn into deserved obscurity. Everyone from small snowboarding brands to multinational sugar water corporations employ platoons of people to guess just what that next “it” product will be, there’s even an entire business dedicated to this service. Coolhunters, trendspotters, whatever you want to call them, are consultants who survey “cool” kids and report their findings to mostly mainstream companies and brands for an amazingly expensive fee. Back in 1997, famed Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell observed, “The paradox, of course, is that the better coolhunters become at bringing the mainstream close to the cutting edge, the more elusive the cutting edge becomes. This is the first rule of the cool: The quicker the chase, the quicker the flight.” It’s as true today as it was 10 years ago. Now just hit Google and you’ll have a gaggle of resources declaring their own version of cool.
Still, does this mean you can teach someone to be cool? No. That’s like trying to teach someone advanced calculus or how to be clinically insane. Look what happened in Can’t Buy Me Love. If this film taught us anything, beyond never to toss a bag of feces at the home of a friend – it’s that even if a popular girl prostitutes her status to you for a measly $1000, it doesn’t mean you’re cool. (Though convincing her to do so does, technically, make you pretty damn slick.)
The Dead Horse is something that started out being cool, but has been beaten into public consciousness so thoroughly that it’s pentrated society’s every available orafice until ultimately reaching the shabby underbelly of uncool. Trucker hats, Austin Powers movies and JP Walker lookalikes – all just a few examples of things that started out white hot but soon became loathsome in their sheer omnipresence. If it wasn’t for his extra-terrestrial –like talent, Shaun White would certainly be teetering on the edge of Dead Horsedom after the overexposure-a-thon he’s been on since the Olympics.
A good rule of thumb has always been, if the 12-year-old giggling suburban girls in the mall food court are wearing it, listening to it or even talking about it – it’s a Dead Horse. Same rule applies for the balding, 50-year-old middle manager at the office watercooler. Or your grandparents. Or Ben Mulroney.
So what does it take to spot a trend before it reaches its apex of cool? Well, it’s part science, part magic potion, all meticulously mixed with a little old fashioned bullshittery. The life of a coolhunting trendspotter is one of dangerous highs and ugly lows. One minute you’re clueing the world onto neon leg warmers and liquid cocaine, the next you’re being mocked openly for trumpeting denim diapers for teens. For the purposes of this column, I’ve decided to give you, dear reader, a precious glimpse into my book of upcoming trends. Keep in mind that these aren’t slated to hit public consciousness until at least 2013, so be patient.
The first is a band called Dong Holster from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Their first album, entitled, Steaming on the Chest of Love, will be an intoxicating blend of traditional American roots music, electroclash and Hungarian polka held together by the lyrical library of Mr. Dress-Up sung exlusively in French. The band members currently attend Prince Arthur Junior High School (“Home of the Knights”) and are completely unaware of their impending greatness.
The second is a mustache. But not just any mustache. See, over the last few years the mustache has pushed through its initial ironic phase. By 2013, hipsters will have been so used to sporting their lip fur that this once ironic piece of facial adornment will simply become an accepted member of the physical appearance family. But what if you can’t grow one, or it’s uneven or just spotty in the middle? Your manhood will be questioned and your folicles will be pool party punchlines. Enter, the tattooed mustache. Women around the globe have been using tattoos as permanent make-up and eyebrows for centuries, but only now will men catch the ink-face fever. After just a few minutes of excruciating pain, those needles will make the dreams of those men longing for a life of lumberjack-like, Magnum PI manliness come true.
The third trend? The snowboarding return of the fleece jester hat. Hot like lava. Trust me.
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