"Cool" is a self-conscious post-modern phenomenon. To be it, you must be aware of it, yet at the same time, in a perpetual state of denial. The word itself is arbitrary, with no meaning besides a constant appropriation, and an existence without stagnation. You cannot capture it and own it, but rather, keep up with it at a jogging pace. Those who sprint, burn out...which leads to being dubbed a drop-out, a sell-out, a failure of cool. Or worse, cool itself may collapse, and move from subversiveness to mainstream. This of course, is inevitable. All counter-cultures will eventually be enveloped by popular culture, allowing their deaths to look like suicide.
This process of cultural appropriation kills the subculture and reduces it to merely a representation of the real. A Black Flag shirt found at Hot Topic, a CBGBs shirt sold at West 49--when this happens, a subculture dissipates, then is reborn again, as its members adopt new styles that appear alien to mainstream society.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Cool Hunters: Series Piece: Prologue
Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important
than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square."
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring,
right?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried
everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to
be told you're cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?
than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square."
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring,
right?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried
everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to
be told you're cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?
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