For today’s essay, I visited an alien culture – cool people.
That’s the title of an academic paper, “Cool People,” published in April. It tries to define who is cool.
So, like an anthropologist studying ancient civilizations, I read the paper, all 15 pages of dense text (which I understood, with difficulty) and tables (where I mostly floundered).
As you’ve guessed, I’m not cool.
Because: nerds who read academic papers about being cool are … not.
The paper’s authors surveyed people in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Participants rated cool people as more extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous.
“Synonyms for ‘cool’ (hip, swell, fresh, dope, phat, rad, fire, etc.) have fallen in and out of fashion, but ‘cool’ continues to consistently be spoken and desired across generations, subcultures, and nations,” the researchers wrote in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
They also concluded that some cool people are good, but not all. And vice versa. Think grandma or a nun – good but usually not cool.
My conclusion: cool isn’t an option. I’ll apply to be a nun.
Like the aforementioned “sexy,” “cool” is just another 4-letter word thee days.