HW 37 Final Draft

The Cool

By Amon Ito

Being unique from others consumes us with satisfaction of being distinguished as an individual. It is a conflict many face in today’s society, where people get praised for brand name clothes and simply being materialistic. Though we can blame the media for the mentality we have acquired today. We are beginning to prioritize how total strangers perceive us through physical attributes over bonds in which we acquire that have sentimental values. Though many feel satisfied being labeled in a specific way, which may consist of anti-materialistic aspects like the hippie’s that smoke pot and “believe” to be developing a greater bond with nature by only purchasing goods from thrift shops, it all comes down to the same idea. For them, purchasing from thrift shops may be the “cool” fashion similar to the “fresh” kids from New York City who buys five-hundred dollar shoes from PRADA. It is not necessarily the wealth aspect that makes us unique, but the idea itself connects every genre of cool, whether it’s mainstream or not. We all find ourselves obsessive over becoming the person with a physical attribute no one else has, but that mentality categorizes us, making you no different than anyone else. To be “cool” is the attempt of achieving satisfaction in how others perceive us, by constructing a sense of individuality.

Fashion is by far the best example of “cool”. It is one of the few ways one can illustrate his/her personality without words, and is often crucial when it comes down to first impressions, and first impressions are significant in the process of being cool. As early as the 1700’s fashion became a considerable factor in societies. The French king, King Louis XIV even had a sense of individuality for his fashion trends that involved extravagant laces and velvets. Fashion can also label people based on their status in society, as of France in the 1700’s, wigs signified class. “Each class of society had an especial shaped wig…Various names were given to them, such as the comet, the cauliflower, the ladder, the she-dragon, the chancellor, the cut bob and the long bob” (Dress During Louis XIV). The same way brand names signify wealth in our society, France used it to reveal the social class each citizen belong to.

Though fashion was enforced upon by France’s society, our current society does not necessarily enforce any form of fashion (besides public nudity, and occupation based fashions) giving us the freedom to choose. So we seek out new things and unique things that make us diverse from one another, inevitably resulting in multiple people purchasing the same product. This mainly applies to mainstream fashion. Other styles of fashion are often looked down upon by society making them less cool by the rest of society besides their circle of associates. Yet they feel the satisfaction of being rebellious going against media and the major industries that attempt to brainwash us into spending money. And this satisfaction is what makes their style and who they represent to be cool.

An alternate form of fashion is body ink. Being a more permanent form of fashion, it represents a greater sense of individuality. Though there is a chance that the identical tattoo is engraved into another individual, the meaning of it often does not agree with one another. Due to their risk factor they are usually picked out with a deeper depth of thought, unlike clothes that can either be worn or thrown away, tattoos stay on the physical body and cannot be removed by simple procedures. But because of this, they illustrate a sense of individuality with pride and self-esteem.

My brother can be used as an example to demonstrate the significance of body ink in order to achieve self satisfaction. He is insisting on getting a tattoo of the Japanese traditional family crests on both shoulder blades, one of my dad’s side and one of my mom’s sides. His reasoning behind this is to represent something that no one else can represent. Others can get the same, but the meaning of it will be less significant because of the crests ownership is to his families. Though on the other hand, if I were to get it, its significance would be identical to my brother’s, but then it would no longer be unique. He feels the satisfaction of obtaining something out of reach from anyone else but himself and his family which would ultimately make him cool.

A general feel both body ink and fashion can produce in an individual is unruliness. The feeling of being a rebel isolates him/herself from the rest of society making them unique. Since we all believe the majority of the population are hoped on top of the massive bandwagon that consumes our minds with media in order to keep industries financially stable, being one of the few that strongly go against it is the closest we can separate ourselves from society. Though in actuality, we are all giving into the big corporations and are never complete rebels, or else none of us would be alive at least in the United States.

This idea is demonstrated in the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. The kids in the poem are satisfied with the fact that they are alleged to be badass rebels who skip school, and instead of gaining education, they substitute the time for fun. The kids are illustrated to be black youths, but this is common in many teens today regardless of race. Like the term “too cool for school”, they are rebels for not attending school, and they are proud of their actions. Though from society’s perspective, getting education would be the righteous route, they feel satisfied with how they are in control of their life.

Cool is an idea that changes constantly, and will always reside in a society. Because of its endless alternation, there will never be an accurate interpretation of cool, but at every wave of cool, there will be a certain type of mainstream cool. The feeling of being cool is determined in various ways by various individuals, but in the end cool will always go hand in hand with the feeling of self satisfaction of how we are distinguished from one another.