What is cool to someone who is already accepted?
When you are already accepted as being that "cool" person there are a lot of things that come along with that pose. You have the power of choosing who you want to hang out with and you decide in some ways whether or not. Cool only signifies to other people that you are some what better than somebody. It can also lead to having people think that you can be a leader in some ways. Cool is just a name that people want to have as part of their personality. Thats why people who are cool tend to get most of the attention. People want to be like them and admire them. It's like a goal that people, more like teens, try to strive for so they can have those type of "benefits".
One tactic people tend to use to try and become cool is dressing up and wearing expensive clothing. Trends have been a significant part in this tactic. People look at trends and they scope it out and see what people’s reactions towards it are. If that trend is what leads to being cool, then that was people would start to follow that trend as well because they feel that is the route that would lead them to acceptance. Cool is a “Stance of individual defiance”(Cool Rules), it puts a person in a state of mind where they have to do everything in their power to be cool. People use clothes because it’s their exterior part and that’s what people tend to judge and go by. As Andy said in class it’s “Forming ourselves to this particular character”. People wear these clothes because its part of this cool act. These expensive clothes in some cases is part of this cool act because you want to show people that you have so much money and that you want to be center of attraction. Great attraction from people defines cool in some ways and that is what makes people want to be dumb, expensive clothes so they can portray this type of image. When I interviewed my brother about why he liked wearing expensive clothing he said “Ladies.” Stuff like that is the perfect example of why people wear expensive name brand stuff. Attraction is one of the keys to being cool. And yourself up in these clothes is what people think would give them this cool attraction. People dress up and want this main attraction by wearing expensive clothing in order for them to feel cool and feel accepted.
Charles,
ReplyDelete“We are all trying to “fit” ourselves into a certain box that shows off how cool we are, without doing so we would not be accepted by society.”
Each individual living on this planet makes at least one attempt to be cool throughout their life time. It’s something that we naturally adapt to do, we all want to be cool, but aren’t able to grasp the full aspect of it because there is no real definition of cool since it is changing ever so fast. People use their exterior self to show who they are because that’s the only thing people actually get to look at before they know you. They already start to judge you before a word comes out your mouth; I guess that’s why they created the saying “dress to impress.” Showing the society who you are by wearing name brand clothing can send them many messages. They are going to assume you have high amounts of money, you may be snobby or that you have a great sense of style. These are all assumptions being made by individuals you don’t even know exist.
Honestly, I think that you have a good rough draft. You have lots of thoughts about this topic of trying to fit in and be cool. You only seem to talk about the exterior part of being cool, how about the interior part? Here is a to-do list I have created for you, you should complete all these tasks before you post your final draft up....
- Mention James Dean in the movie Rebel without a cause, and talk about his character and how hard he tries to fit in with the “cool” crowd.
- Use the discussions we had in class, use your notebook as a reference. Remember that chart we made with the Behavior, Body and Name? Use some of the ideas we came up with for each section and elaborate on how it makes us feel “cool”.
- Try to connect this cool aspect with the sense of meaninglessness. What is the true reason that all humans have a need to be cool in some way? What causes this?
- Use an interview you did with a friend or a random person on the street and talk more about that one individual in specific.
- Have all your paragraphs with subtitles on your final draft, and proof read your final work before posting it up.
Hope this to-do list is useful when revising your paper :)