Cool

Jazz musician Miles Davis is an icon of cool.

For other uses of cool, see Cool (disambiguation).

Cool in popular culture is an aesthetic of comportment, demeanor, motion, physical appearance and style. It is also a term of social distinction. Because of cool's varied and changing connotations, as well as its subjective nature, cool is impossible to define singly.

Cool, which, according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, has it's roots in Middle English "cole", from Old English "col" [1], and can be defined variously as:

• "fearless self-possession in the face of danger"[2]
• imperturbable [3]
• fashionable [4]
• nonchalant demeanor [5]
• "fashionable and attractive at the time"; "skilled and socially adept" [6]
• "charismatic authority" - Max Weber[7]
• "all right, acceptable,...does not present a problem." - wiktionary

Origins

See also: Cool (African philosophy)

The vernacular use of cool as described above has its origin in African-American Vernacular English in which, among other things, it can mean calm, stoic, excellent, intriguing, or superlative. It also can be used to describe a general state of well-being, or to indicate agreement or assent. Such vernacular usage of the term was first recorded in the American English lexicon in the early 1930s.

Cool as an aspect of African-American culture is thought by some cultural anthropologists to have its roots in traditional African culture, where it is defined, in part, as tranquility, peace and composure.

When jazz began to change and influence American popular music in the 1920s, the language of black jazzmen began to appear in the American lexicon. African-American jazz culture gave rise to concepts of cool in American popular culture, which were spread in part by the bohemian, or beatnik phenomenon of the 1940s and by youth eager to embrace the language of their jazz-musician idols.[8] Since then, the word has become ubiquitous in world popular culture. It has been incorporated into other languages, such as French and German. , such as French and German.

In Heart & Soul: A Celebration of Black Music Style in America 1930-1975, Merlis and Seay write:

Even the most cursory survey of the American pop landscape reveals the enormous and enduring influence of black culture. One of the most significant factors in the creation of our national identity, it was also among the agents most responsible for the international appeal of all things American.

It's an influence seen in everything from music to fashion to language to the very essence of that indefinable term cool.

Theory

The Rebel Sell, written by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, divides ideas about coolness into three distinct categories. A fourth category theory on cool exists: that cool is essentially an element of black African culture, and that other cultures can only incorporate cool through cultural diffusion.

Cool as an elusive essence

According to this theory, cool is a real, but unknowable property. Cool, like "good", is a property that exists, but can only be sought after. In the New Yorker article, "The coolhunt"[9], cool is given 3 properties:

• "The act of discovering what's cool is what causes cool to move on"
• "Cool cannot be manufactured, only observed"
• "[Cool] can only be observed by those who are themselves cool"

"A company can intervene in the cool cycle. It can put its shoes on really cool celebrities and on fashion runways and on MTV. It can accelerate the transition from the innovator to the early adopter and on to the early majority. But it can't just manufacture cool out of thin air."^[10] Supporters of this theory seek cool with psychographics, and professional "cool hunters".
See also - Total Request Live

Cool as social distinction

According to this theory, cool is a zero sum game, in which cool exists only in comparison to things considered less cool. Illustrated in the book The Rebel Sell, cool is created out of a need for status and distinction. This creates a situation analogous to an arms race, in which cool is perpetuated by a collective action problem in society.

Cool as a fictional concept

File:Fonzie.jpg

In the 1970's, Fonzie of the sitcom Happy Days was a symbol of retro coolness for his role in the show, which romanticized the 1950's.

According to this theory, cool is an empty idea, manufactured top-down by the "Merchants of cool"^[11]. An artificial cycle of "cooling" and "uncooling" creates false needs in consumers, and stimulates the economy. "Cool has become the central ideology of consumer capitalism".^[12]

• Cool is "a heavily manipulative corporate ethos". - Kalle Lasn

Supporters of this theory avoid the pursuit of cool. They are also likely to resent planned obsolescence, and globalisation.

Cool as cultural appropriation

Some academics have argued that coolness is, at its most basic, an appropriation of African and African-American culture.

See also

• Blackface, "Blackface minstrelsy and world popular culture"
• Cool jazz
• Cool (African philosophy)

External links

• Uncyclopedia cool -an illustration of the contradictary principles of cool

References

• The coolhunt - New Yorker article
• ^ Merchants of cool - PBS documentary
• ^ Heath, Joseph and Potter, Andrew. The Rebel Sell. Harper Perennial, 2004.
• A word too cool to go cold CNN article