4 - BECAUSE OF STEVE BUSCEMI

          No matter how many people you ask, no matter who you ask, and no matter what age they are in, no one truly knows what cool really is. There are just numerous things to consider for one to truly say that oneself is cool. Given the help of some researchers they think they have found a distinct pattern or formula in knowing what cool is.

          Not knowing much about coolness really is, I stumbled upon an article by Jessica P. Ogilvie entitled What defines "cool". This article starts off with a simple problem one of the researchers had. He was wondering if Steve Buscemi was cool. Due to that question he had in his head, they went on researching about what cool is. They ended up having four distinct characteristics of what cool is. In this article that is where they explained those four types of coolness.

          In this article she mentioned that the researchers interviewed 508 people form the age of 15 to 56 to come up with adjectives they associate with the word "cool". It was said that participants often used terms like "confident" and "popular". They noticed that only few used terms like "aloof" and "calm". With that observation and interviews the researchers came up with a conclusion "coolness isn't necessarily easy to define, people recognize it when they see it."

            With what I've read there I can surely say that it is hard to define, I myself don't really know what the definition cool is. Other than that I think everyone does really know who's who in this world. I mean everyone knows who's cool and who's not just by looking at them. Maybe unknowingly, people have this stored memory or certain "type" that we think is cool and we just unconsciously relay that in our heads and makes us think that what we see is cool, don't you think? But maybe we'll get to know more in the following researches.

          Going to what they figured out here are the types of coolness they discovered. First was the "Social Desirability" where it is stated there that "people likely to be called cool by their peers simply because they are enjoyable to be around". It is also stated that people that fall under this category are naturally outgoing. Plus because of they're so likable, people are drawn to them, and when people are drawn to them they remain popular. Second is the Rebelliousness is was stated there that "It's an intellectual passion, reserve, audacity and grace under fire," she said. "There's a profound stillness and a holding within of energy." Next is "A West African Concept". Walker said that "Over the course of American history, mainstream culture has adapted a similar aspect of cool" as the West African notion, she said. "There are words that we wouldn't have if Africans hadn't landed on these shores, like 'cool,' 'funky' and 'hip.' " The fourth one is the "Jazz Roots". Now this definition of cool is all about music. It was said that "cool is intrinsically part of the attitude of jazz musicians, as well as the way that the genre evolved." 

          Having read all of those different definitions of cool, I could say that it goes way back than what we really think what it means. It's not just a shallow meaning like what we are always hearing about. Cool does not just necessarily mean one thing. It's too broad just to some up in one distinct meaning. What I did learn from this article is cool had history it didn't just came up and the meaning was already the definition of cool, because if that's so then we wouldn't have a hard time defining it.

          To sum it all up, I realized that our definition of cool "nowadays" doesn't really have that much sense to it. It's not really important to be cool if the definition of cool is based in today's meaning, because from what I read in this article our definition of cool nowadays it just profound. It is just about poor habits around heath and self-image. If everyone would just base their coolness in today's perspective on what cool is, then maybe it's not such a good idea to be cool after all.