It’s funny: that’s the second time this week-end I read someone write about how thoroughly fed-up they are with cool. Here’s the other article:

And isn’t it a strange thing indeed, that makes people do things that (I’m convinced) nobody really likes or even wants in the end, but that they do nonetheless, only because others do it as well?

Whether you call it hip or chill or cool or hot or solid or whatever the local label for behaviour intended to consolidate your position in the in-group might be at a given moment: it all comes down to the same old monkey group dynamics. What surprises me so much is that so many people in history have written about this and suggested that it’s generally a good idea to develop yourself as an individual instead of trying to be the most popular dude or chick of the yard.

I don’t know of this is just very difficult to figure out, or that it’s actively discouraged by schools, parents, politicians and whatnot because they think that individuated somehow equals anti-social. I’d say that it is rather the opposite: despite that group behaviour is also known as social dynamics, it is anything but social. It’s the engine that drives all the awkward coolness, the excluding, the popularity contests, the miserable taunting of the uncool kids in class, the stereotypes that force people in roles that they hate, the ridiculous hyping of celebrities – it’s a depressing list, even when you stop before you get to the real nasty stuff.

Sure, it’s part of being human. But I can’t dismiss the feeling there’s room