Cool has lost its way

As I observe this new world of a soon to be post covid world, I have seen an excessive number of individuals just watching the day go by. It hit me one day when I said being what was called cool, or a rebel has become such a manufactured procedure and engineered just like the covid pandemic aka public health emergency. Everything has to look the part! Everything now is surface, yet nothing is beneath once you start peeling back the layers. What there is an empty husk! Cool and the rebel has become a paint by numbers project!

I have watched people walk by with full sleeves on (tattoos from shoulder to the hand) and I look at them and, in my mind, I say where are you going? I am old enough to remember official organized street gangs in NYC, musicians, poets and others who had tuned out society to showcase their individual distinction. They were making a statement to who or what their life was like! I would say to myself I would like to follow them with a camera for 48 hours. Never turning off the camera off to see what it is like to be with cool! What it is like to be with a Bonafide rebel. What it is like to see a true underground lifestyle person! How they source their time. What it is like to be ‘‘the other’’. I always wish to see how that artistic personality evolves and looks in real time. That has always fascinated me when I came across an interesting individual.

I remember my consumer marketing job in the 90’s. This was an eco-system of cool characters and rebels! They were the real thing. They went on auditions constantly. There were models who went on ‘‘go see’s’’ who lived on coffee and cigarettes. They never ate…. they nibbled lol!! There were the strippers who kept that part of their life quiet. Those girls worked at the marketing company to show the I.R.S they were working for a living. They called it ‘‘you had to get your papers’’. Then there were the college students who were ‘‘looking for a place to land’’ and were running in what would be labeled questionable circles. Then I had my rappers and beat makers who were always on the beat…. lol! The one thing through it all they made that commitment to something unknown yet exciting that got you up in the morning.

Cool and the rebel was a distinctive lifestyle. Now I see all of the ‘‘accoutrements of cool’’ yet I see and more importantly feel no cool coming from those individuals usually. Maybe the definition of cool has changed in this new time? Cool and being a rebel has now whittled down to being a fashion statement! It has become a trend! Those things do not stick though! They come and go. Cool is not a trend being a rebel with purpose is not a trend! You were it or step aside! Being fake in the past could get you hurt or murdered at the worst extreme. People now walk around with all of the accoutrements do not understand that there was an intensity to all of this. You had to be real and sincere! That has been eradicated in this time period. All of these accoutrements send a message you were someone else (really quote unquote cool) basically a caricature of a perception.

I have randomly asked these caricatures what they did for a living. I thought they were in the formerly cool professions……musician, actor, model and all of the supporting staff that fuels these professions. They were not in those fields but based on their appearance I would have thought they were. I had to get over my anachronistic view…. lol! Alot of them was failed musicians or creative person. That was fascinating to me. All still wish to be perceived as cool. Many of them was in the tech industry. Those were the type of individuals who took the ‘‘Hip Hop Hoodie’’ and made it their uniform. Yet now this hoodie is to the ‘‘tech geek’’ which I theorize show some type of rebellion. In my eyes that is not the true meaning of this look. The tech revolution has taken the former elements of cool and the rebel to another destination you can argue! However, there isn’t the same risk involved. The critical component is risk! Being all in! Being cool is not a part time job. It was a full-time lifestyle with no time off. There was no vacation time.

This digital/screen lifestyle has created what I am calling the ‘‘facsimile lifestyle’’. I am saying nicely you are a copy!! Those people present a false front. This all-increases confusion! This is why mental health issues are skyrocketing I feel. This is not a primary cause but a minor cause, but it is a factor to add ‘‘delusions of grandeur’’ to someone’s life. Obviously not the only element but it is a thread. It is just way too much facsimile of cool and the rebel floating around. Another crucial element is the masses believe what is the exterior component that matters in this time period. That is so untrue. I will make that known right here right now. It is such false narrative, yet it is thriving to my chagrin. I do not understand this ‘‘facsimile lifestyle’’ because it breeds illusion with an appetizer of delusion. I feel folks must get back to being real in their pursuits of life. There would be less mental health issues strewn about society.

Cool and being a rebel can’t be reduced to a You Tube tutorial! Money and wealth can’t purchase cool or being a rebel with purpose. Money just increases the facsimile. It magnifies the fake! Money was money in the past, but money knew its place in the ecosystem. Money could not buy cool…. it allowed you to access cool. It purchases others being tolerant, which are two different things. In this era money is presented as the be all end all to be cool. It just allows all the cool gadgets. For me that started in the 90’s with the idea of ‘‘bottle service’’ in nightclubs. This allowed anyone to get in. Money was the tool, but it wasn’t the gateway to cool. Money doesn’t make you interesting.

In closing, being cool and the rebel is an innate source material. You can’t go into a retail store and purchase! Amazon can’t send it to you in a box! However, in this time I believe individuals believe that they can. Either you have it, or you don’t. That use to be called ‘‘God’s Gift’’. That was why it was cool because it was natural. It was not artificial! You knew what it looked like when you came across it. I do not come across it much anymore to my chagrin. There is a shortage of cool and the rebel. In this post covid world there will be a large deficit of cool. No interesting cool people. I am announcing cool has left the building!! Now what will your mind allow you to do.