Cool is a fandom

47. I don’t know when I’m joking half the time. Seriously. My brain works on an ironic gear, so sometimes I say funny things or say things in an amused tone of voice, but have no idea I’m doing it. I once tried to explain this to someone and they thought it was “trippy.”

I was not cool in middle school. Then, in high school, I realized I didn’t care what high school students thought. I might have been cool (our school was too large and diverse to have set ‘cliques,’ so ‘well-known’ meant a whole range of things), but I’ll never know. But I’ve thought about this for a while, and it finally occurred to me what ‘cool’ even was.

Cool is a fandom.

I mean that in a very unintuitive, unobvious way. Or maybe it’s not. You tell me.

When older people hear younger people’s slang or see their attire, they end up thinking that they just don’t get ‘it’ anymore. As if they’re the outsiders of a group looking in. What’s hilarious is that this is exactly what they are!

Cool kids are no different than ‘trekkies’ or ’emo kids.’ They’re all separate groups with vague boundaries, but certain examples of legitimate in-group and out-group members. They all have lexicon and implicit dress and social interactions. The only difference is that cool kids are seen as a dominant fandom in a certain sense, because their only ‘cannon’ is the present actions of other ‘cool kids.’

So when kids do or say stupid stuff to each other, it doesn’t just sound silly to your ears. It IS silly. They just don’t realize it. They’re like trekkies at a convention they’ve never left. They’re the perpetual in-group… at least until they get older and realize how silly the new ‘cool’ things are…..

47. I don’t know when I’m joking half the time. Seriously. My brain works on an ironic gear, so sometimes I say funny things or say things in an amused tone of voice, but have no idea I’m doing it. I once tried to explain this to someone and they thought it was “trippy.” I…