1st Constructivist Exploration of Cool

I happen to encounter the concept of cool a lot this weekend. I went shopping this weekend and when I would try on the clothes, my sister would tell me that it is ugly but I thought it did not look as bad. Her judgment and my judgment on the clothes are influenced by what other people think of as okay or as cool. She thinks flare jeans look nice because she spends time around people who wear flare jeans. I think skinny jeans look okay because people around me wear skinny jeans all the time. What we think of as cool is influenced by who we spend time with.

Andy told me to come into school with skinny jeans, nike dunks, a hoodie, and shades because I do not wear those on a daily basis. But he tells me to wear skinny jeans rather than flare jeans because people wear more skinny jeans than flare jeans. He tells me to get nike dunks rather than something from payless because rarely anyone wears things from payless and he tells me to wear shades because it looks cool. I think that people think that shades are cool because it seems as if the person wearing shades is mysterious, that they have something behind those shades and people want to figure it out so they hang out with people with shades. And people wear shades to get attention, to get people to hang out with them.

Princeton defines cool as ""fashionable and attractive" and "skilled or socially adept." That actually makes sense; fashionable and attractive, they know what the hot stuff is and thus attract people. Others are too caught up with their style; they constantly think about what they wear and thinks that people wearing the hot stuff are cool. And those people must be skilled at something - a sport - or they must be social to attract people and know what people consider "fashionable." It would be harder to remember someone if they were not good at something.

Why are nerds uncool? I was watching music videos the other day on youtube and there was a nerd on screen; people told me to close the music video. Nerds are people, who are extremely intelligent and society portrays them with huge thick rimmed glasses. People told me to close the music video when there was someone with thick rimmed glasses on a bicycle but not when there was someone "fashionable." Why do people hate on nerds?