The cool people are all listening to Mumford and Sons, heads bobbing and weaving to their stylish, if misunderstood, rhythms and lyrics. The cool people are all going to see Les Misérables and are finding it a musically profound experience, then going to see it again with a different group of cool friends. The cool people are all clubbing it up on Friday nights, seeing and being seen by other cool people who frequent those same clubs. The cool people are all reading books by Hemingway and Joyce because then they can tell other cool people they are reading books by Hemingway and Joyce. The cool people are all putting on an act.
You see, being cool is supposed to be an individual thing. It’s like being funny. Some people are funny to a wide range of people, some people are funny to a few, and some people aren’t funny to anyone. This is because if we’re being honest, we each have a singular sense of humor that doesn’t appeal to everyone. The same is true of the coolness factor. If someone or something is cool to everyone, then someone has to be lying, because being cool to everyone, just like being funny to everyone, is a misnomer. Therefore, if everyone you know is a fan of Mumford & Sons, odds are high that at least a few of them had never even heard of the group before you talked to them. So, why would they lie? To be seen as cool. I mean, everyone who is anyone likes Mumford & Sons.
In the ’70s it was all about being different. However unique you were was how unique you were. People for the most part didn’t judge, or if they did, they kept it to themselves. Then came the ’80s, the era of self-discovery and over-sharing, when everyone judged everyone else, and they did it out loud, but no one cared. So, you liked Christopher Cross and most others thought he was lame. It didn’t matter. We could have spirited arguments over it and
that was fine. The ’90s brought acceptance of those differences. The judging stopped, but where did we draw the line? Everyone became acceptable, even things that should never have been acceptable. And the past 12+ years has gone in the opposite direction, where we jump on bandwagons to be accepted. We subvert our individuality to be part of the collective consciousness, to be a member of the Borg (to reference Star Trek), and that affects everything. Sometimes positively, but sometimes negatively as well.
If you really like Les Mis enough to want to see it multiple times in the theater, that’s great, but if you don’t like it, just say it. Just say that it bored you to tears and you want to put your eyes out if you have to see it again. Maybe you would rather be at a cafe on a Friday night, reading a book and sipping coffee. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone was born to be a club hopper. Perhaps Mumford & Sons bores you to tears (as they do many people), and that’s alright too. The point is that maybe we need to bring back a little more of that devil may care attitude from the ’90s, when differences were more acceptable, but we need to draw a line this time. If we don’t want to have to hear about it, we don’t have to. Just because difference is acceptable doesn’t mean we have to hear about everyone’s differences all the time, especially if we don’t agree. That is our prerogative too (to quote Bobby Brown).
Oh, and it’s okay to like Hemingway, but don’t pretend to like him just to seem cool.
Sam
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