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It’s All About the U

Prior to today’s class, I wasn’t sure how cool in 1917 connected to cool today, in 2018. After 100 years, there have been a lot of changes in society and what is cool. But as we dissected what is cool in today’s sense, I am starting to wonder if we really think it’s cool or if we just say it is for a lack of a better word or for the fact that cool’s meaning has been diluted.

Watching and discussing the I’m Shmacked video put a lot into perspective for me. It made me realize that we really do live in a mook and midriff society. We are willingly feeding into what marketers are feeding us. And if that video wasn’t enough evidence, then take a look at the DG video that got over one million views. While both videos are quite different, they have some similar qualities. For one, they both show a bunch of tan college students partying, but they also show an enormous amount of wealth for students whose only job is to go to class.

In the I’m Shmacked video, there is a Bentley and in the DG video, the girls are jumping off of a yacht. Oh and let’s not forget Emily from the I’m Shmacked video who was “swimming at Star Island, bitch!” While these things could have been just random pictures put into the video, there is still an enormous amount of wealth at UM, and I don’t think it is as prevalent at other schools.

In my MKT 498 class, luxury marketing, there is a girl who collects Birkin bags. She brings a different handbag to class every day and they are usually more than $3,000. So last week she brought a Birkin to class, which usually start around $10,000 and go up to $300,000. She collects these. People like this exist and go to UM, but I don’t hear about them as much on other college campuses.

A few of my friends from high school ended up going to school at Notre Dame. When I talk to them, they aren’t telling me about the Porsche someone drove to class or the $200 meal they ate at Nusr-Et that only covered their meal. My high school friends don’t have stories like this and I find it weird because it seems so normal here. For me, it is normal for my friend to pay $100 to get into LIV or the $200 sushi dinner I had with a friend or yacht club Sundays. While this isn’t the norm for a lot of people, at UM it seems like it is and I am interested in finding out why.

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Cool’s Entanglement with Advertising

You don’t realize it until you actually look around and pay attention, but advertising is everywhere. Last semester I was enrolled in my first marketing course, and being in another currently, I can most definitely say that I see things differently than I did before. In the beginning of the fall semester, my marketing professor said that upon taking this class I would never walk through Publix, or any other store for that matter, and just walk through it the way I previously had. I would pick up on things I never thought about before, from product placement on shelves to the color of Tide caps. Every component of a product has a meaning, it wasn’t just randomly created. Bottom line, advertising and marketing are all around us whether we are aware of it or not.

Now back to cool. In the first assignment, I started my paper off by discussing a Virginia Slims advertisement. I did not even recognize the complete presence of cool in that advertisement, but I did talk about cool aspects of the ad. Prior to reading Thomas Frank’s article, The Conquest of Cool, I wouldn’t have ever called cool a marketing ploy. But now, I’m not so sure.

There is this technique in marketing called market segmentation. It is where marketers split up the whole market of consumers to target a specific demographic. A few types of market segmentation are geographic, gender, and income segmentation. But what if cool is just another segment of the market. What if it is just another way to appeal to consumers? The people cool is targeting, mostly the “rebels” and artists, still have one thing in common with the rest of America. They all live in a capitalistic society and respond to the market. They are still spending their money on products that are geared towards them. While they might be marketed in a different manner than other market segments, they are still being marketed. And they end up buying the products that are meant to appeal to them. So, if cool people are buying into the same advertising scheme as everyone else, are they really that cool? Maybe I’m wrong, but this article definitely left me seeing cool through a different lens and I don't know if that’s good or bad.

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Andy Wahrol and Jean Michel Basquiat

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Escaper or Engager?

Am I an escaper or am I an engager? I thought a lot about this question in class. Many “heroes,” like Jesus, Luke Skywalker, and Rocky Balboa have escaped society when it became too much, but later returned to look at it with a clearer perspective. They came back stronger and smarter than they were when they left, and then conquered whatever battle they were facing. And the most interesting thing about this escape of theirs is that they don’t even recognize it as an escape when they’re in that moment.

In class we said that college was our escape. I think this is true, but I don’t know if it can be compared to the same escape Buddha had. When I decided to attend UM for college, I wasn’t really looking for an escape. I wanted to breeze through life, and college, without a care in the world. I have no responsibilities and don’t have to report to anyone. I think that’s why UM is an escape. But, when compared to people, like hippies, escapes in 1968, there is a stark difference between the two. They were trying to escape the world and all the corruption that is in it, whether for its corrupt politics, involvement in war, or just the plain cruelty of the world and society. They were trying to escape the inescapable. I’m not really trying to escape, and even if I was, I don’t think I am naive enough to think it’s possible to have that escape, especially in today’s world.

So, I know I am not an escaper. Especially since the thing I consider my escape is what I am expected to do. I’m expected to go to UM, party, drink and take drugs, and go to Ultra. It’s what is expected of us, so even if I think UM is an escape, it’s really not. Therefore, I am indeed an engager. I conform to what society expects of me, and I don’t even put up a fuss when conforming.

Guess what I am doing this summer. I have an internship at a law firm that my father got me. Shocker, right? And the best part is that I am kind of excited to do it, I mean as excited as someone could get about an internship. But I don’t mind doing it since I know internships are key to getting into an Ivy League law school. This is engagement at its best. I am behaving in a way that my parents, and society, both expect of me and want from me.

Another thought I had in class was this: if I was 18 years old in 1968, would I be an engager or escaper? I can say with a strong level of certainty that I would be an engager. I would have been one of those girls going about their day like nothing was wrong, while other people were flipping out. I can say that I know the hippie life would not have been for me. I find it gross that they lived in communes, didn’t maintain cleanliness, and had this blatant disregard for narcissism. While I am not as narcissistic as a cool person, I am still narcissistic to a certain extent and it would be interesting to see what my life would have been like if I was around in 1968.

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Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol

”It was like some crazy-art world marriage and they were the odd couple. The relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy’s fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel’s new blood. Jean Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again.” - Warhol’s longtime studio assistant Ronny Cutrone quoted in Warhol: The Biography by Victor Bockris

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Changes

It’s sad to admit it, but prior to Friday I never thought about the fact that the time in which music was written affects the music itself. The best example I can think of is The Beatles. There music had a major shift and I think the times and society contributed to it. In their 1969 album, Abbey Road, the song Come Together, displays this. Without really thinking about it, I thought the song was just about all of the turmoil that was going on at the time, which could very well be true. But there are references in it, that would’ve probably not appeared in their older music. For example, when they say, “he shoot Coca-Cola,” I can guarantee you that they weren’t referencing the soft drink, but instead cocaine. And also, the song references a change in style by saying, “he got hair down to his knee.” People around this this time let their hair grow out seeing as it displayed natural beauty. These are just a few of the subtle references to what was going on in society and these musicians’ lives. In recent decades, music has been an outlet for people to say what they want and how they feel, and The Beatles were doing just that.

Another artist who I thought of when writing this was David Bowie. He changed many times, but he also said in one of my favorite songs of his, Changes, “time may change me, but I can’t trace time.” We might not be able to see just where things changed, but they did. It’s inevitable that we change with time. And part of how we change with time is how we change the things we do and compose, in the case of musicians like The Beatles and Bowie. For instance, in Bowie’s song, Changes, he states, “ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strange.” Whether he was referencing society or his personal life, things were changing and that was being reflected. It is interesting to look at how most artists’ music changes with time. The simplest artist to use for this is Taylor Swift. She has released 7 albums, and they’re all different from one another, but there is a stark difference from her first and last albums. She went from the seemingly innocent country girl to the infamous pop star. But, I doubt she realized this change was going to happen, and it most certainly didn’t happen overnight. That’s how time changes people.

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New York, New York

You know what’s a cool city to live in? New York City. So many cool people have either started there or moved there. Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, James Dean, and David Bowie are just a few cool people who have called New York City home. And, when I am older, I want to go law school there and eventually live there too. But as I have previously established, I am not cool. So, to me that means there are both cool and uncool parts of the Big Apple with all types of people living in it.

It’s common knowledge that the City is comprised of many neighborhoods, like the Upper East Side, Flat Iron District, Financial District, Soho, and Tribeca. One of the coolest neighborhoods used to be Greenwich Village. This is where Bob Dylan used to come. But as we have discussed in class, cool changes its location in cities when that place has become infiltrated with uncool people. So my question is, has Greenwich Village become uncool?

I think a buzz word for uncool people, including myself, is trendy. And when talking about Greenwich Village, one could most definitely say it is trendy. It has one of the most expensive rates per square footage, and is home to many upscale boutiques and restaurants. So is Greenwich Village still a cool place to be in New York or has cool changed its location in the Big Apple?

Another neighborhood that used to be cool is Harlem. But now, it’s probably not the coolest place seeing as it is undergoing gentrification. Seeing as Columbia University borders Harlem by about one street, many uncool people have been coming to this area. And let’s not forget about developers who are buying up properties to turn them into something worth millions of dollars. So where are all the cool people going if their old neighborhoods are not what they used to be?

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James Dean- The Rebel With a Cause

In the past few years, Taylor Swift has become a well-recognized singer who appeals to young girls and teenagers. All six of her albums have had hit songs and one of her most recent albums, 1989, stayed the number one hit album for a record amount of time. That album happened to include Style, a song written about Harry Styles and their time together. The song used catchy lyrics, had a nice beat to it, and the words happened to stick in my head. In it, she compares Harry Styles to James Dean by making the reference, “you’ve got that James Dean daydream look in your eyes” (Swift 2014). Not many people can say that they have a look named after them, but James Dean can. As much as I don’t like to admit it, I didn’t really know who James Dean was until I heard Swift’s song. After listening to Style I was curious on who James Dean was and proceeded to research him. I found out that he was an actor in the fifties prior to his tragic death at the age of twenty-four. I don’t know if I could pinpoint what exactly it is that draws me in towards James Dean, but he certainly interests me and I hope to figure out why. Even though he died at a young age, James Dean is considered “a Cool original,” to many people, like Pountain and Robins, the authors of Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (70). Not only has he had songs written about him, like James Dean by the Eagles, but people, like James Franco, have styled themselves after him. Having managed to become an iconic actor after starring in only three movies, Dean’s level of influence is unprecedented. Something I have noticed about James Dean is that there is not just one thing that draws my attention towards him. Not only was he attractive, but he was also a rebel both on the screen and in real life. As sad as it is to admit it, I have not met a rebel and am starting to think that I haven’t met any rebels and cool people because the first thing they tend to do is drop out of school and I have been in school all of my life. Something that is essential to cool is dropping out of school, which Gwendolyn Brooks argued for in her poem, We Real Cool, by writing “we real cool. We left school” (1). It’s a known fact that cool people tend to drop out of school; just look at Rihanna, Charles Dickens, and Elton John. They chose to abandon the education system to pursue their passions. And let’s not forget that Marlon Brando was expelled for riding a motorcycle down his school’s hallway. The bottom line is that cool people do not stay in school. Whether they leave voluntarily or not, they are still leaving and that is what matters. So it is no surprise that in 1951, James Dean dropped out of the University of California, Los Angeles to pursue acting. That was a cool move on his behalf, and his acting career skyrocketed afterwards. If I were given the option to drop out, I don’t think I would take it. To me the surest path to success is by attending and graduating college. Sure I could drop out and become the next Steve Jobs or James Dean, but the odds of that happening are low. While this may not be the coolest move on my behalf, I am going to fully commit to school, not just cruise on by. I am going to take a rigorous course load, actually learn what is being taught and not just memorize information for tests, and I am going to be proud of graduating from college. School isn’t for everyone, that’s why people leave it when the opportunity arises, but others stay in school and that’s fine too. Despite what Brooks argued, I don’t necessarily think school is uncool. I think it has more to do with the amount of effort people put to their education. If one don’t want to put in the work, then he should drop out. But if he stays in the system, he should really commit to it and take control of his learning. After all, control plays an integral role in cool and if people have control over their education, then to me that makes it cool. As aforementioned, James Dean starred in three movies prior to his death- Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden, and Giant. In Rebel Without a Cause, Dean took on the role of a high schooler named Jim Stark who recently moved to a new town and didn’t really start off on the right foot there. In fact, the film began with him passed out in the middle of a street where police officers found him and took him to the station (Ray 1955). If that doesn’t scream rebel, then I don’t know what does. James Dean perfected the role of being a rebel in Rebel Without a Cause. The title of the movie clearly speaks for itself and James Dean set the path for teenage rebels of future generations to come. James Dean was known for being one of the first teenagers in America. In the past, people were either boy or man, girl or woman. But, Dean managed to create this in-between space that didn’t really exist before. Of course people still went through the ages of thirteen to nineteen, but they took on more of an adult role. For instance, when my grandparents were nineteen, they were already married and my grandfather started a construction company. But at nineteen, James Dean was attending UCLA trying to figure out what he would do with his life, kind of like what I am currently doing. Right now, I am at UM trying to figure out what I want to major in, if I want to transfer universities, and what I want to do with my life. These are all major decisions to make in today’s world, but this was uncommon in the past. Teens prior to Dean, and myself, did not have that privilege, they had more responsibilities and had to take care of themselves and sometimes their families. Thus, James Dean created the American teenager. Something worth noting is that Dean didn’t only create the American teenager, he also created the rebel. While some people thought this teenage rebellion was a ploy for attention, and a phase angsty kids go through, others sympathized with Dean and saw him as “a rebel with a cause, and that cause was escape from the suffocating web of family ties, school, suburban respectability and labour discipline that the new ‘mass society’ imposed” (Pountain and Robins 70). In other words, he was rebelling against things I am drawn towards. Just because Dean got to live the life of a teenager doesn’t mean his life was easy. In fact, he was mostly raised by his aunt and uncle after his mother passed away when he was nine. The death of a parent deeply affects and influences a child and I’m sure Dean was no exception, perhaps this is where his fascination with the macabre came from. Also, let’s not forget that while he was living with his aunt and uncle, Dean was molested by Reverend James DeWeerd (“James Dean Biography”). This is another area where Dean and I differ. The most difficult thing I have had to deal with was my parents getting a divorce. Perhaps this was the event that triggered Dean to have sexual encounters with many people, like Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen, and Pier Angeli, or perhaps that abuse was part of what added to his broody, mysterious, and rebellious aura. Something I find it ironic is that James Dean wasn’t an advocate for teenage rebellion even though he symbolized it. In fact, he advocated for teens to do the opposite and follow the rules. For instance, during an interview with a sheriff Dean was asked how he felt about teenagers speeding. He responded by saying people shouldn’t drive fast because it’s not safe and is dangerous. But he seemed to be a into hypocrisy considering he died speeding in a Porsche. So, while Dean might not have verbally encouraged this kind of teenage rebellion, his actions made him the epitome of it. To me, this is uncool. His actions and words contradicted each other. I hate it when people, like my grandfather, tell me, “do as I say, not as I do.” If I am supposed to act in the way someone is telling me to, but they don’t act that way, then why should I? Perhaps that was why teens didn’t heed Dean’s advice on driving the speed limit. Maybe they figured that if he wouldn’t take his own advice, then why should we? In this instance, I think they were cooler than he was. I’m also fascinated that James Dean’s motto seemed to be “live fast, die young, [and] leave a good looking corpse,” which he did all of the above (“James Dean Quotes”). He was constantly involved in risky activities, like smoking, speeding, and racing, died at a young age, and was quite handsome at that time. It makes me wonder if his mindset made it inevitable that he would die young. If he didn’t die on September 30th, would he have died the next day, month, or year? Once again I don’t have an answer to this, no one does, but when one involve himself in activities like he did, death is a factor that needs to be acknowledged. Something cool that I think James Dean did was that he seemed to acknowledge the fact that life is about balancing living and dying. He, like many cool people, flirted with death. He acknowledged the fact that at some point he will die and there is no in acting like immortality is a thing. My father once told me there are two things you have do in life, pay taxes and die. So when you acknowledge death, you can dance and flirt with it by pushing the boundaries of living that border death. James Dean’s favorite way to flirt with death was by driving fast cars and breaking speed limits. This is portrayed in the Eagles song, James Dean, in which they wrote “along came a Spyder and picked up a rider” (Eagles). James Dean wasn’t nicknamed ‘One Speed Dean’ for no reason. His one speed was fast and that ended up costing him his life. He even received a speeding ticket hours before his death, but that didn’t slow him down. So sometimes flirting with death, means that death wins, but eventually everyone will die. It is an inevitable truth humans cannot escape. No matter how hard one tries, he cannot outrun death, even I am guilty of trying to avoid death. I go to Zumba classes and eat kale and quinoa salads somehow thinking that this will increase my chances of outrunning death, even though I know that’s impossible. This is uncool on my behalf seeing as humans cannot control when they die. But sometimes the unexpected happens and death comes earlier than expected. James Dean was no exception to this. In fact, Pountain and Robins argue that Dean’s “untimely death in a car crash sealed his status as Cool’s first martyr” (70). As aforementioned, James Dean died at the age of twenty-four. This makes me wonder, do we regard him as highly as we do because he died so young? James Dean only starred in three movies before he died. That isn’t a lot to base a movie career on. Think about it, Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood have both starred in over forty-five movies each. That shows that they are both actors have strong acting skills that make them sought after to star in movies, but James Dean doesn’t have that kind of track record, per se. The three movies he starred in, he received praise for, but if he didn’t crash his Porsche on September 30, 1955, would his career have continued to carry on the upward trend it was on or would it have plateaued or even plummeted? While no one knows the answer to this question, it is interesting to think about. Also, James Dean would’ve not only continued to act if he didn’t die, but he also would’ve continued to age. It would be interesting to see what he would’ve looked like as he grew older. I think one of the reasons people, like Pountain and Robins, regard James Dean as “a Cool original,” is because he was and is so attractive (70). Thanks to photography becoming more widespread in the twentieth century, James Dean was captured on film quite frequently, which wasn’t common in the past. These photos show what James Dean represents and why he is considered attractive to many people, including myself. In one of his many pictures, Dean is shown reading a large book, The Complete Poetical Works by James Whitcomb Riley, at a kitchen table while smoking at the same time (Farr). Not only is smoking an act of rebellion, but it is also wildly attractive, especially when caught on camera. The way Dean is holding the cigarette in his hand is almost as if he is dangling it between two fingers (Farr). In fact, he doesn’t really have a grip on it. He manages to hold the cigarette in a nonchalant and subtle way that if one were to glimpse at the picture, he might overlook it. Not only is the cigarette an attractive aspect of the picture, but the glasses he is wearing and the book he is holding are as well. As stereotypical as it may be, when I see someone reading a book, I think they are intellectual and that makes them attractive. And the round eyeglasses Dean is wearing give him a touch of geek chic. Something that is cool about James Dean in this photo is the fact that he isn’t smiling at the camera like most people do. In fact, he isn’t even looking at the camera- he’s reading his book (Farr). That’s a cool move, he’s not being cheesy and smiling like most people, including myself, would do. James Dean’s pose is not the only attractive part of him in the picture. He himself is attractive. He’s both young and handsome, and that essence is captured in this photo, like all James Dean photos considering he did not live past the age of twenty-four. Not only was his face wrinkle free, but his hair was still on his head and he was sporting the messy bed head (Farr). His hair wasn’t neat and gelled back, it was messy and unkempt, standing up in different directions, and yet he still looked attractive, maybe even more so. I think this James Dean is attractive in this picture because he managed to do so in an effortless way. But, I don’t think I would see him as attractive as I do if he lived to grow older seeing as some people do not age well. Another thing worth noting is that Dean lived and acted in the mid-fifties, which was roughly seventy-two years ago. A lot of things have happened in those seventy-two years. People have walked the moon, started carrying phones on them, and constantly use the Internet which was nonexistent in 1955. Society has changed drastically and while people, like myself, may not want to admit it, it affects who they are. If James Dean was born sixty years later than he was, I’m sure he would still be a rebel today, but it would be interesting to see society’s effect on him.

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Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was one of the most recognizable artists to ever exist.With his distinguishable hair, the factory, and his entourage, Warhol was known throughout NYC and the art world. His apartment, known as the factory, became a space for avant-gardes and anyone who was worth knowing had usually been there before.

That’s one of the amazing things about New York City. So many different people can live in one city but they are so different and distinguishable based on what part of the city they’re in. At first, Warhol’s factory was on E 47th, but then he moved to the Upper East Side later on. I find it intriguing that the neighborhood in which you live in New York can say a lot about you.

Cool people, like Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, were constantly coming in and out of Warhol’s apartment. They were his friends, but they were also a part of his art. At one point, Warhol made a silent film that went on for hours with just people sitting in front of the camera doing whatever they wanted to do. To me, I think I would get bored if I were watching that, but people went to see it. It was art they could appreciate.

And this is something that I find cool about Warhol. He managed to turn simple, everyday objects into unique works of art. Not many people can say they became famous by painting a soup can, but Andy can. In fact, some people say that “he made art that did not look like art.” Warhol received many critiques, of both himself and his art, but that did not stop him from being himself and making the art he wanted to make. He still continued to paint Brillo boxes and Campbell soup cans despite the backlash he received. To me, this was a cool move.

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Stay Gold, Ponyboy

A book that I have liked since I first read it a while back was The Outsiders. You know what that book has? Greasers and Socs. The other day in class we were discussing how gangs keep people, like Chad, in check. Whether these gangs are motorcycle clubs, mafias, or gangs, they seem to keep privileged white boys in check. At the end of the day it is the people in the gangs that are cool. Not people like Chad and Brad. People like Chad do what is expected of them, they’re predictable, and that is why they are uncool (amongst other reasons). But, gang members manage to calm them down. It probably has something to do with the fact that they have been around the block, per se and have seen things people like Chad will never see. They are willing to fight anyone they think poses a threat to them, but I don’t think they’re too worried about the Chads of the world.

I can only imagine what gang members think of frat boys. When I see them, I laugh to myself thinking they’re so full of themselves, which tends to be true. So if that is the opinion of a privileged white girl, what is the opinion of gang members who’ve actually experienced the world, both the good and bad of it? It would definitely be a sight to see gang and a UM frat have a face-off. Well, whatever happens, just stay gold, Ponyboy.

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Cool Flirting With Death Pt. 2

It’s a common fact that cool people flirt with the idea of death. They aren’t afraid of dying if it means they are truly living. This is why they drive fast, smoke, and do things most people consider an endangerment to life. But they still do it and in the end they’re cool, even if some consider it foolish.

Something I’ve always wanted to do that flirts with death a bit is skydiving. It’s always been something I’ve said I wanted to do but when the opportunity is handed to me will I actually take it? As of now, I have plans to go skydiving with two of my friends, but I know the risks of skydiving. I mean you aren't forced to sign a waiver for no reason. While I know the odds of anything happening are slim to none, they still exist and for me that is still a risk.

But, sometimes the risk is what makes these things fun. Would people still want to drive 100 mph on I-95 if it wasn’t illegal? Probably, but then it wouldn’t be such a thrill and that is part of what makes these activities cool.

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¿ cigarette ?