Too cool for school

It's been a trend in recent years for people to be too cool to like things. Cool, trendy, hip and with it people are now too cool to be able to show an interest in things.

I overheard a conversation on the bus this morning. A girl was relating to her friend how she had been called a geek for "really liking Star Wars." Apparently, the criteria for Star Wars Geekdom was knowing the names of 4 out of 6 of the films. For this entirely pitiful display of Star Wars knowledge, she was ridiculed and labelled a geek.

People used to be too cool to like stuff. Now, they're too cool to know stuff. They're too cool to learn stuff.

Drink a lot of alcohol - you're cool. Know the chemical formula for alcohol, you're a geek.

Recognise the number 93 on the front of a bus, get on the bus and play your oh-so-individual music through your tinny mobile phone speaker, while verbally abusing anyone who asks you to turn it down, because they's disrespeccin ya innit blud - you're cool. Know anything remotely technical about the MP3 that's playing - geek.

Bill Hicks highlighted this years ago. Admittedly, those were Americans he was commenting on, but we seem to get the American trends a couple of years after, albeit without any of the style.

"I was in Nashville, Tennesee last year, after the show I went to a Waffle House, I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me, "Tch tch tch tch. Hey, what you readin' for?" Is that like the weirdest question you've ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading for. Well,, you stumped me. Why do I read? Well... hmmm... I guess I read for a lot of reasons, and the main one, is so I don't end up, being a waffle waitress.

But then... this trucker in the next booth gets up, stands over me, and goes, "Well, looks like we got ourselves a reader." What's going on here? It's not like I walked into a clan rally in a Boy George outfit, it's a book!"

I'm not sure that it's the knowledge that's so repulsive to these people. They just don't want to put in the effort. If you can glide through life without having to do much or exert yourself, well done! You're a success! And cool. And you can sit next to me and talk about how much you drank last night.

Perhaps it can be summed up best this way...

Being able to do this is very cool.



Learning to do it, is not.