The Quest for Cool

We're cool, right? Or as Conan exclaims, "Be cool my babies!"

But wait a minute, what does cool even mean?

OK, so this post was inspired by an Adbusters article I just read--"The Reconquest of Cool", in which Kalle Lasn accuses the culture of corporate "cool" of creating a generation of consuming robots who have been hypnotized into submission by savvy advertising campaigns. In Lasn's words, "We’re finally beginning to understand where this bogus cool has been leading us: not to happiness and prosperity as promised in the ads, but to cynicism, ecocide and a brutal, dog-eat-dog future."

We've heard this diatribe before, right? A familiar apple, which frankly, hasn't fallen far from the tree of Naomi Klein's anti-brand manifesto, No Logo, or Michael Moore's expose' filmmaking. Lasn's ethos also sounds a lot like that of Tommy Corn, Mark Wahlberg's character in I ♥ Huckabees. He's that jaded firefighter-turned-environmentalist whose 9/11 experiences have opened the door to a seemingly endless existential dilemma in which the human cost of that Swoosh and the true price of oil have suddenly become the centre of his universe.

But instead of continuing down this well-worn path, I'm more concerned about discovering the source of the supposed sands of coolness. If corporate cool is referred to as "bogus cool," then what the heck is authentic cool?

Well, according to Lasn's dubious claim, "[C]ool has always been an attitude of resistance to subjugation, an expression of rebellion and a posture of defiance...." She even calls on her loyal readers to, "Start generating authentic cool from the bottom up again."

Is it just me, or have we become completely lost in semantics here?

So in my admittedly trivial quest to find out where cool actually came from, I did make some interesting discoveries. While Lasn agrees that the origin of the word can be traced back to Africa, its meaning has not always been rooted in the kind of countercultural activism she has claimed.

On the contrary, the linguistic equivalent of cool was originally conceived by certain West African tribes to describe the most desirable state of being. According to Robert Farris Thompson's "An Aesthetic of the Cool," the Gola people of Liberia defined the term as, "[The] ability to be nonchalant at the right moment...to reveal no emotion...It is particularly admirable to do difficult tasks with an air of ease and silent disdain."

This notion of coolness was also shared by the the Yoruba of Nigeria who sculpted bronze busts of kings and other notable figures in the likeness of this calm and serene aesthetic.

And low and behold, there is also a plethora of other cultural interpretations of cool:

• sprezzatura: an Italian term with as many ambiguous meanings as its cool counterpart, used to describe an effortless artistic chic most famously personified by da Vinci's Mona Lisa--popular during High Renaissance Europe
  


• Dada: an anti-war countercultural Arts movement that turned contemporary art and culture on its head--originated in Zurich, Switzerland during WWI



• American "cool": made popular during the 1940s in both the Jazz and Beatnik countercultures
  

Out of all these derivations, I'm assuming the last two reflect Lasn's perceptions of authentic cool the best. But frankly, I'm doubtful if her brand of cool even exists. We can all agree that the expression has become so generic and ambiguous that it now seems, well, meaningless. And during a time when we are all struggling to restore the intrinsic value of community in the world, while trying to heighten the sense of urgency in regards to our significant social and environmental responsibilities, using cool to symbolize this movement somehow just doesn't cut it.

So THIS is Christmas...

When did Christmas become...well...this?

You know, all of the damn shopping! And I don't mean this kind of shopping...

But this kind of CRAZED consumerism!

And God forbid you don't buy the right gifts! While Hollywood leads you to believe that this is the only consequence...

In reality, you're really going to be dealing with this...

Or even worse, this...

Which would probably leave you feeling like this (if you're lucky) ...

Or perhaps this (if you're not so lucky)...

And leaving somebody crashing on this.

Therefore, you can't really blame this guy for wanting to put a kibosh on Christmas.

So when did this all happen? Remember when you were a kid and the holidays were a lot more simple.

Sure, I looked forward to the huge Christmas payload...

But it was more about being fixated on this guy...

...and his trusty team.

Or spending entire winter days outside...

...like our lives depended on it.

There's actually an ongoing joke in my family about the holidays. Since my mom came from really humble beginnings back in the Philippines, her parents didn't have enough money to buy all 8 kids a new gift each Christmas. So what did they do? Well, my grandma would actually give each of them the same toy every year. And folks, I'm dead serious. Sure she would wrap the things up to preserve the whole excitement in unwrapping something, but my little aunts and uncles essentially had to contend with these recycled gifts. Apparently, my mom was stuck with a wooden duck that laid eggs, while my aunt got a wooden cat. And were they bitter and miserable about their crappy presents? Hell no, because what their parents couldn't provide in fancy gifts, they compensated for in huge elaborate feasts where the whole neighbourhood was invited. And after the dinner festivities, all the children would make their way around the block as they knocked on doors and belted out Christmas carols for each of their neighbours. So even though my family has since come to North America and have all become successful in their own right, they all agree that those recycled gifts and Christmas block parties made for some of the best moments of their lives. And I believe it because that sounds like Christmas...

Buy Nada Day

For the last 15 years, the folks at Adbusters Media Foundation have found a rather ingenious way to royally stick it to the man. They launched Vancouver's International Buy Nothing Day, an entire day devoted to buying zilch, zero, nada. With mobs of Christmas shoppers scouring the malls in the name of sweet Santa, such a movement may seem like an unlikely sell (Sorry, I couldn't help myself). But on the contrary, this day of anti-consumer reckoning has actually caught on in 65 countries such as the UK, Israel, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Norway and India, to name just a few. So what day did they choose to mark such an event? November 23, in order to put a kibosh on the pinnacle of Christmas shopping mania. In addition to their zero shopping mantra, the Buy Nothing activists have put global climate change at the centre of this year's activities. According to Adbusters co-founder, Kalle Lasn, "So much emphasis has been placed on buying carbon offsets and compact fluorescent lightbulbs and hybrid cars that we are losing sight of the core cause of our environmental problems: we consume far too much.” Oh, let the pacifists unite!

Here are just a few of the events taking place during International Buy Nothing Day 2007:

-->Credit Card Cut-up: individuals volunteer their services at a local mall by cutting-up those nasty Visas--for free!

-->The Zombie Walk-->Buy Nothing participants wander around shopping malls and poke fun at the expressionless, zombie-like faces of Christmas shoppers.

-->Whirlmart-->a large Buy Nothing posse invade a local Wallmart by forming a long conga line of shopping carts throughout the store without buying a single thing.

http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/

What's in your bubble?

Jimi Li has retaliated against our branded landscape. As our public spaces have become completely inundated with ubiqutious ad culture, the graphic artist has decided to take matters into his own hands. But fear not, folks. He brings not guns, or tanks, or bombs. His preferred weapon of choice? Well, bubbles of course. Yes, that's right--thought bubbles.


In what he has coined "The Bubble Project," Li has taken to the streets of New York City and targeted his advertising foes with the homemade bubble stickers. In turn, passersby are encouraged to fill in these bubbles with their own commentaries. Afterwards, Li photgraphs the tagged bubbles and posts the results on his website. More recently, this bubble boy has even released a book of his anti-branding work. The reasoning behind his bubble counterattack? According to Li, "[These bubbles stickers transform the corporate monologue into open monologue...More bubbles mean more freed spaces, more sharing of personal thoughts...and more imagination and fun." Thanks, Mr. Li.

For your bubbling pleasure, I've even included a blank bubbled ad below. So what's in your bubble?

Check out Li's website for yourself: http://thebubbleproject.com/