Quartz on What is "Cool"?

Marc Bain's article for Quartz, called The Neuroscience of Cool reflects on the idea of pursuing a certain level of social status reflected in one's clothing. Bain states, "Cool is a target that’s constantly shifting. It’s an attitude, a term of approval, and today, as much as any of these things, it’s a game of superficially rebellious status-chasing, centered on consumerism."

I find this wildly interesting, that in a study to determine what happens in the brain when a subject finds something to be "cool," the medial prefrontal cortex lights up. Those running the study "believe it suggests that the subjects’ brains were responding to how they thought the product might boost their esteem in the eyes of others." So much of what we see as cool is in light of what we think other's perceptions will be.

Bain talks about jeans, and how the changes in denim styles argue his point: what people perceive as cool manifests itself very clearly in styles of jeans.

Bain quotes a group of psychiatrists, stating that "Coolness as a counterculture force may no longer reflect an actually rebellious value system, but rather a kind of rebellious-looking conformity to current social forces, particularly consumerism."

So, coolness isn't actually a word for a new, fresh trend, but something that a large majority is claiming as their own, and that all are falling into the same trend together, rather than some rebellion against the norm.