Cool is inevitably a part of everyones life whether we like it or not. It's the a piece of the foundation for our society. We are helplessly slaves of cool. We depend on it, yearn for it, and praise it. In todays society peoples lives revolve around cool. It is a determining factor for who and what we will be in the future, yet many people ignore the fact that they constantly seek coolness. People will go to extreme lengths to be cool and conform to certain ideas of cool. People have learned to listen to the ones considered cool and have learned to play their roles. It is quite obvious that so many people rely on cool that need cool to have meaning in their lives. Where does this constant need for cool come from. Why have we become so reliant on ideas of what someone should be? Why is it that we try so hard to fit in to certain molds? Cool is an addiction that society seems incapable of stopping. Our addiction from cool comes from many different places and the source does not lie in one place. However there are a few key reason we are always in a desperate search for cool. The human need for cool derives from personal needs for connection with other human beings, options society presents to us, our surroundings, and a need for sense of importance and meaning.
Connection is an essential part of life. From birth we are in need of connection. We seek connection from our families, friends, co-workers, and everyone else around us. A large majority of our daily actions are done for the approval of others. The things we wear, the way we act, the things we like are all different ways we try to connect to other people. When a child is young there usually a connection with the parent and the child is loved and is given attention for simply being alive. However, as this kid begins to grow up and more people enter their life they try to find new ways to get attention and connect with people. To do so they try to impress them and seem important to them. We go to great lengths and put ourselves through extreme circumstances to connect with others. We are willing to pierce our skin and have tattoos drawn on our skin. We are willing to dye our hair, burn our hair, wear fake hair just to impress and connect with others. We even have surgery to change our appearance so that we can feel more accepted and connected to others. Although this is something that many people would deny it is quite obvious that no matter how original you try to be you are conforming to certain group and a certain image and we try our best to fit in to these images.
A need for connection is not a negative thing and should not be looked at negatively. However, the things people have resorted to doing to fulfill their need of connection is something that we should be ashamed of. We are savages when it comes to seeking cool. We contradict all the things we say we believe in. Dignity, pride and many other "American" values are thrown out the window in the quest for cool, yet somehow we still convince ourselves of our coolness. We practice our cool so much we actually believe we are what we are pretend to be, except in the end we are still pretending to fit a certain character. The choice of cool as one of the primary coping mechanism for connection is not necessarily the fault of the individual. We have grown up in a society which values competition, individualism, and the idea of cool. We grow up wanting to be the best and wanting to stand out yet still wanting to fit in and connect with everyone around us or our specific preference of people we choose to connect to.
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Great start - your writing has some flash in it - eg. "We depend on it, yearn for it, and praise it."
ReplyDeleteKeep going!
Omar- I would rewrite your thesis as: Cool is an unstoppable addiction to personal connections.
ReplyDeletePeople seem to be so caught up in aggrandizing themeselves they are deluded by the real reason they try to make themselves look a certain way. Most people say "I do it because I like it" or "I do it for me" when people ask why they do something to present themselves a certain way. In reality, people aggrandize their self to send off signals and clues to allow people to see their identity. For examples, girls may swing their hips while they walk so people will see their feminity and understand clearly that that person is a girl. Whereas a boy might walk more stifly to express masculinity so people understand that the boy is a boy. People are so addicted and identified with their presentation of cool, the are deluded by the reality of their performance.
You have lots of great arguments but I think you just need to include some evidence to back up those arguements.
you say, "We go to great lengths and put ourselves through extreme circumstances to connect with others. We are willing to pierce our skin and have tattoos drawn on our skin. We are willing to dye our hair, burn our hair, wear fake hair just to impress and connect with others. We even have surgery to change our appearance so that we can feel more accepted and connected to others."
you could use evidence from Fanning, Matt Fried, some of the internet sources Andy provided when we had to do the tattoo post, and from the Hair chapter in The Body Social.
I also think it would be helpful if you organized your arguments to easily include the evidence to the arguments.
This is a good start!
-Sandy
Omar
ReplyDeleteIn my interpretation, your thesis was saying how Being cool is something we all yearn and praise, along with that we are obsessed with connecting with people who we chose to connect to.
[I defiantly might be wrong.. but I'm just not in the greatest mood, forgive me]
So with the connections a person receives as life goes by the more we literary try to re-invent ourselves in a way. Its sort of like those pillows that form into your own figure to comfort yourself. The more we lay on the pillow the more creases we create the more creases we create the more duller the pillow will get until theres time for a brand new one to start all over again. I like how you connected back to tattoos and Hair. I don't know if this is wrong but I'll bring it up anyway. When people lose their hair when they have cancer, we [or others] donate hair. Why is that? Is hair really an out stretch that actually defines a person's cool? Is it right to give them hair just because they want to be cool? [I sound like a bitch]. But do you get what I'm saying? Regardless, we are deluded by the image of cool that even when we have sickness we allow ourselves to use it as a boost to become part of the cool. [Oh man, forgive me for sounding so merciless.]
First of all great start. Second of all, theres quite a lot to be added. But I'm sure you'll get it down nicely. Defiantly add on to the Body social stuff. I mean there is a lot of significant facts in the hair reading, how males and females are opposites. Just take one of the readings in his room. Use Fanning as an example of merely liking tattooing instead of having a actually meaning behind it like everyone else claims.
I like the sound of it so far, great start.
-Esther