Marketing of Cool

The Marketing of Cool In theory or by definition, to be cool means to remain calm and collected even under times of stress. But this doesn’t explain the ever so changing global culture of cool. What does it really mean to be cool nowadays, and why is it cool to be cool? Does it define an individual by the music he or she listens to? The lifestyles one chooses to live, or the culture they surround themselves in? If in fact it can be pinned down to these, why is it constantly changing and evolving? The first question, you need to ask yourself is where the aesthetics of cool derived from. In ancient Greece, the Stoic philosophers supported a vision of coolness in a turbulent world. The Stoic indifference to fate can be interpreted as the supreme principle of coolness, and has even been viewed as such in the context of African American culture. (Botz-Bornstein, “What Does It Mean to be Cool?”) Cool was developed mainly as a behavioral attitude practiced by the men in the United States during the slavery era. Slavery was the catalyst to emotional detachment and irony. A “cool attitude” helped slaves cope with the harsh treatment and exploitation they went through. It gave them the confidence to walk the streets with their head held high – it gave them a sense of dignity. Cool represented the resistance to authority through creativity and innovation; fighting for your right to party!
Epictetus the Stoic suggested a difference between those things that depended on us and those things that do not depend on us. He advocated developing an attitude of regarding the things we couldn’t influence as unimportant. We depend on our impulses, passions, attitudes, opinions, desires, beliefs and judgments - these are things we must improve. Everything that cannot be controlled by us - death, the actions of others, or the past, for example - should leave us indifferent. Through this insight that all the things upon which we have no influence are best neglected, a ‘cool’ attitude