The Definitive 4 Tiers of Being Cool
Low-effort mental health gurus will tell you that coolness comes only from within, that you should only be concerned about your relationship with your self, or, worst of all, that you shouldn’t be concerned with coolness at all. I cannot think of worse advice.
Coolness is not self-assigned. It is granted. Coolness exists only in relation to others.
To be cool, someone must first be capable of discernment. There are people who move through culture without judgment—who make no distinctions between good and bad, interesting and boring, alive and dead. These people do not meaningfully participate in coolness, because coolness requires values. Without discernment, there is nothing to assign.
Discernment begins with self and other. From there, hierarchies inevitably emerge: prettier and uglier, smarter and dumber, better and worse. Coolness lives inside these hierarchies, not as an absolute ranking, but as a set of clear divisions that most people intuitively recognize.
Tier 4. Uncritical acceptance of popular culture Normies and popular culture
Football players and cheerleaders and pop stars are “cool” because they are held up as the highest standard of the most common thing. They have attained the highest form of popular actions, being good at sports, having artistic talent, being beautiful, etc. They have clearly divided themselves from others in this sense.
A person who accepts these popular divisions un-critically, who likes something precisely because it is popular has also placed themselves in this division. They mirror their actions based on what the coolest person in the room is doing. There is safety in this action. Everyone in the room has deemed that the captain of the football team is the coolest guy in the room. Thus, mirroring the actions of the football captain might cause others to also place you in the same division as the football captain.
Take for example the American who passively consumes and appraises Taylor Swift, or the National Football League, or the Walt Disney Company. This example subject has not chosen to adopt these cultural practices; rather, they have come to it because it was the most popular thing everyone else was doing. This person places themselves in the largest in-group in American culture.
All subsequent people on this list will look down on these people for lacking taste in their discernment. People in this tier have only taken a base glance at the qualities of culture and have chosen the safest option, which is to act copaesthetically and not bother the dominant order.
Archetypes of this tier include the rabid sports fan, people whose music taste is dictated by the Billboard top 40 list, those who flex designer fashion, those who post trends on social media, and similar ilk. Their culture has been decided for them by suits in a corporate boardroom.
The majority of people you know fall into this category. You probably don’t think of them as being cool.
Tier 3. The automatic hater The basic hipster, the contrarian, the devil’s advocate, the basic counter-culturalist
If you go to a big party with no guest list and you say something smarmy like “The Beatles suck” or “Marvel is an insult to cinema” you will get a pop, a reaction, people will turn their heads and look at you and maybe want to talk to you. A person who criticizes the most popular in group will get a lot of attention precisely because they are separating themselves from the most common thing.
A smaller mind will see someone going against the grain and associate it with bravery. The automatic hater does make an active choice to rail against all things pop culture, but this is not a true rebellion. Much like Tier 1 coolness, the automatic counter culturalist has not actively chosen their own cultural signs and actions. Rather, they are still dictated by the popular culture, except this person lives as an inversion of popular culture. You can certainly distinguish yourself by hating on every thing that other people like, and you will find camaraderie in doing so, and you and your comrades will feel cool because you have placed yourself in a newer, smaller in-group. These people still have not developed a true sense of taste yet.
The archetype of this tier is the Portland hipster, the Instagram meme account, the Emo, and most theater kids, who have the basest taste among the artists.
The majority of substack critics live in this category.
Tier 2. The apathetic culturalist Higher hipsterdom, the alternative, the cult of the ironic
The automatic hater is deemed to be brave because they go against the grain. The apathetic culturalist has removed themselves from the mainstream conversation entirely. Others will discern this self-removal and likely assign it cool.
The automatic hater still engages with popular culture by constantly hating on it, thus reifying its existence. The apathetic culturalist does not engage in social media trends, in top 40 music, in fast fashion, or anything seen as mainstream. These people simply do not care what is going on in the mainstream world.
Instead, the apathetic culturalist takes a selfish approach to culture and media. They only engage with items that they truly enjoy. Through this choice they have attained true taste. Choosing culture of your own taste takes a great deal more effort than choosing mainstream culture or choosing to automatically hate on mainstream culture.
As a clarification, these people are apathetic to mainstream culture, but they still care very much about being discerned. If you want to hurt their feelings, simply accuse them of caring about what others think; this is their greatest fear.
Apathetic culturalists can engage with mainstream culture, but they will only do so through the veneer of irony, precisely because of their chief fear. Ironic taste should be avoided at all cost because it rots the soul of the individual and spoils the enjoyment of others.
Archetypes of this tier are Bushwick and Silverlake hipsters, instagram aesthetic accounts with less than 50k followers, vintage store frequentists, goths (not emos), and anyone self aware enough to self-select into a cultural caste before their prefrontal cortex fully forms.
The coolest person you know probably falls into this tier.
Tier 1. The true lover Someone who actively chooses love before assigning divisions to themselves or others
When you meet someone cool, you should pay attention to how you feel immediately after the interaction. If you walk away and feel somehow bad about yourself, then you’ve met someone who is Tier 2 cool. More often than not this bad feeling has to do with your relationship to yourself than any active judgement the Tier 2 person has passed.
If you walk away from the interaction feeling validated, then you have certainly met a Tier 1 cool person. The true lovers of culture make all discernments and divisions with love as their primary deciding factor. They choose cultural items that they love, much like the apathetic culturalists. The key difference is that the true lover does not make a discernment between mainstream culture and alternative culture. Instead, they only discern between cultural items that maximize love and good feeling and those that minimize it.
A tier 2 cool person says “I don’t care and I want you to notice how much I don’t care.” A tier 1 cool person says “I care about cultural discernment, and I want you to care as well.” When a Tier 1 person shares that they like something, and you respond that you don’t like it, the Tier 1 cool person is not offended. They are truly interested in hearing the opinions of others, and are even delighted by these differences.
True lovers of culture, also like the apathetic culturalists, put in serious effort to find cultural items. They seek out experiences, books, fashion, music, that makes them feel alive, that makes them feel human and connected with others. True lovers are allowed to like mainstream culture, and they do so without irony. They probably don’t like Taylor Swift, but they can name a few choice TS songs that they do like. The true lover probably doesn’t like Marvel movies, but they like that you like Marvel movies.
The source of coolness for the true lover is actually not in their choice of culture at all, but rather their choice in discernment. The true lover still makes a discernment, but does not make a judgement in their discerning. When you meet them, you will notice this lack of judgement, and you will be free to speak and act truthfully to yourself, and you will feel loved around them. The true lover will love what they love without fear of judgement hanging over their heads; likewise, they will want you to do the same.
There is no archetype of the true lover because they exist so rarely in our world. the closest I could come up with is Cher Horowitz from Clueless. Indeed, I fear this person is less and less common with every passing day.