A friend I’ve known a long time, nearly 25 years, said this week, “Why were we always so obsessed with cool people?”
Cool people! The cool kids, cool adults, cool looks. Right bands, right clothes, right takes—meaning there were also wrong bands and clothes, lame people, boring looks. On the other side of the hill, through the trees: everything to be dismissed.
Coolness is a preoccupation of teenagers—and do we forever stay teenagers, my friend suggested? Is anyone not on some level still their teenage self?
(I’m pretty sure my therapist doesn’t read this newsletter, but if she does, hey, topic.)
It is a fair question, why the interest, not only my friend’s, but the broad social absorption in differentiating, the heed for hierarchy, putting importance on what’s to be elevated above the conventional. Because that sneering over the normie, the tepid many—it’s everywhere. I mean, subtly, it’s definitely the tone of the New York Times. Overtly, the attitude of New York Magazine, the New Yorker—maybe any publication with “New York” in the title, lol.
Of course, I want to say anyone or thing identifying as cool, or making the effort to be, is deep down conformist: fitting into a preferred box, which is still a box. But let’s get away from cool and offer praise on the normal. After all, not all normal people are alike; and each normal person is strange in their own way. The term normal suggests less striving, at least externally, to fit a mold, to care about others’ opinions. I’m not saying we should all go out and wear gray sweatsuits tomorrow, but in terms of me and my friend—she and her husband were always paragons of cool for me—it’s a relief, in this period, to give less about fitting in.
Hilariously, at least for me, after we spoke, I mentioned (which I alluded to last week, I think) how I’d been rediscovering my teenage affection for the David Matthews Band. Aghast! A step too far! When I had otherwise such good taste—this was super cringe! But I adopt the normie’s pose of no apologies, of fearless enthusiasm and sincerity. It may be the nicest part of feeling normal: not needing to feel bad for that which I love.
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(Fwiw I’m flying to Japan today for a magazine assignment, so there may or may not be a newsletter next weekend. If there is, it’ll likely be photos from my travels, and likely only for paying subscribers.)
In tomorrow’s supplement for paying subscribers:
Two new albums I loved that no one told me had been released, plus details on my recent lunch with André 3000
A handmade art book for a great holiday gift
The best in the week’s online reading for your Sunday downtime
What the what
Meditations in an Emergency is a weekly mini-essay from writer Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with 3+ things to love, plus a monthly dispatch from the road, for some inbox wanderlust ⛰️
Rosecrans is the author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. His most recent novel, The Last Kid Left, was one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year. Titles mentioned in this newsletter are stored on a Bookshop list, which pays a commission for any books sold