Comment by amsilprotag | Hacker News Reader

Comment by amsilprotag | Hacker News Reader

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Guess the age of the author at the time of writing and then click [0]. If you're like me, you were pretty sure he was over 40, likely over 50. The reason why this is statistically likely is because cool died about 15 years ago and everyone under 35 knows it, but the article doesn't even mention it.

As the author says, cool started gaining popularity in the 30s, as mass broadcast media became dominant and service jobs made up over 50% of the US work force [1]. Almost all service jobs, to a greater degree than farm and manufacturing, require the participants to signal competence. The cool persona is Hollywood's and Madison Avenue's counter-signaling answer to this demand. Cool is on another plane from those other, gaudy service sector workers. Cool doesn't flaunt competence, but if you give cool a guitar, gun, motorcycle, or skateboard, flawless execution will ensue. Anyone can adopt the mannerisms of cool (to Madison Avenue's benefit [2]).

What replaced cool? Genuine enthusiasm. With the rise of the internet, social media, and Youtube, entertainers are no longer selected by service-economy executives. Now entertainers rise up through skill, passion, and endless hours of self-promotion. Now artists and athletes have access to their fans, and their fans see their dedication and associate it with status. To get a sense of this change, watch a few early 2000s Scarlett Johansson interviews, then watch a few current Jenifer Lawremce interviews. The new cool is engaged and open, a tightly-packaged version of the qualities of Youtube star or professional athlete.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Skinner_(journalist)

[1] https://www.minnpost.com/sites/default/files/images/articles...

[2] This chart https://www.ahrq.gov/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/professiona... from this 2018 study https://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/education/curriculum-tool...

>What replaced cool? Genuine enthusiasm.

I had to LOL hard at that one.

Yeah, as if in the age of the selfie, Instagram celebrities, vanity blogging, social media status games, and so on, "genuine enthusiasm" even had a chance...

>Now entertainers rise up through skill, passion, and endless hours of self-promotion. Now artists and athletes have access to their fans, and their fans see their dedication and associate it with status.

LOL again. The music industry is more entrenched than ever, and 99.99% of those musicians with "skill, passion, and endless hours of self-promotion" are totally niche. Big success comes from huge label promotion and media bombardment even more so than before.

>To get a sense of this change, watch a few early 2000s Scarlett Johansson interviews, then watch a few current Jenifer Lawremce interviews. The new cool is engaged and open, a tightly-packaged version of the qualities of Youtube star or professional athlete.

Jenifer Lawrence has had tens of millions of promotion thrown at her. Just because the mood of the day is to give a "casual" personality vibe in interviews doesn't mean anything substantial changed.

>* The new cool is engaged and open, a tightly-packaged version of the qualities of Youtube star or professional athlete.*

Yeah, the "genuine enthusiasm" of Logan Paul...

Yes, you can name shitty famous people of today. But when I was growing up, I don't think I ever followed a famous person who wasn't approved by a gatekeeper of some kind. Nor did I ever see an interview of them that wasn't presented by a major media company.

But in both absolute and relative terms, the number of genuinely passionate famous people has increased. And the amount of hours people spend watching these people perform and reading their own words has increased. I'm using Jennifer Lawrence as an effect, not a cause. She wears this faux-accessibility because she's competing with less famous, truly accessible people. Earlier celebrities didn't have to appeal to this desire because there was no one flanking them on that dimension.

Look at pictures of the highest grossing actors of 2016 [0]. Even in their facial expressions, they are miles away from John Wayne, Paul Newman, Humphrey Bogart, or Clint Eastwood in the golden age of Cool.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/actors/#6e58a4d340fe

>Yes, you can name shitty famous people of today. But when I was growing up, I don't think I ever followed a famous person who wasn't approved by a gatekeeper of some kind.

And yet, there were more independent voices with actual influence back in the day (writers, poets, musicians, etc) than in the whole of the internet combined. Who weren't there for the money either.

Those "passionate people" in vlogging have disintegrated into cheap salesmen very quickly. Those on Instagram even more so.

>Look at pictures of the highest grossing actors of 2016 [0]. Even in their facial expressions, they are miles away from John Wayne, Paul Newman, Humphrey Bogart, or Clint Eastwood in the golden age of Cool.

That's because everybody is as well. Styles change over time. We don't speak in a Transatlantic accent like actors of yore either.

Regarding absolute quality of output, that's an interesting thought. Maybe the interconnectedness and availability of immediate consumption feedback (likes, views) made things worse. People often talk of the monoculture eroding over the past generation, but you're proposing the exact opposite. Is there a way to measure diversity of output? I think 2018 me has found diverse people with small followings whom I genuinely connect to, but maybe I would have found even better creative output via print or in person in the past.

It is my impression that youtube or instagram have a long tail of creators, appealing to niche interests, but maybe there is a falseness to this as well if everyone is playing by the same rules.

Thanks for the exchange. I don't necessarily agree, but I'll be thinking about it.

"Yes, you can name shitty famous people of today. But when I was growing up, I don't think I ever followed a famous person who wasn't approved by a gatekeeper of some kind."

What if that reflects how you've changed, and not how society has changed?

>Yeah, as if in the age of the selfie, Instagram celebrities, vanity blogging, social media status games, and so on, "genuine enthusiasm" even had a chance...

eh, I do think, in some ways the "genuine enthusiasm" or if we are going to use tech company words, "Passion" is a fundamentally different thing from "cool" - even if it can be just as inauthentic.

"Cool" is about acting unaffected; in some ways, it's acting like you don't care even when you do. "Passion" and "Genuine enthusiasm" are in some ways the inverse; they are acting like you care deeply and genuinely even if maybe you don't.

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