Why are fedoras cool to uncool people?
Were they ever cool? Why do people who aren't cool and have the occasion to act like a cool person (like late middle aged men at halloween parties) put on a fedora or hawaiian shirt? How are things that aren't cool transformed into signifiers of cool for not cool people?
It's as if not-cool people have a range of expression of what is normal for their not-coolness and the outer edge of it has this twilight zone of not cool things that are outside daily not-cool experience but are still easily accessible, so they become "cool" is only through their unfamiliarity. It makes sense, sort of. Something that appears to be outside of not-cool but actually is not-cool takes on the mantle of otherness -- and since the not-cool aren't cool and can't in fact be cool, they associate all perceived otherness as "cool". Because if they knew what cool was, they themselves would be cool.
I'm not cool. But I don't wear a fedora.
It's as if not-cool people have a range of expression of what is normal for their not-coolness and the outer edge of it has this twilight zone of not cool things that are outside daily not-cool experience but are still easily accessible, so they become "cool" is only through their unfamiliarity. It makes sense, sort of. Something that appears to be outside of not-cool but actually is not-cool takes on the mantle of otherness -- and since the not-cool aren't cool and can't in fact be cool, they associate all perceived otherness as "cool". Because if they knew what cool was, they themselves would be cool.
I'm not cool. But I don't wear a fedora.
Labels: Thinking about crap
posted by Greg Mills at 11:14 AM
7 Comments:
The same reason single unattractive middle aged women wear long dresses and drive PT Cruisers.
Maybe the use of the fedora is a valiant effort to spark a revival of George Louis Costanza's Bald Paradise - a period of the 1930's when all men wore hats so women wouldn't notice that they were bald or had unattractive hair. Did you ever think of that? Those who are follicle-unchallenged shouldn't ruin it for the rest of us.
You've stumbled across one of the great questions of Our Time. I dunno.
By the way, I haven't died. Just hibernated. :)
Yes, I was very uncool in the '80s. I wore a fedora. Drove my best friend to distraction, but that's half the reason I wore it. Plus it looked good on Simon LeBon, so I thought what the heck. Now I cringe in retrospect.
Me, I like to leave a day's beard growth, a la Don Johnson. I haven't worked my way up to a fedora yet.
Well if a fedora isn't cool, is a stingy brim?
Thanks for the Album Leaf suggestion. I'm really enjoying Into the Blue Again.
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