h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A256880

Conducting a Search, I was amazed that H2G2 still provides no advice on how to Be Cool. This is clearly a major item of concern to all your readers. If I remember the H2G2 books right, Zaphod and Ford spent a lot of time and trouble trying to Be Cooler than each other.

I would therefore like to propose the above Entry, that I have written, to get the ball rolling. I hope we can reach a consensus on How To Be Cool. Also, if Bob Dylan is the coolest guy ever, who was or is the coolest girl? I would vote, collectively, for All Saints.

If you wish to follow this track, I beg to put before you:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A513604

as a fine entry in a similar vein. Do remember that h2g2 edited entries should be objective and comprehensive - quite a piece of work!

Ccat (who doesn't think that All Saints are particularly cool)

Ah - coolness is all a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I don't think the All Saints are particularly cool either; they're just stage school girls who can afford better clothes than me. No, I'm not the slightest bit jealous or bitter. I mean that...

Right - I'm off to read your entry.

Right - quite funny, but just a few points:

Decide whether or not you are going to capitalise "cool"; it varies throughout the article.

"The coolest person ever was Bob Dylan" - This is your personal opinion. I like Dylan myself (though I reckon "Blood on the Tracks" is a damn good album, and that was post-crash), but it is highly suspect as to whether or not he was the coolest person ever. If we're going on the flamboyant dodgy lifestyle, Byron and Oscar Wilde would be pretty high on my list. You might consider rephrasing something like this - "Perhaps one of the coolest people ever was..."

Maybe this is a bit of a academic dissection of coolness, but you could consider a) the necessity of being in the right place at the right time - personally I would never consider Liam Gallagher "cool", but he fitted his time well. b) Actually being cool by being deliberately uncool - aka originality...

Other than that, I really liked your article - good luck!

You might want to remind people over 40 that they can never be cool even though they used to be cool. They can be laidback and sometimes people think that this is cool but they really should just cool it and settle back and mellow out.

Those of us over 5o, like myself, should realize that even though we were once cool, back when it was first hip to be cool, no one who is cool is ever going to believe that we could have been cool.

Those of you over 60 should realize that absolutely no one snaps their fingers any more, it's, like, nowheresville, man. Be advised further that if someone tells you to chill, you are being advised to cool it.

If you are older than that or if you still play 78 rpm records for any reason, Forget it. Don't worry, it's practically involuntary

If it weren't for the copyright issue I would recommend you get the lyrics from a song called "Sometimes It Doesn't Pay to Be Too Cool"

I like this article, but typically for someone my age, I'd really like to see a historical section where I could go to see those wonderful old slang words like 'Wow!' 'Gosh!' 'Geewillikers!' and the next room where you could find 'Far out!' 'Outasite! 'Groovy' (that one may need to be annotated since nothing seems to have grooves any more) and that commercial but inviting 'Sock it to me!'
Of course those were followed with the disillusioned "Farm out.' 'Outastate.' 'Gravy' and 'Sock it to me?' And, please, don't forget the folksy, friendly New York, NY room with such classics as 'Whatzittoya, buddy?' 'Upyers!' and my personal favorite 'Whyduncha taka hike tilyer hatfloats?'

Ah well, you'll have fond memories, too, when your old and worn out.

Barton

I think that as high school wasn't all that far away in the past, a few years acually I can safely say that while my concept of cool is dated(!?) it is still fairly accurate.

With that in mind, the people who were cool in my school were just the ones who had the good looks and the designer clothes and never, ever, pretended to use the lump of mass on their shoulders for anything that didn't involve sports in some way or coming up with witty(so they thought) remarks about teachers, girlfriends, or those of us who actually did think with our brains.

Perversly, the cool kids I knew in high school, very few of them went on to do something in the world other than work in a job with their names on their shirts. Surely that means something.

Of course, I can only speak for the males in my school as I am a male, and while women in general continue to mystify me I can't even begin to describe the absolutely baffling behavior of the cool high school girl. The more I think I know the less I actually know......

All this being said, I think also that you should stick to the facts. Stay with what you know and not what you think, as I have yet to come across something in the guide that had someone's opinion written in it. Unless of course you don't want to be in the edited guide, which is perfectly fine.

On the other hand, I think the subject is worthy of perfecting, as there isn't an article about cool in the guide. So keep at it!

I'd like to propose that we abandon the concept of 'cool' since it seems that, from the time of it's inception, it has promoted the attitude that what's really important is to be the teen concept of visually correct and intellectually absent.

I'd like to propose the new compliment and 'thing to be' should be represented by the word 'lucent' or, alternatively and superlative, 'pellucid.' As in, "I never before so fully understood so well, the significance of anticipatory reflexes. Lucid, man!"

Thanks for your comments, everyone - you've certainly given me lots to think about, and new directions to take this article.
I think the main points are
- Can an absolute standard of coolness be established, or is it purely based on being in the right place at the right time?
- Can people over 40 be cool?
- Can people pre-1950 be cool? (By the way, I must disagree about Byron and Wilde. To paraphrase Blackadder, "There's nothing cool about wandering about Italy (or London) in a big shirt trying to get laid.")
- Was Bob Dylan not the coolest person ever? Probably not, but this was an attempt to give the article an element of willfulness shown in some of the best H2G2 articles I have read. But if it wasn't Bob, who was it? Similarly, my nomination of All Saints in the women's category was prompted less by their musical or satorial talents than by their general 'Everything is too much trouble' attitude.
- Being cool is not actually that important. Most people who achieve any significant success in life are definitely uncool. Look at the three men currently in contention for the job of British Prime Minister, for example.

I would therefore ask the Moderators not to take this article any further. I will go back and rework it.

Finally, hats off to whoever wrote the article on 'How to be pretentious'. The funniest thing I've ever read on the Guide.

And being Prime Minister is considered to be success is it? I suppose it is in a way.

I also violently object to the notion that computers can not and never will be cool. Computers can be incredibly cool, eye-meltingly gorgeous and brain-frazzlingly good in many ways. It's simply a matter of opinion, as is coolness in general. Plus, mentioning it as you did smacks loudly of biased personal opinion.

Damn right it's biased personal opinion, born out of years of Microsoft use, plus being on the end of several incomprehensible jargon-filled lectures by computer enthusiasts.

To me, a computer is no more cool than a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine. I expect it to be easy to use, and to work right all the time. I don't waste my time listening to lectures on how I can upgrade my vacuum cleaner by installing "Bag 2.0".

Right, now I've got that off my chest...

Oh dear... if you want a computer that does that you're limited to games consoles I think... but not Microsoft ones. The X-Box has crashing problems, although admittedly it isn't finished yet. Still, they've not got long to fix them. Hah! Hah!

Let's not forget that things can be cool as our DearDeparted Douglas pointed out about digital watches. Whether the Universe is impressed or not, some things are cool. At least, they are this week.

If we are going to be trivial let's do it right. Is that lucid or what?

Barton

Oi - don't challenge me with Blackadder quotes; you'll never shut me up... in fact... on the front of Mr. Wilde and his bid for "cool" status: "big, bearded, bonking butch Oscar, the terror of the ladies. 114 illegitimate children, world heavyweight-boxing champion and author of the bestselling pamphlet 'why I Like to do It with Girls'"...

... and he got sent down for being a 'whoopsie'.

Thanks for reminding me of this 'Slackbladder' classic!!

I always think of computer cool as rather like car cool - that Quad Athlon beast in my friends room is just as cool as a Mercedes - it's high technology, which is always cool.

I'd like to see you incorporate some other opinions of cool from here in the thread - the best way to avoid bias is to say everything that can be said, and duck and cover whenever someone points out the contradictions...

hmmm should someone start the war and post a "who is the coolest person of all time" thread in ask h2g2?

It's definitely a great idea for an entry, but this particular one is not quite there yet. As people mention in here a few times, there's quite a bit of personal opinion in it, and there's certainly more room for different types of cool - maybe even a 'potted history' of cool.

Can I point you to the entry on being
pretentious: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A513604 - it's very much more detailed, and coolness is just as interesting a topic.

This article will therefore be moved to the writing workshop.