It's ironic that our culture defines coolness both by fitting in and standing out. To be cool, you have to be just a little bit different from what is expected, but not stick out too much. We, the crowd, collectively don't like to follow the crowd. Even more paradoxically, commercials and advertisements try to tell you how to be cool, but by setting it up as a standard 'cool', it becomes 'normal' and loses its coolness. By defining coolness, you change it to something other than what you defined it as. Logically, then, it could be said not to exist. In quantum physics, The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle says you can never know where an electron is in an atom and where it's going at the same time. After checking with wikipedia, it turns out this has nothing to do with the point I was going to make. What I meant apparently has to do with Observer Effect, which is the idea that by observing an event you change it. In the same way, the media's portrayal of what's cool instantly makes it uncool. "So what do we do?" You ask. My answer: don't even try. I mean, present yourself as well as you can, but don't waste time, energy, or (especially) money trying to be the coolest thing since sliced bread, since tomorrow it'll be something else anyway.
Hmm. Come to think of it, sliced bread doesn't get the recognition it deserves as a food product. We take it for granted. But seriously, whoever first thought to slice the bread before stuffing it in a bag and selling it was a genius. But I digress.
Say you're driving along and you see a billboard with John 3:16 on it. Certainly, the people who paid to put it there had only the best intentions, but most of the people who it is intended to reach have heard it before. It's old news. It's not cool, it's what their parents think. Who wants to be like them? Seeing it just that one more time just hammers another nail in the coffin full of "Smile, Jesus Loves You" stickers. Christians try to market Jesus like he's some sort of miracle drug. Just say these words and all your problems will go away. (Rabbit trail: tell that to the first-century Christians when they were boiled in oil, fed to lions, and crucified upside-down.) The point is, they don't believe it. To be effective, we'll have to be sneakier than that. Unless they see the radical, countercultural Jesus for themselves, there's no way they'll be interested. Cliches are the last thing they want to hear. Jesus himself is exactly the opposite of what we are making him out to be. His words will always be counter-culture because they are counter to everything society values. Money, looks, popularity, power, everything humankind values he tells us to shun. "The meek shall inherit the earth"? The meek? You mean that mousey-lookin' kid back there with the glasses as thick as ice cubes who never opens his mouth because he's got braces the size of a small railroad? Him? Inherit the earth? Could you possible be more timelessly countercultural? Jesus himself and everything he stood for is so radically against culture that he is the only thing that can be cool despite the media that we unfortunately give him.
4 comments:
Once again another great post! This is a very good point. Once I do something different and it's "cool" then it isn't anymore, because it's been done. This can be shown very well with the piano and school. So we have a piano in my school, it's in the gallery. People can play it freely and do whatever they want on it, until recently. See it's "cool" in a sense to go and play a song on the piano, but once the song has been played by 500 other students it isn't cool is it? In fact once it's been played bout about 10 it isn't. That's why they had to put up a sign saying no playing Heart and Soul, or Chopsticks or just banging on the piano with no intent. So it might be "cool" for me to go find some poplar sheet music like Lifehouse, James Blunt, Five for Fighting, Evanescence, or James Blunt and play it. Now the first time I play it people are all "WOW! That's that one song" and it's "cool" but then they learn to play and and then 3 more do and soon everyone is playing it. It isn't cool anymore, it's annoying. Thus the series of events. So I have a question for you. What about when something becomes a classic? How will it become a classic if everyone drops it as soon as someone else does it? If I like something, then someone else starts liking it and then another and another etc. and we realize this and all stop, well how does it get to be a classic? I think I know the answer but I'm not sure. What do you think?
P.S. this was a very long comment.
I think a classic either was never cliche because it was not widely reproducable. Audrey Hepburn movies are classic because there's only one Audrey Hepburn. Mozart is classic because nobody else had his genius. I'm interested to see what all you guys think, too. Retro and vintage, on the other hand, took place too long ago to be remembered by the current generation, and so, by being different in an old-timey way, it's cool and interesting because nobody expects it.
I would say it is probably because it was carried on by one person. If everyone thinks its "cool" and then sees the rest doing it, so they all stop but one person continues. Then it will come back later and thus be a classic.
Thats interesting to think about and vari true....once something is done it has been done. At the arts school that shows up in our Croe projects. A person will do an Awsome project.. ten another and another... and usually they r not as good as the origonal because they do not have the certain spark of the imagonation. It has been done. Yet then also it is strange to think about because, ((it is actualy really sad)) sometimes it depends on the person doing the "cool" thing. A person who is not widly know through the school could do something amazing and then noone would really look at it.. but then say a "higher status" person went and copyed it people would be liek wowot hat is so cool! and the rightfull person doesent get the credit.. its kinda sad...and that kinda ties into what u said at the end in a way...its so true the ways that some christians try to market jesus. It remindes me of a post from Spencer about Noah's Ark. We tell it to kids and think about it! THE ENTIRE WORLD WAS, LIKE, WHIPED OUT EXCEPT A BOAT WITH A BUNCH OF ANAMALS AND PEOPLE ON IT! and we tell this to little kids..sorry that was off tipoic but still.....
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