I actually hate how we’ve changed the meaning of the word “cool.” What does our interpretation really mean anyway? It is an entirely ambiguous term, with brief definitive notions based on 70’s nostalgia for an invented 50’s. At least the real meaning means something. Cool: low in temperature.

Words change, I’m cool with that.

Cool has been remarkably resistant to change. I think it is starting to happen though. Slowly, unlike most other words of the popular culture zeitgeist.

I don’t know what zeitgeist means.

If cool literally means cold, then does being cool with something mean you’re actually indifferent towards it, contrary to popular belief?

‘Round about Jane Austen’s time, ‘cool’in a social context meant emotionally withdrawn – as in “freezing someone out.” The next evolution involved people who were or appeared to be ‘above it all’ and remained calm and cool in all situations. “I’m cool with that” would be a throwback to this meaning. If i’m cool with it, it doesn’t make my blood boil. Since people who remained cool under pressure were often charismatic, especially if they were “cool”-indifferent to social pressure, “cool” gradually became linked with the unmoved mover – the untouchable object of desire. And from there to objects of desire in general.

Much simpler to use the word nifty.

“Zeitgeist” means “spirit of the time”

If you have to argue about what’s “cool”, you probably aren’t.

In the current culture of irony, cool does mean indifferent

It isn’t cool to be cool. It’s cool to be not cool.

But when I said that, I got a rather cool reception from the people who think that being cool is cool.