HW #27 Informal Research - Interviews and Surveys

Family Members Responses:

I asked my cousin because I have always admired her for her smartness and her sophistication. Even though she is tall, I think she has a beauty and confidence within (yes, it's cheesy but I have a lot of respect for her; like a very cool older sister). She always help people and her help with my pin yin in Chinese really helped me. When I asked if I can interview her about the unit of coolness, she was rather confuse at first. I guess she was not sure of what to say and felt weird that I was learning this unit, which I laughed. I used aim to chat with her and she responded with "Huh?... What's this for?" at first.

I asked her what she think about cool and she said, "I think cool is when they are in the lead of popularity and being social". After I explained it about the purpose of the interview, she started getting the hang of answering my question and she seemed more confident with her answers through the words she wrote. The next two answers are from her:
- The significance of being cool? -> The significance of being cool is because it sort of gives the person who is "cool" the sense of authority and power and having the "attraction" like feel from others.
- Why do you think "cool" is important in society? -> I think it depends on person to person. In this society, people look towards those who are "cool" and make them as role models but personally I don't think cool is important because everybody should be unique which is "cool".

Which I think is true because I look up to her. xD

Friend Response:

Then I ask my friend about coolness but she seem kind of nervous, telling me what kind of answers she wants from me. I told her, anything is okay, its your opinion, not mine. As she said her answers to my question, for example, when I asked her what is the meaning of cool to you? she answered, "Someone who fits into society and the people or trend that is going on presently". Then she would add an "idk" (I don't know) at the end or "...". I thought it was funny how asking people about coolness can get different tone or how the way they answer such as some people will say the answers confidently but some would be the not sure kind.

This answer I rewrote what she said since she was typing in im-ing style (idk, wat, rly etc..). The question was why do you think cool is important in society?

- Cool is important today because people pick friends if they are cool or not as well as how they are dressed and etc. That's how it affects others and spreading the idea of picking cool people. Even the media portrays things like that to people to buy their things and others so it is a big deal in people's life. They wish to pick things that are cool and might be cool to the society.

Friends Responses (Just compilations):
- Cool means being yourself and not comforming to the society but having your own style. - Rachel
- Is there significance in being cool? -> Is there a need to be cool? - Annonymous
- Feeling others around you. Being self-esteem. Approve of who you are and we are use to living that way (even though its not really it) - Amanda
- People want to be recognize and notice. They want to be attention seekers. - Kate
- Coolness matters to me because there are interesting characters. It matters to society because they want to be idolize, to be look up to, and to make the people improve themselves to be something/ or "the cool" - Remy
- Significance of coolness in the society is to hold the society in balance for power so "cool" is a very fine thin line of what people can and cannot be. - Fred the Ant Eater
- Difficulties of being cool? -> The everlasting changes of society shows that people need to adapt to new standards of new generations fast... - Mr. Choi
- Facebook connect to cool? -> On Facebook, people wouldn't put on a blunt picture so they would put a picture that would look "cool". Like Online dating.... - Na Lin
- People want to be cool because they want attention and notice. They kind of validate themselves or for someone to think that of them. - Yu Xi
- Pressure from the Cool person's point of view? - Yes, because they will have a pressure to fulfill that role that everybody thinks of them and don't want to let them down so they don't want to disappoint them. - Yu Xi

Three strangers:

The first stranger was a male that my group met and he was wearing a brown coat, holding a cup of coffee. Like my family members and friends, they were surprised about the unit of "coolness". When Remy asked, "what makes a person cool?" (not really the exact question, sorry =.=), he answered, "What does?" His answer made me thought how answering with a question is always a cool way to block something or not knowing the answer. Then he said the way we dress and
popularity was how people become cool. Then Remy asked, "Do you think you are cool?" and I wonder if it made the mister slightly uncomfortable. But he said, "No, I'm not cool." and then said, "I'm too old to be cool." I thought that was funny as I think all ages can be cool people.

The second stranger was a male that was dressed casually, with dark wash jeans, hoodie with a cap, buttons on his jacket and wearing plug earrings. We asked him the same questions as the first stranger; what makes a person cool? and he responded, "Usually their character". The next answer was funny; we asked him: Do people think you are cool? He answered, "Yes they do but I don't think I'm cool." Then he gave an explanation that we want to be cool because we are missing something in our lives so we go seek for attention and popularity. We want to fulfill the emptiness of our lives by trying to become cool. At the end of the conversation, he told us he was a musician who played the rock and roll guitar in a band and he traveled the world. I told him, "That's cool!~".

The third stranger was a woman, wearing a tan jacket and has blonde hair carrying a brown bag. The answers she gave us were different than the first two because she really explained a lot of of what she thought. When I saw her, I asked her what she was holding; she was holding a purse hook that is a round button in the middle with a string of magnets that can be arranged to a hook to placed the purse. Then we started asking her questions and she was very friendly and opened about it. She said, "Confidence and what age" matters to how the coolness work. I followed up by asking her if personality is important and she said "yea, personality is important but it depends" because some people would be faking to hide their real personality. She said "Everybody can be cool" and that she herself is cool: "I think I am really cool".

An interesting answer that made it different was that "cool and popularity are different things". The example she gave was that a person with a talent, let say a talent in art shows his/her art work out and people would say that that is cool as well as the person him/herself. So having a passion is cool but it does not necessarily mean that cool has to have popularity in it. Which I really agree because a person does not have to have popularity to have something cool about them; I think it is how interesting a person is that sparks in ourselves to say that that person is cool. Remy asked her how she defines cool but she also asked us how we defined cool, making the conversation not only us toward her but she asking back to us. Her answer to that was, "Because its idealize in the society, and its a positive thing that people want to think about. Since everybody wants to be cool. It also depends on our own interpretation."

We thanked the three strangers on the street for their cooperation.