HW #33 - Cool Paper Outline

Thesis: Our inner self becomes the observer, gathering information from others as our outer self presents the representation of both our real selves and the “faces” we’ve created.

Paragraph 1: Whether or not we are acting cool, we are aware that we are trying to make an impact on others.

- The way we choose our style of clothing, and accessories. [interviews, tattoos, Mr. Fanning’s rite of passages]

- People comment on our image, whether it suits us or not and then we think about whether to wear it or not the next time. [talking about having talents, being looked up to, celebrities]

- The roles we play in the society affects how the observer, us, gathers the information and forms a self that does not go too off of our original roles. Or else, we create a totally different impact on this new self, causing others to become aware of the change. [when people can tell that that person has change a lot, and the personality is different than what it was]

Paragraph 2: We take what we seek from the role model and place it in ourselves, turning ourselves to a different self than what we originally are.

- Having a role model, a hero changes a person’s point of view and actions. Like the younger siblings look up to the older siblings and the young ones tries to act like the old ones. [tattoos, and t.v. show heroes]

- Popular people: once we are in the “in” group, we tend to change who we are to suit the rest of the group. We begin our phase of making masks for others to see, to make them and ourselves believe that this is who we are. However, even though we are acting like somebody else, we still have something that is ours alone. [From the unpopular group to the popular group]

- There is always something different about each of us and that is what many of us believe in but we still go search for something new. [Emptiness? Want more Value in ourselves by going out and search for it? Does it fill us?] That’s why we must always have information, which the observer in our mind goes and search for. Then once the observer finds something, a “new face” has been created.

Paragraph 3: Why do we make masks of ourselves? Why do we perform on stage? [Transition and connect to cool]

- We are seeking for attention. We want to become cool so we go find a person who is cool; look up to them and bring ourselves to be like them. But do we feel distant if we look up to them too much? That they are seen as “God-like” (Andy S.) and having power control over our bodies? [Michel Foucault]

- We want to be “credited”, to be known so as to not lose our “face”, to lose a part of ourselves. [The Production of Self, Goffman]

- To stay “credited”, we must follow the trend that “cool” puts in the society. “Cool” never stays in one period of time but moves on once people use it too much. We must stay on the signals and to be able to manipulate them. [Merchants of Cool and Goffman]

We want to create a character that people will like because we don’t want to be disliked. Of course, we find people that like us and in return, help us to be able to accept ourselves better. The closer that we are to people, the more the real self would reveal but the observer is always alert in our mind, because the observer gives us opinions/decisions as to whether or not to believe/trust those people or not.