[I mean
absolutely no offence to Cool Kids or Popular Kids, two of my best friends are
stereotypical Cool Kids, and 99% of the time, I wish I was one of them. Bro, I
don’t care if you listen to Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake or Justin Bieber, I’m
simply wondering why liking Coldplay makes me uncool.]
Be it
consciously or unconsciously, we all crave popularity. No matter how old you
are, don’t even try to pretend that you don’t wish you were the person that everyone
else wanted to be. The cheerleader, the footballer- the Cool Kid. Like it or
not, taste in music plays a part in popularity.
I’m not a cool
kid, I never have been, and I’m under no illusions that I ever will be. I’m a
concert kid, a music kid, basically, I’m a fangirl, and that’s not cool at all.
Whilst normal people my age listen to the likes of Usher, Enrique and Lady
Gaga, I’m perfectly happy to exist on a diet of indie rock, alternative rock,
and normal rock- that is, of course, until I crack out my collection of oldies
and country, but we won’t talk about that…
It probably all
started when I was about nine. I don’t even know what Cool Kids my age listened
to in the late 90’s, but I’m willing to bet that it was Britney, The Spice
Girls and TLC, as opposed to my favourites, which included Savage Garden. I
mean really now, what kind of nine-year-old is into rock bands?
But back to Cool
Kids. Cool Kids simply adore dance music, but why? Why is it that liking
Pitbull is cool, but liking Muse is odd? What is it that separates the two? My
own humble opinion is that I’ve already answered my own question: it’s because
Pitbull makes dance music. Cool Kids are always at clubs- dancing- and their
lives could basically be summed up by any number of popular dance songs on the
radio. They can associate with lyrics such as “hey baby, you look so good on
the dance floor, baby, you’re amazing, on the dance floor baby, let’s dance
baby, take your clothes off baby”, because that is what a Cool Guy says to a
Cool Girl! Ha! I’ve figured it out! And the reason that un-cool people don’t
like dance music is because we can’t relate to the lyrics…no guy has ever asked
me to take my clothes off on the dance floor, baby!
There are
exceptions, however, and I can think of one in particular. I met a girl, about
four years ago, who is undoubtedly a Cool Kid. So much so, that on first
impressions, I thought she’d never be friends with me. However, she has
impeccable music taste: she loves Death Cab For Cutie and 1940’s jazz music, no
one judges her for her it!
I am almost certain
that I exist in a constant state of being judged. People ask what kind of music
I listen to, and as soon as I tell them that my favourite bands are Coldplay
and The Killers, I can almost feel them deciding that I’m not cool. Perhaps
before answering, I should make a judgment call as to the popularity of the
person asking, and if the person is a Cool Kid, I should answer “David Guetta,
bro, he’s legit”. The day before I saw Coldplay live, I bounced into my
lecture, squealing with excitement. My classmates’ reactions ranged from ‘I
hate Coldplay’ to ‘Coldplay are terrible’ to ‘they make me feel like killing
myself’. I’m not going to lie, my feelings were slightly hurt. If I had been a
Cool Kid, excitemed about seeing Deadmau5, for example, they would have most
likely jumped up and down squealing with me.
Whilst
considering my favourite bands, I must acknowledge that even some Cool Kids
were jealous that I went to see Kings of Leon live. Upon a quick Facebook
creep, I find out that over 70 of my Facebook friends ‘like’ Kings of Leon…and
some of these 70 are Cool Kids! However, I am soon able to deduce that Cool
Kids don’t actually like Kings of Leon- Cool Kids like Sex On Fire. Sigh, there go my last hopes of ever being cool…
