About this episode
In this episode, Ellie and David explore the concept of coolness, its historical roots, and its ethical implications.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.com Play it cool and play this episode. In episode 175 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about what it means to be cool. From swag gap relationships to Mark Zuckerberg and the manosphere’s failed attempts at being cool, your hosts examine coolness’s ties to youth and subversion and its opposition to displays of wealth. They trace how coolness emerged from Black American culture in the 1930s, before being associated with Beat Poets and punk musicians. They consider precursors to cool, like the Italian term sprezzatura, and question the ontology and the morality of coolness. Is coolness an attitude or a state? Is it inherently narcissistic? Can you ever successfully “try” to be cool? In the Substack bonus segment, Ellie and David discuss coolness through an ethical perspective. Works Discussed: Joel Dinerstein, “Jazz Cool”Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity Dick Pountain and David Robins, Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude Highlight: Ironic detachment * Ironic detachment, along with narcissism and hedonism, is one of Pountain and Robins’s criteria of…
People in this episode
Hosts: Ellie, David
Topics covered
- coolness
- youth culture
- subversion
- Black American culture
- ethics of coolness
- narcissism
- ironic detachment
Keywords
- coolness
- youth
- subversion
- Black culture
- ethics
- narcissism
- ironic detachment
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, Jazz Cool, The History of Jazz, Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude
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