Trading on Your Cool

A few years ago my friend and I went to a stand-up show.  It was amateur night and we knew one of the people in the show.  When the girl got up to do her bit we were taken aback.  It was really good!  She was super funny! 

And she was repeating back verbatim something I had said to her three weeks before.

Wha-what?

So let me get this straight.  You’re going to be my friend, rip me off, and then pass my material off as your own?!

This, my friends, is one aspect of what I like to call “Trading on my Cool”.  Or, more academically, pilfering someone else’s Individual Cultural Identity.  Stealing their thunder.

To Trade on someone’s Cool means to take something another person has shown you, included you in, or introduced you to and then to impress other people as though you discovered it all by yourself.  In Malcolm Gladwell’s words there are mavens, connectors, and salespersons.  Which one are you?

This is not imitation, it’s more insidious than that type of flattery.  It’s like style poaching.  Or cool stealing. 

The things that you spend a lot of time figuring out on your own kinda become YOUR THINGS.  What you do is part of your identity and what makes you YOU.  You don’t own them by any means, but your own personal style and choices are things you foster and things that make you unique.  They might not even seem that cool to you because to you they’re just normal.  Just what you do.

Of course we are all pieces of past experiences rolled into one person, but there are always a few signature items.  Things we do normally.  Ways we were raised.  Efforts we make because we feel they are important and because we genuinely like them.

And to snatch that from another person?  That’s cheap.

A few examples:

1.  I lived in LA for five years and I ran into this problem a number of times.  I had put in my time.  I knew where to go and what to do – things I had either discovered myself or been shown by my intimate friends.  Greystone Mansion was one such place.  I’d heard about Greystone Mansion, but one day my current BF and I went up there exploring.  It’s a fascinating and lovely place, kind of an oasis of peace in bustling LA.  We started to frequent the place.  Few people were ever there and it wasn’t trendy though by no means secret.  Occasionally I brought other people there, but it was kind of a special spot to me.

Gardens at Greystone.  Also where I set my evil turtle free. 

Skip forward a few months.  A new friend of mine asks me if I’d like to come check out this super cool house up in the Beverly Hills.  It was a special place for her and her boyfriend – a friend whom I had shown the place recently. 

Oh, you mean my friend who I introduced to that place a few months ago?  You’re going to take me somewhere you only know about because of me?  That is annoying.  The boyfriend ripped me off and traded on my cool.

2.  One of my BFF’s is kind of a lone ranger and goes exploring by herself all the time.  She discovered an awesome random decaying mural that became a favorite spot for her.  She unwillingly took her BF there.  A few weeks later up on Facebook pops a picture of him and his new girlfriend in front of the mural.  Ripping off her cool.

Not this mural but one like unto it.

3.  I am an activities junkie with my kids.  I encourage other people to do activities with their kids.  I was raised going somewhere fun and/or culturally interesting every single Saturday with my father and the other kids.  Saturday comes it’s fun time, and usually I try to do activities that are outside of the norm for small kids.  Adventures.  You’ve seen them on here.  I absolutely encourage inspiring you to get your kids out and about, but if all of the sudden you are going my favorite places and  doing all my favorite things pretending it was all your idea, that is Trading on my Cool. 

Oh, really?  You totally go to the SF Conservatory of Flowers just on a whim?

Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t copy when people have good ideas.  I’m all for that.  No reason for you to sit at home in front of screens all weekend.  But pretending they were your OWN good ideas?  That bugs me. 

Get your own Individual Cultural Identity.  Be original or cite your sources.  Start finding your own adventures.