Losing my cool

An art teacher of mine in college told the story of the moment when he knew he was no longer cool. Turned out to be upon hearing his son playing Nine Inch Nails. For some reason that worried me. That there would come a time where I was no longer looked upon and accepted as being cool. I was never worried about it before that point but somehow, losing the very possibility of it, was extremely bothersome. So I waited for the inevitable.

Recently I was thinking about this. I think I missed the moment. I don’t remember noticing the specific event but it’s definitely happened. So I reached back, trying to remember what did it. Was it girl jeans on guys, huge spinning rims or -izzle talk? I couldn’t be sure. Then I thought of it. The Real World! Since MTV was apparently the barometer of cool, I could discover the moment by finding the season where the Real World no longer interested me. So let’s see:

New York: all over it.
Los Angeles: cowboy John, check
San Francisco: Puck, puhlease
London, Miami, Boston, Seattle, Hawaii: all there
New Orleans: “Come on bwee my baby tonight”, Mormon Julie, got it
Back to New York: hmmm…getting blurry
Chicago and Las Vegas: barely remember

Then there it was. I didn’t know the people in this season. I can’t remember being interested in their superficial relationships, pseudo conflicts and fashionable slang. None of the seasons after this even look vaguely familiar.

And so it was, I lost my cool at Real World: Paris. Thank god for that.