Teens: Who Are the Cool People?

by Vanessa Van Petten

You know those people? Those people who, like, came out of the womb wearing perfectly fit stone washed jeans, ruggedly hot converse and a confident swagger (or crawl I guess). Ew, cool people. Recently, I have been faced with the fact that I have never been one of those people.

I never started trends, I always coveted the cool girl group at lunch, I giggle like a hyena when I talk to a hot guy and I never rushed for the hot sororities in college. The sad truth is, even though I never was cool, I always wanted to be.

I wish I could say that I always embraced the fact that I like reading tech blogs for fun, write teen fiction on my free time and hate wearing heels (don’t cool girls always wear heels…like even to class and to the supermarket?). But, no, I didn’t always love the fact that I am weird and recently I have been faced with so many kids who are desperate to be ‘cool.’

I proposed this question to my group of teen trendsetters. I found some of them shocking, some of them honest, some of them encouraging and some of them depressing. Here are their answers:

What makes someone “cool”?

1) Cool people are always in a group.

2) Cool people are always laughing (at you, with you, with their group…)

3) Cool girls wear heels.

4) Cool boys wear hair in their eyes.

5) Cool people walk with confidence.

6) Cool People are mean.

7) Cool people love themselves no matter what.

8) Cool people are the people everyone secretly hates, but are nice to on the surface.

9) If you think you are cool, you are not.

10) Cool people...