¹cool \’kül\ adj

1: moderately cold; lacking in warmth

2 a: marked by steady dispassionate calmness and self-control

5: facilitating or suggesting relief from heat

7 slang a: very good: EXCELLENT; also: ALL RIGHT

7 slang b: FASHIONABLE

The word “cool” has fourteen entries in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, including the few above. “Cool” can be used as a noun, an adjective, a verb, and an adverb. Teenagers’ everyday lives are plagued by one question, “What is cool?”

In reality, “cool” has more definitions than the fourteen stated in the dictionary. “Cool” is defined by an individual, defined differently by a group of people, and defined differently again by a generation. The hardest part about defining “cool” is that the definition is always changing. You probably don’t wear the clothes you bought last year near as much today. What may have been “cool” yesterday isn’t today.

Even more, “cool” recycles itself. Take a look back at some pictures from the past. You might recognize some of the fads are similar to today.

But who decides “cool”? It’s not like someone has the power to determine “cool”. “Cool” is the product of advertisements, trendsetters, world events, and peer pressure. How many times have you seen anything relating to Coca-Cola®? Thanks to plenty of marketing, Coca-Cola® and the way of life it associates with its product, Coca-Cola® has made itself one of the definitions of “cool”. How about the ever-changing world of fashion? That’s all due to fashion-designers, celebrities, and your other local trendsetters. In high school, it’s “cool” to give to charity and do community service. There’s entire clubs dedicated to it. Events like hurricane Sandy can spark a “cool” movement.

Defining “cool” at Fossil Ridge High School is already hard enough. With so many different types of people, there is no way to find a mutual definition of “cool”. It may be possible to find the most popular definitions of cool, but that still does not represent the student body as a whole.

So really, what is “cool”? It’s an indefinable, ever-changing, and personal definition of what is good. It’s more complex than it appears to be. “Cool” is what you decide it is.