Cool is?

Used to be Steve McQueen was cool, a martini shaken not stirred was cool, Air Jordan sneakers were cool and so was being the first kid on the block with the latest gadget or piece of technology. Attitudes and mores of society change yet the concept of cool continues to fascinate us, even if we can never attain those lofty heights. Even with constant change the attributes of exclusivity, innovation, behaviour and influence remain pillars of cool. To be in the Zeitgeist, the minute, the moment as the leader, the innovator or just the epitome of social awareness grants you the right to be cool, however fleeting that moment may be. From the jazz cellars of the 40's where cool is thought to have originated to Marshall MacLuhan describing television as a cool medium, unlike the hot media of radio and print, because of its complex sensory involvement of sound and pictures, cool has looked to arbiters of taste to define it for the general masses.

So I chuckled when a UK judge decided that the Samsung tablet was not as cool as the iPad, in a copyright verdict handed down this week. Cool was never a definition handed down by authority, in fact it was usually the opposite as the elusive essence of cool was the domain of a few in tune individuals willing to pass it on or point it out. It is the ultimate social label everyone craves but if something cool suddenly becomes mainstream acceptable, it all too quickly fades back into the suburban. The very nature of cool is only 5 minutes away from being ordinary if mass acceptance brings with it imitations and copies. Sunglasses at night was the height of cool for jazz musicians but has become mundane as we watch C grade celebrities aspire but fail the test of chill.

There is cache attached to cool that today can be turned into money. Apple didn't turn into the world's most valuable company by just building computers, Mr and Mrs Smith aren't just hotels and Johnny Depp isn't just Jack Sparrow. So the search for the next cool thing continues as boundaries are pushed, creativity springs forth and televisions get paper thin. From music, through celebrities, fashion, cars and attitudes, cool dances in our heads and becomes an aspirational aim for many but only a few get to decide what's in and what's out.

The critically self aware, the intrinsically cognisant and the perpetually observant among us, are the arbiters, bringing forth ideas, products, behaviour and style that becomes a substance, a state of cool obvious once we encounter it but invisible if you are not tuned in. Personality wise, you either are or aren't cool, depending on your style, your bearing, your sentience and it is a difficult comportment to fake. You certainly cannot call yourself cool because that would be the most uncoolest. Yet today you can be cool, just by the accoutrements you carry, especially if it happens to be the latest piece of technology.

So is there really a short cut to becoming cool, staying cool and being cool? Technology says yes if you are an early adopter of the right innovation but that will only get you so far, because eventually you'll have to talk, relate and communicate, signalling you either have it, or not. For some, cool is a perpetual state of being, which brings us back to Steve McQueen, still cool.