Cool is a Cultural Algorithm
Unearthing the vibe, value, and power of quiet influence
The concept of cool has long eluded us. From high school hallways to fashion runways, cool people, brands, and products have an unmistakable aura. Cool lives at the intersection of originality and ease. It’s magnetic but not attention-seeking. Cool is authentic. It doesn’t try, it is. And the moment you try to manufacture it, it disappears.
The lifecycle of cool goes like this: something emerges that resonates, it gets adopted by some, but not enough to cause a tipping point, the ‘trend’ begins to fade in the outskirts of culture as adoption increases, mainstream culture catches on—all of a sudden, it’s everywhere. Due to popularity, it’s no longer considered cool. Rinse and repeat.
What does it mean to be cool, and why do we care?
We use phrases like ‘play it cool’ or ‘that’s not cool’ for a reason. Cool has a persona—it cares, but not in a desperate way. It’s clear but not overly committed or invested in any particular person, idea, or thing. It’s thoughtful and effortless.
A cool brand or product emerges from a founder or team that deeply knows who they are, what they stand for, and what they’re not trying to be. Cool is not loud or overdesigned—it’s minimal, understated, and self-assured. There’s a kind of clean confidence to cool products and brands, they don’t over-explain or oversell. They leave space for the audience to discover, interpret, and opt in.
Cool things don’t try to be for everyone—they create intrigue, not urgency. A cool product is often slightly inaccessible: not because of price, but because it doesn’t need to scream to be seen. Coolness is often about timing or truth. Either you’re ahead of the curve, or you’re so deeply unique that it feels refreshing—irresistible.
Trying to be cool is the fastest way to stop being cool.
Cool dies quickly under mass appeal. Once something becomes too available, too popular, it often loses the intimacy, nuance, or edge that made it interesting in the first place.
Like most things, cool lives on a broad spectrum. From too cool—detached and disconnected—to uncool—performative without real depth or originality, cool is the sweet spot that resonates without reaching. Cool is not popular. Popular is widely appealing, often produced and designed for the mainstream. Cool is the byproduct of being deeply rooted in realness—which is rarely accepted or adopted by everyone. It has an undeniable essence. Even if you don’t agree with it, you can still acknowledge its value and integrity.
Cool is a cultural algorithm
Cool shapes what’s admired, desired, mimicked, or rejected. It evolves in response to context, power, media, and technology. We care about being cool—we being people, brands, and products—because we want to remain culturally relevant.
To decode cool is to decode influence. A product or brand that can’t remain culturally relevant eventually fades away. Paradoxically, anything that tries too hard to be culturally relevant also loses itself. To ‘be cool’ in a cultural context is to be emergent and responsive, fluid and refined yet grounded and distinct.
Cool is always one step ahead of the current pattern—being cool makes you a taste maker, a trend setter. To remain cool, one must always be willing to evolve.
Cool is reinventionist by nature. A living story with no clear beginning or end. The cultural architects of our time are people, brands, and products that aren’t afraid to be bold. They set the tone and pave the way.
Working theory: Cool creates the blueprint and moves on, while it gets adopted by everyone else, it’s already reimagining itself.
Cool reveals our relationship to belonging
To explore cool is to explore how we negotiate authenticity, aspiration, and social status in real time. There is nothing more terrifying than being authentic, and nothing more resonant. Being authentic may reveal that we may not be considered ‘cool’, that we don’t belong to the group, the movement, or the trend.
To be oneself and to express oneself is to risk rejection. This threatens our inherent need to belong. Rejection can feel like death in a system built on social hierarchy.
Belonging is the double-edged sword that makes us feel like we’re a part of something while simultaneously preventing us from expanding into different versions of ourselves. To belong to a group or community often means to cement in an identity, a belief system—once integrated, breaking out can challenge our social survival, which is why people rarely do it.
To be cool is to hold your ground in the face of social risk. The paradox of cool is that it often emerges when someone resists the pull of belonging long enough to express something undeniably their own. Cool operates as both a social rebellion and a survival strategy.
Working theory: Cool is a byproduct of self-possession. You can’t be cool and crave acceptance at the same time. The moment you chase belonging, you compromise authenticity.
Cool is not popular
What we call cool often emerges at the edge—experimental, misunderstood, niche—and then morphs (or dies) as it becomes adopted or commercialized. Cool is how ideas spread. It’s also how they get diluted.
Solange is cool. Beyonce is popular.
Past Lives is cool. Avatar is popular.
Supreme is cool. Lululemon is popular.
Most people, brands, and products are driven by a subconscious desire to be popular. What this often leads to is ‘giving the people what they want’ to get more people to buy/adopt. The cost of mass adoption is usually originality, quality, and creative integrity.
However, some brands—like Nike—manage to stay cool while becoming massively popular. What Nike has achieved is what I call cultural singularity—a person, brand, or product with both depth and breadth, constantly reinventing itself without losing relevance across generations. This kind of influence is rare, and it’s the result of a unique blend of clarity, adaptability, creative intelligence, and cultural attunement. The Matrix falls into this category, and so does New York City.
Working theory: Cool thrives on the fringe of social and cultural evolution but influences both at their core. To produce something cool and popular across generations is the ultimate achievement of any brand or product.
Cool is always being redefined
The world is changing, and with it, our social and cultural operating systems. The new world rewards vulnerability, accessibility, sustainability, and relatability—that wasn’t the case 20 years ago. Cool has a shelf life. Who and what get to be cool mirrors our values and reveals our aspirations.
Smoking used to be cool, until we realized it’s killing us.
Grind culture used to be cool, but we’re over burnout.
Raising millions in VC funding was cool, but now it signals inflated hype.
What’s cool shifts us and shifts with us. It’s either responding to the tipping point of collective awareness or indicating a potential evolution on the horizon. In both cases, what matters is that we pay attention and learn how to discern signal from noise.
Cool is a vibe, something expressing its essence without the desire to appear a certain way or be attached to a particular outcome. Not even legacy. But that kind of effortless presence is rare and often misunderstood. It’s ironic, but to stand the test of time requires being mission-focused while remaining fluid, open, and experimental. Committed but untethered. Willing to evolve in order to ride (or lead) the cultural tides.
This is why fashion houses change creative directors every few years.
Why musicians change their style despite what their fans want to hear.
And why companies and orgs should consider pivoting their strategy to respond to the moment.
Working theory: Cool is in constant motion. It reflects the now while informing what comes next. To understand cool is to understand what we crave and what we’re ready to leave behind.
Cool is built different
It’s worth saying that cool, like beauty, can be subjective. There are lots of 14-year-old girls who think Taylor Swift is cool. Whether she’s objectively cool or not might not matter. Is she shaping new cultures? Not really. Is she talented, wildly famous, and rich? Yes. She’s figured out how to relate on mass—the strategy is a more interesting case study than the act, tbh.
Pharrell, on the other hand, has always marched to his own rhythm. He’s not trying to zig or zag, he’s in his own lane. He feels like someone who decided at some point early on in his career not to be defined by outside forces and has refused to creatively compromise. Most people today below the age of 30 prob don’t know who he is, but his influence is evident in music and fashion. That’s what makes him cool.
Cool is code for unconventional. Cool people have a way of moving in the world that attracts attention and commands respect. Because they’re guided by a frequency that permeates culture in subtle but potent ways.
If you’re not a tastemaker, and you’re in an industry that requires taste—or you want to build something interesting, unique, or sticky, your options are to anchor yourself in your version of truth or collaborate with someone who knows how to move culture.
Because getting rejected for being real is far better than being accepted or adopted for something performative. Performance is not sustainable. At some point, the mask begins to crack, or people get tired of the character. Even your fans.
Keep it real. Keep it original. Keep them on their toes.
Like Martha, that woman went to jail, mentored inmates on their business ideas, got released, and teamed up with Snoop Dog. That’s iconic.
Cool is iconic. Unquestionably embodied. Endlessly imitated. Perpetually desired.
Cool doesn’t adopt or dictate dominant culture. It wouldn’t even be categorized as subculture or counterculture. It’s hype-agnostic and not ideologically integrated into an existing system. It doesn’t oppose or align itself with any one group or trend. It exists in another realm, experiencing and creating a moment often before the moment arrives.
In 2025, cool is thoughtful. It’s socially aware. It’s collectivism vs individualism. It’s buying clothes at the thrift store and being environmentally conscious.
By 2035, cool might be rejecting smartphones. Not having a formal education. Choosing to raise kids with your friends.
By 2045, cool might mean one thing in the metaverse and something else IRL.
The next wave of cool is already forming. The people and brands who can resist the urge to latch onto obvious trends will be the ones quietly shaping culture for decades to come. If it looks promising, chances are you’re not the only one who thinks so, which makes it unlikely to stand out or last. It’s best not to think of cool as a moving target, or a game, or even an identity. But a creative force, flowing and shapeshifting in unpredictable ways, synthesizing information in real time, weaving between industries, mediums, and schools of thought to reveal the ephemeral elixir that seduces us before it’s gone.