Losing the Cool

So last night's class on rap and hip-hop got me thinking about when, exactly, we become uninformed about new music (or other cultural things like it). I mean, I was never the kind of person who was really into the underground scene, though being a teenager in Southern California I did manage to get into groups that were not mainstream (at the time, at least)--Oingo Boingo, Jane's Addiction, Smiths, etc. I mostly listened to what was on the radio or what my older sister was into until about the age of 16 or 17, and then I became aware of the idea that being into what was "popular" was not the same thing as being into what was "hip," hence my passion for Sinead O'Connor looooooong before anyone had ever heard of her. Anyway, that is all to say that I liked mainstream music, knew all the pop songs, but was also aware of this whole other scene while not really being into it.

Then I went to college, then graduate school, and somewhere along the way (I think when I was a TA in the mid-90s) I realized that I was not familiar with the names of groups and musicians my students were into. Granted, most of my students were "alternative" types (students majoring in art, film, new media, etc) and prided themselves on being on the fringes, but still . . . I was surprised and saddened to be so out of touch.

Now, in my mid-30s and with no students and only a one-year old child in the house, I feel *completely* out of touch. I mean, I know the names and music of people who manage to get airplay, but listening to Amy Winehouse is not exactly the same as listening to Ministry back in the day. So this got me to thinking about when it happens, this whole becoming uncool. Losing the cool ain’t cool, and not just because it makes you feel old. It is distressing because it becomes its own form of cultural illiteracy. Not listening to hip-hop, not knowing the different artists and slang and related connections all becomes a form of exclusion from a large part of a cultural movement. I may have the critical skills necessary to deconstruct a video for its misogyny or appropriation of blues standards, and I may be able to articulate an opinion about why we are fascinated with Kanye’s criticism of the President post-Katrina, but that does not make me fluent (literate) in the texts of this generation. And while this makes me sad, it also, in a weird way, is a huge relief—I no longer feel the need to keep up with everything and everyone, I no longer feel like an idiot when I don’t get a reference. I just feel like a stranger in a strange land, hoping someone will take me by the hand and teach me, but not worrying too much about it if they don’t. And *that* is the saddest, most uncool part of it all—the relieved resignation, surely the first sign of having lost the cool.