Coolness

Coolness is dominance signaling and countersignaling by looking fashionable and dangerous, as well as behaving in an interesting and impressive manner, all without trying hard and not (openly) caring what others thinks of it. Effortless achievement signals confidence in one's ability and signals or fakes untapped potential. Coolness is related to stoicism due to the downplaying of effort, and related to charisma and game due to elegance, minimalism and style.

A modern phenomenon

Even though poise has always been a thing, coolness may be on the rise because, historically, few were socially isolated enough to secretly achieving mastery by practicing in complete isolation, to then effortlessly display a masterful skill or style, to the complete awe of others, whom did not see the hours of practice. Also people have evolved to interpret coolness under the context of what would be cool on the Khoisan African Savannah, but factors such as industrialization and national IQ influence what people perceive as cool. People evolved to see things that would be uncool on the Khoisan African Savannah as cool and still see certain ancient hunter-gatherer type behaviors as cool such as the socializing, focus on music, dangerous war behavior etc. Thus, an objective list of cool behaviors and traits is open for interpretation, though one can get people to vote on certain behaviors to see how they are generally received, for example on sites such as Photofeeler. The the official studies on coolness don't control for drastically different opinions of what is cool in different cultures other than Western cultures, for example curry is cool in India with billions of people as the sample size and no where else is that dish considered cool.

As men are increasingly discouraged to openly compete, they may resort to compete in effortless achievements. In times of economic stagnation, males also arguably need to resort to style and effortlessness more to distinguish themselves (rather than with economic achievements).

Danger and coolness

Dangerous activities like free climbing, sex, binge drinking, going to war, etc. are cool because they are dangerous. One could argue purposefully setting one's hand on fire is dangerous but not cool. The counter argument to that is any dangerous behavior no matter how stupid, can be cool if played off with stoicism and finesse.

For example, one sets their own hand on fire, and without flinching, calmly blows the flames out in an impressive manner hardly seeming to try at all, and then one brushes their hair back, with that same hand, and says "ain't got time to burn." The stupid act of setting one's own hand on fire has just been made cool.

Can women be cool?

Female pokerface

Women can engage in cool behavior and be dangerous from an objective standpoint, such as a female combat soldier in the United States Army, however their neotenous faces hardly advertise danger and women smile a lot more than men. War heroism and bravery, are only more sexually attractive in males. Further, women appear to have a preference for dangerous, disagreeable men, but men prefer nice, obedient women. Women have on average a more withdrawn personality type, so they may more often put on a poker face, which is related to coolness, but most self-identified hard-core incels agree women can't be cool. Cutecels are also often not intimidating enough to be cool.

See also

• Fashion
• Confidence
• Social awkwardness
• Chad
• Beauty
• Game
• Frame (PUA)