History Essay Draft

Being cool and hip has become the most natural way for teens in America to mask and cover up there insecurities.
Many kids spend countless hours in stores carefully picking out clothing that will give them an image of cool. The area in which the clothing they choose is acceptable is such a thin line. If they dress too flamboyant, they will be looked at as a person that is trying too hard and going overboard. Dress with too little flare though and the person will be too boring and average. The style and mode of the current time changes so frequently making it extremely difficult to keep up with every move. Putting these two together makes it near impossible to truly stay in style and cool while also remaining good in school. Plus you have to find your image for personality. You need to have this role or image you relate and compare to but at the same time you have to take that image and make it seem original and effortless. The problem many teens face with school relating to cool is that working hard to do well in school is lame. But if you can some how manage to pass with little effort and work ethic than you remain cool because of the fact that you are relying on natural smartness and do not really care about it. Being cool in high school alone is a basically a full time job. You cant be seen wearing the same clothes often and you be seen working and studying hard. Slacking yet passing is one of the important factors. The interesting part of being cool in high school is that unlike many other things, you financial background is not the most critical aspect of being cool. In other words, you don't need to rely on money to be extremely cool. Of course having money will make the cause easier for you but you can get buy with spending the money you have and depending on a "careless" attitude while still being genuine and original.
The crazy part is that although the majority of people use cool to cover up character flaws by being cool, the people in our society that are at the peak of the cool mountain are not typically using it as a cover up for insecurity. This small group is the one that predicts the fads before they come. There are in a image of ahead of the game and are respected for this. There personalities do not count so much because there style of hipness can cover up for that. It is not usually purposely done so and can therefore not be referred to as insecurity. The majority of us conform to the styles of these people in some way. The style part of cool becomes so vital because it is the first thing you see when you meet someone. You first impression is always a lasting one because it is what you refer back to. For instance if are interviewing for a job and you dress extremely well and then follow up by dressing poorly you will be viewed as a well dressed person who has been dressing poorly lately as opposed to a poorly dressed person that dressed well once. The image you remember of the person is often the first one. Its sort of like a name. If you meet someone with the name Jane and your ex girlfriend happened to have the same name, you automatically relate them. First impression is vital.

A persons image and how it is perceived by others also plays a major role. Once an image of a person is determined, he constantly relates to it. For instance the jock may be naturally good at sports but equally good at school but decides to pursue his athletic talents because of his parents role. And although he could go through high school being a good student and athlete, his role of the jock allows him to rely to heavily on sports and his education to be squandered.

A ruined image causes a person "true colors" come out. Tiger Woods for instance played the role of the focused and extremely talented golfer that truly enjoyed the game. His passion and dedication seemed unreal. Little was known about his social life and people assumed it was average and he remained loyal to his family. His impressive golfing career was enough for people to respect him. But now with all these women admitting that they had affairs with him, his character and image come into question. Although his golf talents likely remain exactly as they were before, companies such as gatorade, nike and bing no longer want to sponsor him. Technically they were sponsoring him for his golf abilities and not his social life. It is interesting how in some cultures, including men in college are respected for how many women they are able to do sex with but when a professional athlete does it, it is considered a bad image for children and people who look up to him. I am not defending what Tiger Woods did in any way it is just interesting.
To Conclude my thoughts, I feel like although not all of use cool as way to cover our insecurity, the majority of us feel the need to because we are in deep denial of our character flaws. Cool is merely an opinion and image of someone that you would like to see yourself as. Everyone wants to be someone else. We constantly strive to be someone we are not and can never be truly satisfied with who we are.