It's Our Water, Too
How a commencement speech by David Foster Wallace explains an essential part of this project
The author David Foster Wallace was a commencement speaker at Kenyon College in 2005 and his speech began with this passage:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
He later explains what the story means to him:
The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.
The speech is known as “This is Water”. My version of this story, as it relates to vibes, might go like this:
A young fashionable couple is walking down a street in Brooklyn. An older gentleman walks by and says “Lookin cool today!” The couple thanks him and keeps walking. On the next block, one turns to the other and says “What is coolness, anyway?”
This couple, whether they admit it or not, are attuned to coolness. Their choices—including their clothes, hair, and swagger—are intentional and reflect their tastes and how they want to be perceived. They consistently ride the cultural waves of fashion, attitudes, and trends. For them, it’s fun and satisfying to experiment.
Their social circle mirrors their tastes: a shared love for music, art, films, and books that align with a certain aesthetic. They feel part of a scene. They would never claim to be cool or admit to coolness as a goal, but it’s there.
Coolness is their water. They swim in it every day, oblivious to its currents, its origins, or its deeper mechanics.
It’s not just hipsters in Brooklyn. The modern conception of coolness matters to people all over the world. Countless decisions are made about fashion, attitude, and lifestyle with coolness as an unspoken factor. It has become one of the most powerful forces in popular culture.
In Cool: How the Brain’s Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World, Steven Quartz and Anette Asp write:
"Cool is an economic force that shapes desires and markets. It harnesses the brain’s need for social connection and distinction, making it a powerful driver of trends and consumer behavior."
But… What is it?
This is one of the biggest questions of this project. Why? Because it’s our water, too. We are all aware of coolness and the role it plays, even if we don’t care about it. We see kids aspire to be cool, we see products emulating coolness, and we know that coolness motivates people in myriad ways. Yet, it remains an undercurrent. I want to know:
What is coolness?
Where did today’s version of coolness originate?
What can we learn about ourselves by understanding it?
To answer these questions, we’ll need to discuss it plainly and without the baggage of the paradox of cool. For now, my goal is to establish coolness, along with nerdiness, as the central vibes of this project. While they are not opposites, they do exist on a spectrum that will help us discuss and analyze them, and popular culture, with greater clarity.
Soon the Vibes Project will start to unravel the origins of American coolness. Stay tuned.
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[The image above was made with DALL-E]