Doesn't it seem a little absurd to hear Caltech researchers talk about purchases that make them "cool," like insecure middle schoolers? The best way to be cool is to avoid consciously trying to shape your behavior and instead focusing on surrounding yourself with things that you love. The coolest people are authentic (and by cool, I mean in the deeper sense, like "what a cool person"), and self-conscious reflection on how to act destroys that authenticity.

I have a scientific background and I love science, but scientists and psychologists always get it wrong when they comment on more philosophical matters such as how to best live your life. They're busy looking at a few variables whereas philosophy, religion and the rest of the humanities tries to understand what it's like to live life more holisitically. If you want to understand how to best live your life, listen to the wisdom humans have repeated throughout the ages because human nature hasn't changed. Stop worrying about being cool. Stop worrying about accumulating social status. Live the best life possible and ignore the rest.

Also, tangential point: the researchers misunderstand anti-consumerism. I'm more or less an anti-consumerist, but that doesn't mean I'm obviously against all products. I am in fact wearing clothes right now. But I believe that the current levels of consumption in America are absurd, and I try to bring my consumption down to a level that's more reasonable.

While I'm quiet about it, I also typically avoid corporate branding. I realize I'm still buying clothes from companies, some of them large corporations. For me it's just a simple matter of taste, just as one person might prefer a flashy car and someone else might like one a little more low-key.

I wonder if the test subjects came mostly from the student body at these schools? Brains of 18-24 year olds work differently than that of older people. And people this age are more concerned with fitting into the cool group.

"The people of sub-Saharan Africa are not as satisfied with their lives as people in India, who are not as satisfied with their lives as the people of France or Denmark. There’s a global relationship between income and life satisfaction that shows no sign of a satiation point"

Sure, but the person in sub-Saharan Africa or India you are mentioning doesn't have their basic needs met. If you suffer from food scarcity or are worried your children might get kidnapped by Boko Haram of course you're not going to be as happy as someone in the first world. I don't think that really has anything to do with consumerism. A better comparison would be Bill Gates and Mark Wahlberg. Bill Gates has vast multiples of the wealth that Mark Wahlberg has, but both are members of the first world that have their basic needs met (and a whole lot more). By your logic Bill Gates should be many many times happier than Mark Wahlberg (if there is no satiation point). Clearly there's no way to measure this, but I highly doubt that's true.

"The irony of anti-consumers is that they often reflect their distaste for consumerism through their consumption—they don’t wear generic clothing simply because it gets the job done. They wear it as a rebellion against consumerism, so they end up being anti-consumer consumers!"

First of all, how do you know why people wear the clothes they wear? That seems presumptuous. Second, you're confusing apples and oranges. A consumer (someone who literally consumes anything, which includes every human who has ever existed... and Ghandi) is not the same as a consumerist (someone with materialistic values or who consumes to excess). You are confusing the two. Buying plain clothes because you don't appreciate the consumerism of our culture makes you a consumer, technically; but it does not make you a consumerist. Clothing is a basic necessity.

You raise a good point that reflects the often reckless practice of applying concepts developed in the West in a manner that wrongly suggests universal congruence. It is unclear to me why many writers fail to understand that theories (or concepts) when applied across cultures stand to collapse. It is frustrating that none of these writers make any attempt to differentiate between cultural settings so as to integrate their findings. As you correctly point out, consumerism cannot just be compared across cultures. How? Should we understand it in terms of the context of exchange function? Ethical conduct? Personal empowerment? Freedom of choice? And if it is the latter, wouldn't that be personal choice (for the west)? Well, wouldn't that neglect the social compulsion associated with choice (for eastern cultures? So, as seen, here we are with the ideology of consumerism and its various problematic dimensions, including the absurdity of trying applying the term across cultures.

Yeah. What is "cool" among US college students is very different from what would be socially desirable in a Maasai village in Kenya or Jakarta or rural Mongolia. We are very confused if we think the whole world is just like the US.

Comparing two people at the top of their respective social heaps is not the same as comparing a burger flipper and the same two people.

I'm one of those 'practical people'. If I have to I'll wear something nice, and I have a fair idea of what 'nice' is for whatever event, but if not then it's fuzzy pants to the grocery store, to the doctor, to the school, to the job.

Some people actually like plain clothes. Baroque/rococo is not to everybody's taste.

What a terribly sad article.

I like my beige Members Only jacket. A LOT.

A long time ago I knew a guy who took a Members Only jacket and completely covered it in duct tape. Now, that was a cool jacket.

Ah, is it cool to disagree with this article? More of a reaction than a disagreement. Sounds like what everyone knows already gussied up to sound new. Not sure I've learned anything, other than the fact that young academics need to get published--is that "cool"? Hardly.

These geniuses should now publish on the psychological and social rewards of yard sales and flea markets. You know, where all the cool stuff goes next.

Ha! I have an 8-track boom box that I can donate.

You haven't lived until you've rocked down the highway in a '71 Pinto with a homejob 8-track installed in the glove compartment. Tape deck and tapes were indestructible, high fidelity not an issue with the windows down. The pinnacle of low tech.

Shades of "The Mirthmobile"
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

You're either cool or you're not. It is an internal quality that some have and most do not. Surrounding yourself with the trappings of cool (or, alternately rejecting them) in order to be cool is a dead giveaway of lack of coolness. It only communicates a desire to be socially approved. Also uncool.

Right. Apple or whatever product-du-jour fanboys, as well as these researchers, seem to miss this point entirely.

Or, alternately their point is to make a paycheck by tying materialism to happiness, which is my guess. Still, fun to weigh in on what is cool.

They need to read Ram Dass.

I love it when people hand me things to read. I will check it out for myself. It's on the list now.

Suspiciously, these researchers didn't start with the role of marketing before launching into their 'uncanny' findings of our brains' reaction to Cool Stuff. Surprise! We've been conditioned. You'd have to do a major billboard campaign, sustained radio spots and direct mailings to make tribes in the Amazon give a crap about the yoga pants and cellphone accessories that we are pre-occupied with.

Where there is no need, demand is created through exploiting our abstract feelings of insecurity, and teaching us that the answer may lie in smelling better with some vacuous celebrity's new fragrance. It is as ridiculous as it sounds. And we are slowly waking up to it. The fact that the researchers are mystified by why the 50s were a turning point is also disingenuous. American industries were the only ones left standing in the world--businesses had to groom markets to have a reason to make something, Western propaganda and ideals reigned supreme, Hollywood happened to find a hook in Marlon Brando and James Dean as 'rebels' in their manufactured stories, AND it was the era of engineered consent, Madison Ave. and Edward Bernays--who, among many of his golden nuggets, convinced women they'd be 'empowered' if they smoked.

Articles like these are probably native advertising, meta-level. The mountain of jersey-knit crap and snake pit of phone chargers in each of our homes can't all be honourable by-products of natural human community-building. This is excessive, it's wasteful, probably unnecessary to our esteem needs and it's not cool.

It is in fact stunning to see how psychologically, socially and spiritually naive these alleged scientists are. The debunking of the consumerist myths is especially entertaining. Let's consider this point for example: "By examining how the brain responds to “cool” products, we discovered that they help fulfill a basic human need: to be recognized and respected by others." Well, to respect smbdy for that person having purchased a "cool" product is already to operate within the consumerist mindset and is an incredibly narrow, even useless conceptualization of what respect means.
The same goes for their definition of happiness: they claim their is no material "satiation point" – exactly! People will always want more stuff (consumption)! And thus happiness (defined in a meaningful way) is never attainable via consumption. qed.
One could go on and on. The basic problem is that they have extremely narrow (even distorted) conceptions of the basic parameters of human well-being they work with. And they quantify aspects of the human condition that are not, on any reasonable account, quantifiable (e.g. The Dalai Lama, being a great TV watcher, would probably not see his happiness increased by having one more TV in his office... Meditation can lead to happiness and it is precisely NOT consumption.)

Consumerism is a policing mechanism to keep citizens competitively spending.

The labor market serves as a black hole sucking human energy so that most are kept alive just well enough to have them obediently produce for a corporate machine.

Who does the policing? Corporations? Maybe if people weren't sheep consumerism wouldn't have this dark power you attribute it

Yes, but the thought of "competitive spending" actually being something that exists is pretty preposterous. If anything a more accurate term would be passive spending because the consumer doesn't have much of a say at all. When was the last time you saw someone bargaining for a burrito bowl?

It's very possible that this is an unintended consequence - not the main objective of consumerism. The main objective is to make money by making everyone think they need the latest model of the hot new product.

Very possible? What are you people talking about? Of course it's not the master plan. There's no one in control.

Here's how it works: you develop a product. To make more money, you try to sell it to more people. Eventually your company becomes a corporation with outside investors, and you hire a CEO whose fundamental duty is increasing "shareholder value," so to do that he tries to sell as much of the product to as many people as possible. All those companies pouring tons of money into selling you expensive doodads in aggregate create a consumer's paradise (or hell, depending on your perspective). A culture of consumerism forms out of the void.

I mean, I understand there are many different ways of interpreting the truth, but to believe that there are shady powerful entities controlling it is paranoid nonsense.

I would think that describing something as an unintended consequence rather than a main objective would indicate that I do NOT believe it's the intended goal, no? The intended goal is to sell stuff - everything else "forms out of the void" (unintentionally). "Unintended" doesn't imply a master plan. Sorry you misunderstood me.

Marketers do intentionally create new models of products that work no better than the old one, though, making cosmetic differences simply to have people buy basically the same thing over again.

The day I realized that most people engage more readily with image than substance or content was like the fall of spirit into matter.

I'm coping.

Anyone who has interacted with an infant/toddler knows that.

You can choose who you associate with, though.

only up to a point.

as I said, I'm managing the problem.

It isn't as if I'm immune to the tendency myself. But at least I understand the value of digging a little deeper. And I stay away from condemning or mocking someone else on the basis of superficial appearances.

These are rehashed and slightly repackaged ideas that were articulated more clearly in Luc Sante's article here: http://www.nytimes.com/1999...

And Sante was probably inspired by Georg Simmel's earlier work on fashion and identity (although Sante doesn't credit Simmel at all).

upvoted for the Simmel name-check

My problem with the quest for cool as a kid was that I knew what was cool, and eventually I could get it, but the the very fact that I could attain the item meant that it was at the point where anyone could get it, and thus, it lost a great deal of its coolness.

If people stopped looking for cool, the economies of the First World would fall into a deep depression, dragging the low-wage manufacturing economies down with it. It's staggering to think of how little we'd spend on consumer goods if we waited until they wore out to replace them, and got minor problems fixed instead of throwing things out. Look how long the old cars have lasted on Cuba. There would not be much of an automotive industry if the whole world was like that.

Human nature doesn't change, though, so unless there's something like the Communist movement that suppresses consumerism by force, it will be with us forever.

The researchers no doubt realize their research will be used by business to help sell more products by manipulating peoples needs and wants on a deeper psychological level. In other words the research's will make lots of money so they can buy more cool products.

Makes me think of those researches who said smoking cigarettes is not bad for your health.

I get off on getting things I like at a ridiculously cheap price. Must live in NYC or some comparable place to achieve that goal. Know where to go. In NY it isn't hard. Do I care about cool? I care about learning and pleasure. Nature's in there too. None of these addressed by these cub academics. A shame.

Cool to you is getting things at a low price. I don't think you fall outside the main point. Consumerism is simply looking for your group and building status within that group. I'm not sure I go along with everything they imply here, but at a basic level it passes my sniff test.

I suppose I work the system, and therefore am part of the system. I think that's what your point is. Not sure.

If you want to save money, move from NYC to Tulsa. Or is Tulsa not cool enough for you?

Tulsa of course not cool. I believe they call it a cowboy town there, so a friend who lived there for awhile told me. I'm retired now in southern Arizona, Tucson area, and culturally it's great, to say nothing of the nature and hiking opportunities. Good mix of cultures also, like NYC.

In 1974, Richard Easterlin reported that although richer people were happier than poorer people in the same country, people in wealthier countries were no happier than those in poorer ones.

It has been said that Money can't buy happiness.

However, David Lee Roth has said-

"Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it."

Or you could just use drugs.

and wimmen

Good point. Of course the idjits will say "that happy doesn't count because nay-nay-nay".

To be clear: I don't think indulging ego, whether it be increasing your purchasing power or manipulating your internal chemistry is skillful. But if that's how you choose to paint your picture you can't say with any authority one color is better than the other.

If you can find the people of sub-Saharan Africa or the people in India in their own setting with their friends seated in the shade of the spreading mango tree, you will probably see them laughing and joking as much as the people sitting in a swish Georgetown restaurant.

The insidious nature of how corporations are able to "skew the game board" in a presumptive capitalism environment.

i'm quite satisfied living my own life, rather than being cool for others. partly because i'm more about function and content, than about appearance and form. also because i'm not so young anymore.

my advice: live your own life, not someone else's.

This guy needs to read some literature & philosophy to understand the complexity of humanity.