Exclusionary Cool

"Chuck Klosterman looks at Cereal Commercials to view how the exclusion of Cereal Mascots from participating in the activites of the main stream (i.e. the kids in the commercial) subtely influences our society's definition of cool from a young age. For Klosterman, to be cool in this society something must be exclusionary."



Klosterman's idea of exclusionary cool is something that we desire, something that we want so much it drives us crazy because we can't get our hands on it. Exclusionary cool is something that is semielitist; for something to be considered cool, it should be hard to find, but, at the same time, it has to be something that could've been found by anyone who was looking something like it. An example to ilustrate Chuck Klosterman's definition of exclusionary cool would be this excerpt from chapter ten of Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs (The lady or the Tiger).

"...We persue that which retreats from us, and coolness is always

a bear market...It drives us, for lack of a btterterm, coo coo...there

is no hard-and-fast clarity about what qualifies anything as cool. It

needs to be original, but only semi original...A cool image also needs

to be semielitist...what you display should be extremely hard to find,

yet could have been theoretically found by absolutely anyone six

months ago..."

Exclusionary cool artificially creates a demand for products because it gives off the impression that a particular product is only being made up to a certain amount in quantity. The less of something there is, the harder it is for you to purchase it when there are a lot of other people who desire the product too, and the more it makes you want it. If there is only a limited number of something, people get the impression that it's cool and exclusive, and they want to be a part of the limited number of people who own the product. There are a few examples from society that could be used. One would be the Wii. Only a certain number of the gaming systems are made annually, and they do sell fast becuase they're considered cool, so if you want one, you have to get to the stores right away before they run out of stock. This can be compared to this passage from chapter 10 of Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs:

"...Time and time again, commercials for cereal assualt children with

the same theme: A product's exclusivity is directly proportional to

its social cachet..."

An example of exclusionary cool at Churchill is the Prom Commity. As far as I know, only members of the graduating class are allowed to join (or at least that's always what they imply in the announcements each year when they try to recruit new members). All year before prom they organise several foundraisers (mainly bake sales and such) to help raise money for their prom. It only adds a sense of yearning among many to join and help to plan the prom for that year, but they hold off on hopes of joining until it is their year to walk across the stage in the auditorium and recieve their highschool graduate diplomas.