What is cool? It's a daunting question that's confounded philosophers, artists, advertisers, and parents since the dawn of time. Is it an aesthetic? Is it a mindset? Is it Lorde?
One Reddit user — likely a clueless single dad trying to relate to his wayward son — decided to mine the minds of Reddit's youth movement to find out what young people think is cool.
"Young people of reddit: What's currently cool?" Randomdudeovich inquired. Over 7,000 teenagers (and some adults) responded. Here are some of our favorites:
"People at my school saying "Bruh" to everything. And also people obsessed with Sperrys (a shoe)" — DarkperL
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"If college counts as young, then Yik Yak. Yik Yak is an anonymous message board for students. My campus Yaks so much that we overload their servers maybe three times a week." — Zatan130
"Being smart. It is no longer cool to be the dumb kid in class that is a shit disturber.
Being intelligent is super sexy as well in my opinion." — MSTF0
"Atheism is in vogue this school year. A lot of people are saying they're atheist just to spite their parents, a kid said he was Scientologist because he believes in science." — Noriguy
"The Schmoney dance. It's gotten to the point where people can't even say "about a week ago" without some jackass dropping his hat and bending side to side like a fish." — Colorfy
"Being uncool is the definition of cool nowadays, but not too uncool, or you would be seriously uncool. Other than that, Captain America t-shirts, and silly made up words like bae and selfie." — ICreeper10
"E-cigs. I graduated high school last year and at least a third of my school had them. None of them even smoked cigarettes or anything before, just started smoking E-cigs because they are fun" — CopenhagenNatty
"I'm 16 and the big thing now is acting like you care about issues, I remember when the sandy hook shooting happened this girl in my class walked in with a "stop the hail of bullets" shirt she made. I asked her what recent shooting have been around and all she had to repeat was "Columbians." And yes that's how she pronounced it." — LoneDemize
"Being happy. There are so many people with depression in school now that anyone who is genuinely happy stands out and is admired." — Thekidwiththelisp
We like that last one the best.
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