Ways To Be Cool

Orange Crate Art's Michael Leddy spotted this funny ironic list of "Ways To Be Cool."

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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zuzu

I read a few comments about learn handwriting. I heard from friends that their kids are not taught penmanship or cursive in school anymore.

What worries me far more is that kids today aren’t taught touch-typing, as they used to in olden times with Word Perfect 5.1. Now they’re just taught how to use Microsoft Word with a mouse.

How will these children write papers for school and university in the future? I’m skeptical of the effectiveness voice recognition, based on Bonnie A. Nardi‘s A Simple Matter of Programming.

If I ruled with an iron fist, children would learn touchtyping with EMACS.
MegoMuseum

#23 is right!

If you Google image search “Wild tigers I have Known coollist” you’ll find the image on the film director Cam Archer’s website. http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=wild+tigers+I+have+known+coollist&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
pAULbOWEN

#7: I think he means helmet like this http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Ancient_Greek_helmet.jpg.jpg
Anonymous

He should have scratched out “become a band photographer”.
John Markos O’Neill

Awesome: “Ambercroombie & Flitch”
Mindpowered

Can someone clue me in about Williamsburg?

Virginia?

Anyone?
Brainspore

#45 posted by ill lich:

This is so good it has to be fake, or done ironically by a couple hipsters boozing it up one night.

As luck would have it “Irony” is #14 on the list.
Boeotian

I feel cooler just by reading it.

“Psychrock…?”

go for it!
Chas44

Another way to be cool: Don’t leave your private lists out where your parents can jack them and put them on the internets.
thehoundoflove

@#16 Mindpowered -

Brother provisional answered that at #6.

It’s the Brooklyn hotspot, where the “electroclash” scene once thrived about 6 years ago or so. Anyone remember that?
Jeff

#66, I agree with regard to typing. But also, leanrning penmanship is important because it engages the brain in a different way. One thing I leanred to look for on a job application is someone who knows how to print or write neatly.
Tdawwg

It’s Williamsburg in Brooklyn, folks, where more than ex-art students reside. And not all of us are cool, let me tell ‘ya! Most of us speak ‘Merican, for example, not ‘Peein!

Kind of like jazz, “if you have to ask you’ll never know,” teehee.
grimc

@phoenix21

Based on the Tao of Steve, the Steve referenced in the list is most likely one of the Three Steves: Steve McQueen, Steve Austin and Steve McGarrett.
TroofSeeker

The word beneath Helmet is crutches. Chicks did guys with motorcycles, but chicks are afraid of motorcycles, but chicks did motorcycle guys who can’t ride because they hurt themselves on their motorcycles, so now they need a little nursing, and the chick gets seen witha motorcycle man.

This is acually a new form of mathmatics called socionometry. Follow the formula: score.
Glossolalia Black

I might have made a similar list back in the 1980′s, but it would have been more just a list of zines and shows I wanted to go see. And maybe clothes.

GO TO COMMANDER SALAMANDER would have been somewhere on that list.
Scuba SM

ITSUMISHI:

A life of meat, irony, and leather jackets? That is a plan I can get behind! Let’s see… leather jacket: Check. Meat? Had a Baconator for lunch, so Check. Irony? Hmmmmm…
Anonymous

The list is actually a prop from a movie called “wild tigers I have known”. It’s a list that the boys friend has made up and you clearly see it in a scene while they are talking on the phone.
dbarak

I thought is said “Grow fecal hair.” My bad.
Anonymous

Hey, this is Max Paradise, the kid who wrote this list. It’s from the film Wild Tigers I Have Known, and most of the shit on here is supposed to be humorous obviously. Also, Steve isn’t referring to anyone particular. It’s just Steve.
Dpwhite

Should I wear my bike helmet?
zikman

woooo vice magazine. I don’t need a subscription because I pick it up for free at the local american apparel.
Anonymous

Thanks #13. Had a good laugh then spent 30 minutes or so reading about/looking at pictures of ancient helmets & headdresses. I’m hopelessly uncool.
tuktuk

@#21

actually, no. one of the hottest nights i ever had was with a girl whose boyfriend had wrecked his motorcycle and was on crutches and had messed some other things up and couldn’t screw.

in williamsburg! (bonus)

the kid was right to scratch out “crutches”. wheelchairs are so much cooler than crutches. i saw a homeless guy yesterday actually walking/scooting himself across a busy street while sitting in a wheel chair and all the traffic stopped for a minute just to admire the wtf and question their own worldview. guy had it like the fonz he was so cool.
TomHung

dood left of nun-chuck skillz, bow hunting skillz, hacking skillz
urshrew

Williamsburg is where I go to see the clowns and tragically fashionable clown around and tragically…fashionate?

Its pretty much played out, but, if you ever want to pick up a pseudo arty chick/dude on a Friday night, its one of the best places to go in New York City.
devophill

Good job, MegoMuseum! Your google-fu is strong. (I was trying, but I couldn’t seem to find it.)
jimh

360′s
Anonymous

#11

Funnily enough, my brother and I made a similar list when we were around that age, it never worked out all that well, it seems all the stuff we could think of that would make us cool costs money.

Good times.
DarthVain

Smoking!

What, It isn’t cool anymore?

*cough*
UncommonSense

I know for a fact Steve hates this guy.
pAULbOWEN

#21: chicks are afraid of motorcycles

Maybe. Or maybe they find the motorcycle and its attendant flim-flam off-puttingly homoerotic?
pinehead

I’ve gotten greater joy from life simply doing whatever I wanted than by worrying whether or not anyone would think I’m cool or ironic.

It’s much easier than fussing over your clothes and having endless arguments with simpletons about which band is the best.
DarthVain

What a loser!

jk! :)
TroofSeeker

I used to ride with the AirHeads, a MC club.
Go ahead and laugh.
An Airhead is the old BMW’s, with the jugs sticking out the side, air cooled (the new ones are known as Oilheads).
The Airheads are the nerds of motorcycling,
and they don’t get much poon-tang.
So they get beer, they get greasy, and they get philosophical.
Not bikers; motorcyclists.
Not scary, just love ridin’.

Fun club.
Anonymous

@ Everyone

Will you be my online friendships?
hiyayaywhopee

Wow! I go to school in Williamsburg (though it’s the Williamsburg in Virginia), I’ve been wearing leather jackets since eigth grade, I’m learning how to play guitar, kaj mi parolas Esperanton, kiu estas dialekto de la eÅropa lingvo. I must be, like, the coolest of the cool, or something.
chunk

haha…Williamsburg. priceless.
David Pescovitz

Glossolalia Black @12, +1 on Commander Salamander! When I finally did get to go, all I could afford was a t-shirt. : (
rfreebern

I would really love to see artists’ renderings of a cool person, based on this document.
ripplepoppy

Ben?? Is that your handwriting? Will you ever read this? You ARE cool you shameless stinkhorn.
Oooooooh I really hope that is your handwriting. w00t eXXXXtreme!!
dculberson

My chick digs my motorcycle.. but she like scooters more, so that’s what she rides. I should start riding on the back of her scooter, that would be hilarious.

But am I cool? Well, I immediately thought “Steve Jobs” for the Steve in question. So probably not.
arachnian

I can totally envision some desperate 11-year-old making this list.
airship

Wow! Except for ‘move to Williamsburg’, his list is EXACTLY like mine!
Anonymous

how to be cool is simple k. just be yourself and try to send some new trends. easy as that! :)
SteveKiwi

Based on the last item in the list, this person obviously knows what he is talking about.
gonzilla

Whatever, colonial Williamsburg is cooler cause its old school.
I read a few comments about learn handwriting. I heard from friends that their kids are not taught penmanship or cursive in school anymore.
As for the Steve. Its gotta be Steve Dave.
TroofSeeker

THIS JUST IN:

The note was written by a young Leonardo DeCapprio.
It works!
I gotta copy that list.
zuzu

It’s the Brooklyn hotspot, where the “electroclash” scene once thrived about 6 years ago or so. Anyone remember that?

I remember that, and it was awesome. All those Daft Punk inspired bands that followed (e.g. Justice, Soulwax, Vitalic… most everything on KitsunÃ©, Ed Banger, Institubes) are great too though. I think Tiga provided the transitional gateway somewhere in there.

He should have scratched out “become a band photographer”.

That should be “party photographer” ala Last Night’s Party, etc. :p

I would really love to see artists’ renderings of a cool person, based on this document.

I’m pretty sure that’s why the aforementioned Vice Magazine has its famous Dos and Don’ts.
Clemoh

Irony is a dead scene.
grimc

I can totally envision some desperate 11-year-old making this list.

An 11-year-old that rides a motorcycle and wears cologne, desperate? More like the coolest 11-year-old in the world.
Anonymous

This is from the movie “Wild Tigers I Have Known” and the it’s about a boy who falls in love with this straight “cool” older guy who’s straight. It’s kind of an arthouse kinda movie.
Lauren O

ATTENTION FELLOWS:

Do not – I repeat, do NOT – let this silly list deter you from growing facial hair!

Sincerely,
The Society of Straight Ladies with Good Taste
HatOfEdshu

Wow, I must be Fonzie-cool!
arkizzle

Lauren Ohh!
Tenn

I speak European and my coolness factour has increased a thousand percent.

I also grow my facial hair but that is a different story.
phoenix21

This is awesome. So many questions… like Williamsburg as in Virginia? And who’s Steve? McQueen?

But the best has to be, simply, “Irony.”
pAULbOWEN

Ironic how? ‘Motorcycles’ should read ‘Track bike, pref Bob Jackson. Or Dolan’ but apart from that he (and I’m guessing it is a he) seems pretty close to the money.
andyhavens

@#37: Irony is a dead scene, yes. But the word “irony,” used on its own, is an ironic use of the word.

Meta-irony is the new irony.

Duh.
sluggo

The fact a list was made is so anti-cool, it’s cool.

Wait, what level of meta am I on?
Itsumishi

Damn you facial hair! And I don’t see ‘grey hair’ anywhere on that list!

I’m doomed. Doomed to a life of old man hair and 15 year old facial hair.

Ah well. At least I can fall back on a life of meat, irony and leather jackets.
zawan

I must fucking rock then.
bondjamesbond

yes, that is my list, and, yes, I am cool.
TroofSeeker

7. learn handwriting.
Brother Provisional

@ #2 Williamsburg is a neighborhood in Brooklyn were all the cool kids go to live after they graduate from art school.
marissangel

yeah, helmets…they’re hot.
Antinous / Moderator

I’m sure he means “learn to speak Esperanto.” That’s pretty much the sine qua non of cool.
Tavie

The unnecessary quotation marks around “Hollywood” = win!
isaacb2

My favorite: “Eat more meat.”

But whaddya mean ironic? Those are words to live by!
ill lich

This is so good it has to be fake, or done ironically by a couple hipsters boozing it up one night.
Anonymous

I had thought
learn to play guitar
was meant to precede irony
which follows with become a band photographer

that is truly ironical
Takuan

the script outline for the next Tom Cruise picture.
Anonymous

I prefer Esperanto rather than European!

If you have a moment please check http://www.lernu.net
Xydexx

Woohoo! eXXXtreme EVERYTHING!
sheshe

i want to know what he scratched out.. because that’s what’s really cool