almost cool

the merciless hierarchies of social acceptance

i feel like many of us as writers can relate to the feeling of being “almost cool.” like when you think of cool people, i feel like writers aren’t the first people who come to mind. i mean, we are cool, especially to each other. but we tend to have that “leave me alone, i’m writing something private” essence. we’re those introverted smart kids with too much time on our hands and too many ideas in our heads. and in modern society, that’s not exactly portrayed as “cool.”

now, granted, every age group seems to have its own version of cool. if you’re like fifty years old or older and you write historical fiction novels for a living, you’ll probably be seen as cool. but if you’re fifteen years old writing blog posts about your life… *cough* …you probably won’t be seen as cool, ‘cause that’s just the way it works. as someone who’s recently gone through elementary school, middle school, and now high school, i’m well aware that what makes you “cool” can certainly vary depending on your age, gender, culture, et cetera (and today i’m going to write about that :D).

all my life, as a filipino-caucasian guy, i’ve always been just… almost cool. like i’m not some nerd that you look at and think, “ew, what a weirdo,” (though i have drifted precariously close…). but i’ve never been some super awesome dude that’s up there with the cool kids either. i’ve kind of just been average, you know?

as previously stated, different ages, genders, and places have vastly different social standards. so, i’m just going to walk through three major social hierarchies i’ve been part of in my life and where i stood in them.

elementary school

as you may know from my post playground drama, i spent all but one year of elementary school at a christian private school. it was a pretty high-end school, so the majority of the students were high-income, meaning that money was a primary determining factor in one’s place on the social hierarchy, at least in middle school and high school. however, in elementary school, things were a bit different, because little kids don’t know much or care about money.

in my personal elementary school experience, the level of judgment you receive on how much money you have or what kind of clothes or shoes you wear doesn’t matter nearly as much to everyone as it does later on.

at my particular private school, what made you a cool elementary school student was determined by how much you emulated the older kids. so if you had the same hairstyle as the middle schoolers or if you played football at recess or if you were a super fast runner — things that elementary students don’t care about, but older kids do.

as a fairly normal child¹, i didn’t care about any of that stuff. i let my mom do my hair how she liked it. i didn’t play football during recess 1) because i had no idea how to play it and 2) i preferred to draw stuff with my friends or play random made-up games. thus, in elementary school, i was deemed “almost cool.” thankfully, i wasn’t one of those introverted nerds who did their homework during recess and liked to rant about transformers or math equations. i was just… average, and i liked being average because it meant i wouldn’t get bullied and i could just blend into the background and mind my own business.

in kindergarten, first, second, and third grade, things went pretty well social-status-wise. i looked pretty normal, i talked pretty normal, i acted pretty normal, i dressed pretty normal². however, in fourth grade, being a “cool kid” started to become a bit more important.

there was this gradual contrast separating cool kids from nerdy kids that grew rapidly as i entered fourth grade. some of my friends and i suddenly became nerdy even though we were just normal the previous year. maybe it’s because the material got harder and us being smart made the cool kids look bad. maybe it’s because we were transitioning to middle school, where social hierarchies pretty much peak. whatever the reason, i wasn’t aware of it until it was too late.

i can recall one particular day in fourth grade, where school had just ended so everyone was just packing up all their stuff and going to aftercare. as i made my way into the hallway, i could see a group of those “cool”, tall, athletic-looking kids congregating around one of their backpacks. when i passed by, i subtly glanced over out of curiosity, expecting to see something like a beyblade or a cool football or something… but i was surprised to see just a pair of red and white shoes.

“they’re the new air jordans!” one of them said to the amazement of the other kids. “they were $250!”

at that, my eyebrows shot up. $250?? that’s like as much as i’d saved up across five birthdays! i shook my head, wondering why these seemingly “cool” kids were drooling over a pair of shoes. so i just casually walked by and saw my friend will approaching, having just left his own classroom. i just waved and said hi, and he did the same. but as i kept on walking, i heard the “cool kids” call something from behind me in a jeery tone.

“look, skechers!”

i peered over my shoulder to see the “cool kids” laughing at my friend will as he passed by, pointing at his shoes. will ducked his head and sped up, clearly upset, to the amusement of his taunters.

looking down at my own pair of beat-up target shoes, i suddenly felt a strange guilt. were my shoes worth mocking too? why are any shoes worth mocking?

it only got worse from that moment on, and my friends and i suddenly found ourselves feeling self-conscious about our shoes of all things, while the “shoe boys”, as i called them, flaunted their $300 sneakers after school.

it was only then that i really saw a definitive line between those cool rich kids and me and my friends. and it kind of hurt to know that i was only “almost cool,” and that i couldn’t change that.

so, as that little shoe story demonstrates, kids will always try to find something to establish social hierarchies, whether that’s with clothes or shoes or phones or water bottles. there will always be something that will make you either cool or uncool, and it’s a vicious, merciless system.

unfortunately, things don’t get much better in middle school. but, since i transitioned to homeschooling in middle school, the coolness standard took a bit of a turn.

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middle school

i wrote a whole post about how bad middle school was for me. just the title — the absolute worst era of my life — tells you as much as you need to know. and what made it so bad was the fact that my social status drastically changed, not coolness-wise, but friendship-wise.

in private school, i had a super close friend group of four people and a broader but still very close friend group of like twenty people³. however, all that withered away as i left private school. friendships formed over the course of five years were severed in an instant, forcing me to make new ones in a short amount of time.

now, i’ve already ranted about this in the other post, but i do think it has a huge similarity to the concept of being cool. the middle schoolers in homeschool spent all of elementary school developing their own standards of what was cool and uncool… and i wasn’t in on them. i had no idea who i needed to be to earn their appreciation, but i soon discovered that my current self didn’t cut it. and as the years went by, i came to realize that i really hated what these kids found cool and uncool. it was weird and vastly different from private school culture.

the cruel thing about middle school is that judgment is a huge thing. in elementary school — at least at my school for the first few years — everyone was mostly treated equally. we didn’t discriminate due to interests or appearance, as long as they weren’t drastically absurd. but in middle school, even if you’re just slightly uncool, you’re considered a total weirdo; there is no almost cool, there’s just cool or not cool.

i discovered that to these homeschool kids, i was just as strange as i considered them. even when i went by the cool standards of my private school or even a few public schoolers i knew i would always be a weirdo to them, but only because they were weirdos. and that really bothered me, the idea that we couldn’t be good friends because we both considered each other uncool.

the one good thing about middle school coolness is that it goes the opposite direction that elementary school coolness does: it fades away instead of getting bigger.

and that brings me to…

high school

now that i’m in high school, i’ve thankfully gone from weirdo back to almost cool. don’t get my previous statement wrong, social standards in high school are just as extreme — if not more so — than middle school. however, it does become a lot less polarized. now, you can be almost cool; you can be that kid who isn’t cool but isn’t a total weirdo, and that’s where i thrive.

in a society where having the most expensive clothes, the newest phone, and the best hair is what makes you acceptable, i’m glad to be average. i don’t want to waste my money or energy on “cool” fads or trends. i’m happy just being myself to the degree that people will deem me “normal”, just a background character in their expensive popular lives (or their nerdy geeky lives).

as someone who likes writing blog posts, swimming competitively, and occasionally obsessing over random things, i’ve realized that being almost cool isn’t just my reality or my perception of these social standards — it’s my gift. i’m free to drift between groups and learn from different people. i’m free to just focus on being myself without worrying about being a “somebody” or being a “cool kid.”

looking back, i feel like being “almost cool” is one of the best things that could’ve happened to me. it’s given me a unique perspective on people and the social systems we create. i’ve spent my life on the edges of popularity and nerdiness, close enough to see what it’s like but far enough to notice how weird it all is.

being almost cool has made me a better writer, a better observer, and a bit of a better person. it’s taught me to care less about fitting into someone else’s definition of cool and more about creating a life that feels authentic to who i am.

so, if you’re an “almost cool” kid too, don’t worry about it. lean into what makes you “weird” or different, embrace the fact that you’re in-between, and let it shape you. because one day, you’ll look back and realize that being almost cool was pretty cool after all.

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hi, everyone! sorry, it’s been a while. i’ve really been overthinking all my post ideas, but o told myself today that i would just sit down and write a post, so i did!

i didn’t really edit this much and i kind of wish i’d made the high school section longer since i have so much to rant about in that field, but what’s done is done and i just want to post this thing.

whether you’re a cool kid, a weirdo, or happily resting somewhere in between, i hope you enjoyed this post and got something out of it. if you did, feel free to show it by giving this post a like and perhaps sharing it with someone else :).

as always, thank you so much for being here; i deeply appreciate all the support you’ve given me. wishing you all a wonderful day and i’ll see you in my next post!

much love <3

1. i said fairly normal… i know you’re thinking about the duct tape

2. though we all did just wear school uniforms lol

3. which were mostly people i’d been in class with for the majority of elementary school