The Gray Area with Sean Illing

The death of cool

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Vox culture contributor Anne Helen Petersen talks with writer Safy-Hallan Farah about the concept of 'cool.' They discuss different generations' approaches to determining what's cool, how the concept of 'cool' gets tangled up with class, capital, and consumption, and the ineffable process of cultivating taste in a digital world, where nothing's obscure and everything's available.

Host: Anne Helen Petersen (@annehelen), culture contributor, Vox

Guest: Safy-Hallan Farah (@SafyHallanFarah), writer and artist

References: 

  • “The great American cool” by Safy-Hallan Farah (Vox; July 14)
  • Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu (tr. Richard Nice. Harvard; 1987)
  • Let’s Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste by Carl Wilson (Bloomsbury; 2014)
  • “What Gen Z’ers Really Think of Millennials” by Diyora Shadijanova (VICE; June 18, 2020)
  • @on_a_downward_spiral (Instagram)
  • The Sum of Small Things: A Theory of the Aspirational Class by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett (Princeton; 2018)
  • "Xanga, we hardly knew ye: Ode to the angstiest social network ever" by Kate Knibbs (Digital Trends; June 4, 2013)


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    This episode was made by: 

    • Producer: Erikk Geannikis
    • Editor: Amy Drozdowska
    • VP, Vox Audio: Liz Kelly Nelson

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