| Maybe the Pied Piper is a metaphor for technology.
I wonder when it was written.
|
| |
| Coolness by Proximity. It's a time honored tradition.
Today's example comes to us from a co-worker of mine who has a motorcycle and rides it to work on nice days. Today was almost a nice enough day to ride a motorcycle, and this co-worker was asked by a few people if he rode his bike or not. He found it amusing that everybody wanted to know so badly! I figured they wanted to know because of Coolness by Proximity.
Here's how it works. A person who is does not feel that they are cool in and of themselves will seek to associate themselves with coolness in any form that they feel will be appealing to either others in general or a specific set of people to whom they desire to be seen as cool. In this way, the coolness of the one person rubs off on the other person.
In our case, the co-worker with the bike is seen as cool by a person who does not see themselves as cool. The Uncool person wants to know if the cool bike rider rode his bike so that he can then talk to his "target audience (those to whom he wants to appear cool)" about Bike Guy and his Bike - thus completing the transfer of Coolness by Proximity.
I think that Coolness by Proximity is largely responsible for a measurable amount of the hype surrounding professional sports of all kinds, machines that are either loud, powerful, fast, or any combination of those attributes, television shows, magazines, and middle schools across the nation.
|
| |
| I reserve a bitter hatred for the AIM advertisements that play music I don't like if I accidentally scroll over them.
|
| |
