Kate Solomon

Somewhere out there, there is a list. A list that has been created by an ‘Expert Council’*, taking into account the opinions of over 2,400 members of the British public. A list so extensively researched that it makes your university dissertation look like the scrawl on the back of a napkin. This list will change the fate of humanity. This list has implications further reaching than any you could imagine.

It is <dum dum duuuuuuuuum> THE COOL LIST.

/anticlimax.

So, what’s cool this year then? The iPhone has taken the top spot, followed by Aston Martin, Apple, iPod, Nintendo, YouTube, Blackberry, Google, Bang & Olufsen and Playstation.

But does the fact that a handful of celebs, media-types and common people think that iPhones, Aston Martins, Nintendo and YouTube are ‘cool’ make them any better? If you make a call on your Apple iPhone from your Aston Martin to talk about Nintendo then watch the whole shebang back later on YouTube**, does that make you the coolest person alive?

No. It doesn’t. It doesn’t make you anything, other than fairly wealthy or possibly a criminal if that isn’t your Aston.

I have an iPhone, did you know that? I might not have mentioned it before; I like to keep it on the DL. I’m quite fond of my little iPhone. I like having Twitter with me everywhere I go, and the general shinyness pleases me. I enjoy pawing at the screen, swiping my way from page to page even when the app I want is right there on the home screen. So yeah, I think it’s pretty cool.

But hearing that the ‘Expert Council’ and over 2,400 Brits agree, and that the iPhone is the ‘Coolest Brand’ turns me right off. By ‘winning’ this ‘accolade’, my iPhone has actually lost ‘coolness’. I think slightly less of it now. I don’t think that’s quite the effect they were going for, to be honest.

It’s pretty clear from the number of quote marks in this post that I think the whole exercise is utterly ridiculous. And that’s without even mentioning the fact that this repeated use of the word ‘Cool’ makes it all sound like a Dad trying to impress his teenage daughter’s friends.

*One of these ‘experts’ is Edith Bowman. So… that pretty much sets the bar to low.

**Also, in what universe is YouTube cooler than Vimeo?