As the father of a 12-year-old son, I am constantly being monitored for Dad-Cool Violations. Sigh. I play guitar, turned him on to Alan Moore, Ronnie James Dio and the testosterone glory that is Predator, and I am still getting regularly assessed for cool-worthiness. What can ya do?
As a result, I have rebelled. I now take pains to describe something I like as "bitchin’ " - as in: “wow, that’s a bitchin’ car” or “you got to the next level of that video game? Bitchin’!”
My main experiences with fake cool were basically the obvious cops who used to try to buy weed from me. They’d come up to me at the mall or wherever with their cop moustaches and short hair, trying to make themselves look like potheads by wearing bandanas (with cop haircuts), maybe a tie dye shirt or something, trying to give me a hippie handshake and talking like Tommy Chong, “Hey, man, can you help me out, man? I’m looking to score some grass man.”
“Sorry officer, I know nothing about any illegal drugs.”
They were hilariously bad sometimes. Just really overdoing it. Even if they got the lingo accurately, they were still use too much of it and try too hard.
I’ve seen the “cool” youth pastor types too. The ones with the tattoos and the skateboards who say stuff like, “Jesus was a fucking badass, man.” Like profanity gives them more credibility.
When I have kids I’m going to do that all the time. My goal is to be as fake cool as possible to make his head explode. I am going to purposely use their slang in the wrong context.
I don’t have kids, but I do it in class in order to amuse and appall my students. Seems to work pretty well - even if they’re laughing AT me instead of with me, at least they’re paying attention (mostly).
My boss from a few years back. He was a major douchebag anyway, but on several occasions my department had to solicit feedback from kids for some projects we were working on.
Anyway, in speaking with the kids he started asking them to give him the “lowdown” on what was “happening,” throwing in a lot of “likes” and “you knows” (the guy was typically a grammar nazi).
It was pretty sad, like watching Lumberg from Office Space trying to be cool.
There was actually a thread about this awhile back. As I recall, the consensus was that in Italian, it’s pronounced in such a way as to sound very much like a “d.”
Also as others have mentioned his real name is Ferry. He says he changed it to honor his heritage, but I’m guessing another factor was that he didn’t want to be known as “that Ferry guy.”
When my high school baseball coach was interacting with African Americans, he completely changed the way he spoke. I’m sure he thought he was relating to them, I mean he wasn’t being sarcastic about it. But it came off so awkward. He would say stuff like “amen, brother” and “I can dig it.” He was like 65 years old and a science teacher and never, ever spoke that way in any other context. It was borderline offensive, but I know he was just trying to be cool.
Part of the “Cops” drinking game is to drink every time a cup has a high and tight hair cut or a moustache. This reminds me of a drug sting episode in which the code phrase was “It’s party time.” Come on! The very moment the words “It’s party time” escaped from the cop’s lips, the perp became (duly) unnerved and wanted to undo the deal. Unfortunately for him, it was too late by then.
Rolling your ‘r’ into sounding like a ‘d’ makes you sound even more fake Italian than just not rolling the ‘r.’
Part of my master plan is to start using slang words and phrases five years out of date, and add, “That’s what you kids say, isn’t it?” to the end of it.
You and RandMcN seem to think that you’re going to have to make an effort to do this. Based on my parentlng experience, I’m telling you, being uncool is as easy as falling off a log and as unavoidable as the sixteenth Shrek sequel.
Oh yes, very much so. When I want to bug my daughter and niece, I like to say stuff like “OMG that is so cool!” or “IDK” to mean “I don’t know.” It really bothers them and they tell me to knock it off. Hours of fun, I tell you!
I’m not the OP, but in my experience a lock-in is a High School thing where there is an overnight event at the school. They “lock” the doors to keep kids from leaving.
Sounds like prison. But then doesn’t high school have overtones of prison anyways?
And if they have to lock the doors to make people stay and listen to their meessage, they aren’t delivering their message very well. One thing my former co-worker Scansion Girl* taught me was: when presenting a message, you start where the audience is.
EXACTLY the response that popped into my head! Cookie Monster is the shit! Or at least he was until he learned to speak proper English and switched to vegetables. Now he’s a douche.
Cookie Monster is still Cookie Monster. He did not switch to vegetables. He still talks like Cookie Monster. And he is still cool… like bow ties and fezzes.
