What is cool? It's a daunting question that's confounded philosophers, artists, advertisers, and parents since the dawn of time. Is it an aesthetic? Is it a mindset? Is it Lorde?
One Reddit user — likely a clueless single dad trying to relate to his wayward son — decided to mine the minds of Reddit's youth movement to find out what young people think is cool.
"Young people of reddit: What's currently cool?" Randomdudeovich inquired. Over 7,000 teenagers (and some adults) responded. Here are some of our favorites:
"People at my school saying "Bruh" to everything. And also people obsessed with Sperrys (a shoe)" — DarkperL
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"If college counts as young, then Yik Yak. Yik Yak is an anonymous message board for students. My campus Yaks so much that we overload their servers maybe three times a week." — Zatan130
"Being smart. It is no longer cool to be the dumb kid in class that is a shit disturber.
Being intelligent is super sexy as well in my opinion." — MSTF0
"Atheism is in vogue this school year. A lot of people are saying they're atheist just to spite their parents, a kid said he was Scientologist because he believes in science." — Noriguy
"The Schmoney dance. It's gotten to the point where people can't even say "about a week ago" without some jackass dropping his hat and bending side to side like a fish." — Colorfy
"Being uncool is the definition of cool nowadays, but not too uncool, or you would be seriously uncool. Other than that, Captain America t-shirts, and silly made up words like bae and selfie." — ICreeper10
"E-cigs. I graduated high school last year and at least a third of my school had them. None of them even smoked cigarettes or anything before, just started smoking E-cigs because they are fun" — CopenhagenNatty
"I'm 16 and the big thing now is acting like you care about issues, I remember when the sandy hook shooting happened this girl in my class walked in with a "stop the hail of bullets" shirt she made. I asked her what recent shooting have been around and all she had to repeat was "Columbians." And yes that's how she pronounced it." — LoneDemize
"Being happy. There are so many people with depression in school now that anyone who is genuinely happy stands out and is admired." — Thekidwiththelisp
We like that last one the best.