Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You Read Online Free PDF Page B

that made its way into the
New York Times
, and its blockbuster conclusion: Fracking is safe. It will not cause water contamination, which means Rosario will have to come up with some new claim—perhaps that fracking kills bullied, troubled teens by denying them the scenic awe of a local windmill?
    Boring alert—here’s a quote from the report, via the
Times
:
    By implementing the proposed mitigation measures the Department expects that human chemical exposures during normal HVHF [fracking] operations will be prevented or reduced below levels of significant health concern.
    Man, is that boring. And when facts are boring, they’re also uncool. Because you can’t use mundane information to create a movement of angry people. You really can’t get passionate over something so plain, so straightforward, and so damn factual. Matt Damon can’t make a movie out of that. Well, unless he changes the actual facts. (And Saudi oil sheikhs wanted to fund it.) But Hollywood would never do that, would they? I trust Oliver Stone to keep it real.
    Fact is, the only industries deemed cool these days are ones that generate disposable pop culture, whether it be music, films, designer jeans, indigenous peoples’ jewelry, deejay booths for infants. Anything that actually helps you get to work on time cannot be championed without instantly becoming uncool. Perhaps this is because so many of these anti-fracking activists never have to go to work on time. Or go to work, period.
    But there is an upside to our country’s down market. When people need to watch their money, cool dies and the uncool comes to save the day, which is why I’m optimistic about fracking, and my home business, etching nudes of Lou Dobbs.
    You know what I watch on TV?
Shark Tank
. You know why? Because it pits entrepreneurs against wealthy “sharks” in an effort to persuade the sharks to invest in the entrepreneurs’ start-up projects. I enjoy it because products that are cool are shot down quickly, while other, boring ideas get cash behind them. Nobody invests
real
money in a loser project just because it’s cool. In a recent episode, one of the sharks, Daymond John, told someone trying to sell him sunglasses made of wood that “all the cool brands are broke.” The entrepreneur asking for money expressed reticence over entering general retail, of having his fledgling product end up in such horrible places like … God forbid, Costco. Yeah,Costco—the modern capitalist equivalent of the pyramids, without the slave labor.
    “Cool and profit are two different things,” explained John. And it’s something every young kid needs to hear. There’s nothing wrong with making a profit by creating something that people actually need, even if it’s as unglamorous as motor oil. Shit, if I were in my twenties, I’d head to North Dakota, frack the crap out of the place, and save my money for a neon robot dinosaur (it’s been a dream of mine).
    But once you start thinking about “cool,” and letting it poison the well, you fail.
    The guy making the glasses, as he pleaded for investment, said he would rather be in a boutique than a place where America actually shops. John responded, “Most people would say, ‘I don’t want to ever be in Walmart.’ I’m dying to be in Walmart.” And he rejected the guy. In my book, John was cool before he said that. He just became cooler.
    There is nothing uncool about making something and selling it in places where people actually shop. We all can’t be artists brunching in Soho, buying all of our goods at inflated prices from a chap named Sven in thigh-high leather boots, sporting a breast on his head. A truly cool person knows how superficial and fleeting cool really is. He finds something better to do with his time and his money. The great thing about America is that that person is usually rewarded for his hard work, which allows him to hire all of these other, miserable cool people to sell his merchandise. It might be the