Who’s undeniably cool? Charli xcx, certainly. David Bowie, of course. I’m not cool and never have been. As a teenager, I was a swot at a sports-focused school. As an adult, I’m always wearing a backpack, garrulous, risk-averse, and convinced no drug beats eight hours’ sleep.

I’m not alone. In a recent YouGov survey, a third of respondents said they weren’t cool at school, with only 10% claiming they actually were.

But cool people are desirable and in demand. That social clout readily converts into capital as people buy what they’re selling, hoping it will rub off. The trick is that it rarely does. Cool cannot be bought, though it’s enthusiastically sold, and it can’t be claimed without surrendering its benefits. What the research demonstrates is that the more you aspire to be cool, the more uncool you become.

A recent paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that cool people possess six attributes: they are extroverted, open, hedonistic, adventurous, autonomous and powerful. I score 3/6. But could I become cooler?

“People can increase how cool they seem to others to a certain extent,” says Todd Pezzuti, the study’s lead author and a business professor in Chile. “But I also think it’s limited.” Born introverts will probably struggle to seem consistently socially confident. “Coolness has to live within you to really make it work.”

Pezzuti’s interest lies in coolness as economic production. Just as tribal societies prize skilled hunters, today’s information economy turns on creativity and innovation. Cool expresses the status bestowed upon individuals who push boundaries and generate new ideas. The global influencer industry, worth $24 billion in 2024, turns on it. Had economists ignored this phenomenon, they would have missed a crucial driver of contemporary consumer behavior.

For the study, 6,000 people across 12 countries described someone they knew personally and considered “really cool.” Results were remarkably consistent across age, gender, education and location.

But simply possessing those traits isn’t enough. “Fundamental to being cool is expressing them in an appropriate way,” Pezzuti says. The stony-faced cool of James Dean or Anna Wintour only works in competitive contexts. Otherwise, being inexpressive makes you seem cold.

Joel Dinerstein, author of The Origins of Cool in Postwar America, agrees with Pezzuti’s findings but says they don’t capture everything. “It’s a combination of rebellion, personal style, otherworldly confidence and charisma.” Above all, “a person who’s cool does not give a damn about what you think about them.”

Cool emerged in 1940s New York with jazz, pioneered by young Black artists as an act of resistance. Most 20th-century cool icons were poor or working class. “Selling out” to the mainstream was disparaged.

That changed with 1960s advertising. Now commercial success doesn’t contradict cool; it confirms it. “At this point, cool is correlated with celebrity,” Dinerstein says. His students often namecheck Timothée Chalamet, whose sex appeal trumps his privilege.

Yet students struggle to name someone they know personally who’s cool. “It’s depressing – they can’t imagine living a quiet life that anyone would consider cool.”

Dinerstein is skeptical you can make yourself cooler. Coolness tends to spring from obsessive artistic vision or family dysfunction. “Those are not things you can plan.” Any attempt risks seeming fake or try-hard – worse than being actively uncool. Much as one might study the attributes and practice the behaviors, authenticity remains elusive without genuine transformation.

Still, when I ask if I’m cool, Dinerstein’s verdict is thrilling: “My guess would be: you could be.”