In a recent YouGov survey, a third of people said they weren’t cool at school, with only ten percent claiming they actually were. However, cool people remain desirable and in demand. That social influence easily converts into money as people buy what they’re selling, hoping some coolness will rub off on them. The trick is that it rarely does. Cool cannot be bought, although it’s enthusiastically sold, and it can’t be claimed without losing its benefits. The more you try to be cool, the more uncool you become.

A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that cool people have six characteristics: they are extroverted, open, hedonistic, adventurous, autonomous and powerful. The research involved six thousand people across twelve countries who described someone they knew personally and considered really cool. Results were remarkably consistent across age, gender, education and location.

But can people actually become cooler? According to the researchers, people can increase how cool they seem to others to a certain extent, but it’s limited. People who are born introverts will probably struggle to seem consistently socially confident. Coolness has to live within you to really make it work.

Moreover, simply having those characteristics isn’t enough. What’s fundamental to being cool is expressing them in an appropriate way. The serious, emotionless cool of James Dean or Anna Wintour only works in competitive situations. Otherwise, being inexpressive makes you seem cold rather than cool.

The study’s findings don’t capture everything, however. Cultural historians argue that coolness is a combination of rebellion, personal style, extraordinary confidence and charisma. Above all, a person who’s cool does not care what others think about them.

Cool emerged in 1940s New York with jazz, pioneered by young Black artists as an act of resistance. Most twentieth-century cool icons were poor or working class. Selling out to the mainstream was looked down upon. That changed with 1960s advertising. Now commercial success doesn’t contradict cool; it confirms it. At this point, cool is connected with celebrity. The global influencer industry, worth twenty-four billion dollars in 2024, depends on it.

Yet young people today struggle to name someone they know personally who’s cool. They can’t imagine living a quiet life that anyone would consider cool. Experts remain skeptical that you can make yourself cooler. Coolness tends to come from obsessive artistic vision or family problems. Those are not things you can plan. Any attempt risks seeming fake or try-hard, which is worse than being actively uncool.