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Stay cool, America
The U.S. is still the coolest kid on the block. So says a survey of 30,000 people all round the world by badoo.com. We knew this all the time, of course, but the word that we're still cooler than Brazil and Spain pushes the Marketplace Index up two points today.
OK, we know this is a little frivolous. This is America! We don't care what the rest of the world thinks of us! (And that's what makes us really cool, right?)
Except that we do. We care a lot, and we should care. Because, as anyone who's ever watched people drooling over an iPod, a pair of Levis or even a picture of Tom Cruise knows, cool sells. And if cool sells, it means America is still up and punching its weight in the world.
If cool sells, it means there's still a market for our stuff. Our technology, our fashion, our movies, our food. And where there's a market, there's the opportunity for growth, for sales, for more jobs, and more innovation and even more cool.
Cool may sound like froth. It may even be froth, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. When the rest of the world says they think you're the coolest, you've got a choice. You can wave them off as irrelevant.
Or you can step up. And own it.
Here's the full list:
The Top 10 Coolest Nationalities:
- Americans
- Brazilians
- Spanish
- Italians
- French
- British
- Dutch
- Mexicans
- Argentinians
- Russians
The 5 Least Cool:
- Belgians
- Poles
- Turks
- Canadians
- Germans
Too bad the ideals that others find "cool" about America are just that..ideals we really don't get. We have the largest percentage of our citizens imprisoned. We "Pledge allegiance to the flag of a REPUBLIC", yet believe we have a true democracy. America is still the coolest kid on the block...but unless we start moving more towards the ideals we profess, I fear we will not keep that title much longer.
Actually, Andres, that's not true! The US is still the second largest manufacturing nation in the world, so we do make lots of stuff that people think is cool. But you're right that people think that it's the ideals behind the founding of America that people think are cool, freedom in particular. But I'd argue that American "things" are like envoys for American values. Coke or Levis and Apple are like material manifestations of independence, ruggedness and innovation in the eyes of many people, and it doesn't matter much where they're made - they're still American.
In fact it was written by a European, who has traveled widely! The point is not that consumerism is cool, it's that the things that America make are cool. And why wouldn't you be proud of that and want to make the most of it? The Scots are proud of their whisky; the French are proud of their cheese; the Japanese are proud of their electronics. And they milk the popularity of those products for all they're worth. Why wouldn't you want to do the same with American movies, jeans or peanut butter?
