The Need to Be Cool

Here is a quote I read the other day in Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. This is an issue I've considered before, especially in light of my tendency to be an obsessive fangirl. :-)

"I was wondering the other day, why it is that we turn pop figures into idols? I have a theory, of course. I think we have this need to be cool, that there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren't. And it is very very important that we are cool. So, when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem I have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes whom we are associating ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believed, what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool." p105

Feel free to discuss in comments!