The Basics

The Academy of cool is an organization with a membership of about two thousand and with an average number of five hundred trial members at any given time. The Academy is made up of music journalists, music executives, writers, musicians, artists, intellectuals and hipsters. The main purpose of the Academy is continually decided what is in the “canon of cool.” They decide what new musical groups; books and films will be pushed, promoted and sold as being “hip” to hipsters. Later, if a product is deemed hip enough, it will become a part of “canon.” While the normal time for product to be promoted and later to be canonized is about five years, some products are deemed worthy of instant canonization. At this time the product will become a part of the language of the hip. While the Academy is not a university (though it does control several universities), its basic structure is one of a university. The power structure goes from President/board of trustees, dean of colleges (there are several) admissions department, professors, PhDs, Masters, graduate students graduates, students and finally to trial members or as they are more commonly known, freshman. The term of a “trial membership” in the academy is a year, during which time the freshman could be expelled for any number of reasons (ranging from serious sins against the oath of the cool to reasons of absurdity). But if the subject survives, he becomes a lifelong member. While you could be expelled for a trial membership quite easily, it is virtually impossible for someone already in the academy of cool to be ousted (barring of course extreme circumstances). A much more common punishment would be censure.