Here’s a paradox to start your day: awkward is the new cool.

We’ve progressed from humble bragging about our accomplishments to tweeting about Netflix binges with our imaginary boyfriends. BuzzFeed constantly churns out new lists to aid the awkward, complete with GIFS of Tina Fey and Jennifer Lawrence being themselves. Television glamorizes the socially incompetent and charmingly unsuccessful millennial, in popular shows like “New Girl” and “Awkward”. Even Disney has changed their tune, their princesses are no longer poised and elegant but clumsy and adorably quirky, as shown by recent hits “Tangled” and “Frozen.”

The strangest thing about this phenomenon is that most of these self-proclaimed sorry-I’m-awkward young adults are actually smart, hard working and far from socially unskilled. So why do they try so hard to project a different image?

Trends don’t “blow up.” They slowly make their way into our everyday lives. As Meryl Streep icily explained to a bewildered Anne Hathaway in “The Devil Wears Prada,” her lumpy blue sweater was actually cerulean, and it appeared in the collections of every major fashion designer before trickling down to some “tragic casual corner where [she] no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin.”

Basically, the awkward culture started in the dark corners of the Internet and has since infiltrated mainstream society.

Just as iconic fashion designers created the looks that inspired trends, 4chan.org — the forum and image-board founded in 2003 — gave us the memes we know and overshare today. Before they took over social media, memes were the Internet’s well-kept secret. The original Internet humor was based on bad grammar, poor social skills and inappropriate topics like we saw on sites Socially Awkward Penguin, and Pedobear. The number of memes increased, eventually making their way to Tumblr, and finally, Facebook.

At one point we had “Gossip Girl,” and we all wanted to dress well and be fabulous like Blair Waldorf, but it’s a lot easier to identify with someone who doesn’t actually have it all because most of us don’t. Meanwhile, in “30 Rock,” Tina Fey showed us that being awkward and loving food more than partying was the new awesome, because look, it’s on TV!

We slowly adapted to the ironic poor grammar we saw on the Internet, we finally realized that people insulted us when we tried to seem cool on Facebook and we watched as BuzzFeed elected Jennifer Lawrence as supreme leader of the world, because she spills mints at press conferences and trips on the Oscar stairs while still being famous and pretty. The presence of offbeat humor permeated into our psyches and we responded by one day deciding we loved irony, creepy cats and texting in caps lock.

When things become too popular, they instantly lose their “cool factor,” like crackle nail polish or having feathers in your hair. Maybe someday being uncool will no longer be cool and we’ll go back to trying to out-cool everyone else. Maybe the word cool will finally stop being a thing. But for now, awkward is the new cool.

Kate Beckman is a freshman magazine journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at kebeckma@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @Kate_Beckman.

Published on January 14, 2014 at 1:41 am