well hello and welcome to this English lesson about cool things now I do want to say at the beginning this isn't a lesson about how I'm cool don't actually consider myself cool but I do know that as a teacher sometimes I observe what's cool each year at school and and it changes over time.
It might be something related to fashion or things that students buy.
So even though I'm not cool, I do feel like I'm a little bit of an expert on things that are cool because I am a high school teacher.
So in this lesson, we'll look at about 25 different words We'll talk about the things that are cool and how to describe cool things.
So once again, welcome to this English lesson about cool things.
Bling. Bling is a word we use to refer to jewelry worn by men and women, and it's usually large and very visible jewelry.
I don't wear any bling. I don't have any earrings.
I don't wear a necklace. I wear a wedding ring and a watch.
This doesn't quite count as bling. So bling would be when a guy wears many chains and has a bracelet and a really fancy watch and some nice rings, a man or woman.
I tried when I was a teenager to wear a necklace, to wear a chain.
There's two words for it in English. And it just bothered me.
The same reason why I don't like wearing a necktie.
I didn't like having a chain around my neck, but that's just me.
Many people love wearing bling. They like rings and watches and bracelets and necklaces and earrings.
But that's just not for me. But yes, an informal term. for jewelry, sunglasses or shades.
I do wear sunglasses. I don't have mine with me right now, which seems kind of silly because this was why I made this lesson.
In a comment on a previous video someone said they really liked my cool sunglasses and I thought I should do a lesson on cool things.
Now I should mention My sunglasses are actually from the dollar store.
They cost me $3. And then I, usually lose my sunglasses.
So, I only buy dollar store sunglasses because then when I lose them or sit on them, I'm not as sad but shades would be kind of an informal slang term for sunglasses like, hey, nice shades or cool shades.
There are a few words that we use to talk about things that are cool or people who we think are cool.
We might say they're trendy. we might say their hip or we might just use the word cool.
We have a few phrases too like wearing beanies is all the rage right now.
That would be another term but certainly when you are with a whole bunch of people.
Some people dress in a trendy way. They're aware of the different fashions and what's in style.
So they are trendy. Some people are just hip.
They just dress. I don't dress like these people.
But these people are hip, in my opinion, especially the guy on the end with his bow tie.
He is very, very hip looking. So these words all have similar meanings.
And then when it's just fashion, when we're talking about fashion in particular, we use the term in style.
Um, a few years ago, pants with holes in them were in style.
And now I think large pants are in style.
I don't always know what's in style, but that is my understanding right now.
So apparently jeans like this are in style, at least in North America.
And then I mentioned ripped jeans. I do think these are still somewhat in style, but this might be what was cool in 2024.
And maybe this is what's cool in 2025. This is what's trendy or was trendy last year.
And maybe this is what's trendy this year again.
Bob, the Canadian is not the expert really to do a lesson on what is actually cool right now, but ripped jeans.
Um, I mean, this is the typical dad joke.
I have ripped jeans. I made them myself.
I just bought jeans and I wore them so long that they got holes in them.
I do have a leather jacket. I didn't buy my leather jacket.
It was a gift And I do sometimes wear a black leather jacket.
I don't think I've ever worn it in a video.
I should have worn it this morning with my sunglasses, right?
Um but uh maybe I will at some point but a leather jacket when I was a teenager it was considered very very cool.
Now you might say it's just stylish to wear a leather jacket.
There are people who... And some of you might feel this way that don't think leather jackets should be made or worn because they're made from the skin of animals.
But certainly, um, leather jackets remain somewhat popular in the world.
These are definitely popular. Running shoes, sneakers, trainers, tennis shoes, basketball shoes.
There are a lot of different names for these types of shoes.
These are Air Jordans by the way. Um and There are people who collect running shoes.
OK, I use the term running shoes. I'd be curious to know what other people use as a term. running shoes are something that are considered cool, especially among teenagers and university students.
It can be quite cool to have a certain pair of shoes that that you wear.
And then there's a term called the latest and I put three dots there because I
It can refer to anything. Sometimes people want the latest phone.
They want the latest computer. They want the latest watch or Fitbit or Apple Watch.
They want the latest thing. So when you use the word the latest, it refers to the newest and most recent kind of something.
Like he always has the latest Corvette. Like, I don't know if anyone buys a car every year.
Maybe that's a bad example, but certainly phone is a good example.
Every year he buys the latest phone. He always has the latest phone.
He always has the latest watch from a certain company.
And then AirPods. So these are basically wireless listening devices that go in your ear.
If it's not made by Apple, we call them earbuds.
But AirPods, in my opinion, are one of the things teenagers currently want to have because they like to listen to music but they also know that you're cool apparently I use air quotes because don't think buying something makes you cool but teenagers do certainly feel like if they have AirPods then their friends and classmates will think that they are cool.
Vlogging. Now, I'm not sure if this is cool anymore but when I started as a YouTube creator, were a lot of people vlogging.
Vlogging is when you take your camera and you record yourself by pointing the camera at yourself and you talk to the camera while you walk around town or run errands or build a birdhouse or something like that. think it's less popular now.
I think that it was very popular in 2017, 2018.
Um but it's uh you it's probably something that people found little hard to keep doing because you have to everyday go out.
Well, you don't have to do it daily but you have to make content all the time about what you're doing.
So, Vlogging, I would say, used to be super cool and now it's a little bit cool, but not completely.
Van life, this is certainly cool. I would say this is something that is very popular right now.
Van life is when you decide that instead of living in a house, you're going to fix up the inside of a van as a small apartment on wheels, and you are going to just live in your van.
I don't personally know anyone that lives in a van, but I do watch a few YouTubers like Foresty Forest, who is one of the van lifers out there in the world.
So van life would be something that's cool and trendy right now.
It has been for a couple of years. And it's not something that I'm going to do anytime soon.
Jed jokingly said once that if my channel started to do poorly, I could always buy a van and do English lessons while living van life. but I don't think that doesn't interest me at all.
But van life would be when you buy a van, you fix up the inside of the van and you live in the van.
So you don't have an apartment. You don't have a house.
You live in a van. Vintage records. So these remain cool and popular in the world.
Vintage records would be buying records instead of buying CDs. or instead of having Apple Music or Spotify or Google Music, you have a record player and you buy vinyl records.
And if you buy old vinyl records, we would call them vintage records.
Vintage refers to anything that is quite old like vintage cars, vintage records, all of that kind of stuff.
So, um, Definitely cool. I do have a friend who collects vintage records and he really, really enjoys going to garage sales to look for vintage records.
A beanie. I do not wear one of these. I have one but it's not a beanie.
I call it a toque or winter hat. A beanie is usually a bit thinner though.
A beanie isn't necessarily to keep your head warm. as much as it's a fashion accessory or a fashion statement. fashion accessory is something you wear like a lapel or a scarf or a tie.
Those are fashion accessories. And when you're making a fashion statement, basically saying I'm wearing this.
I'm cool because I'm wearing this. Beanies are of course small hats like this one.
Sometimes they're actually a little don't have to conform to your head.
They can be a little bit longer in the back but I have seen more and more people wearing beanies. the last 10 years than I ever have in my life.
Okay, this is the one that I think applies to all of you.
I think speaking multiple languages is cool.
One of the disadvantages that North Americans have this is true even in Canada is that most of us only speak one language.
Most Canadians and most Americans only speak one language.
And Even though in Canada we try to learn French and in the U.S. people try to learn Spanish or German or French as well in school.
We really aren't bilingual as North Americans.
I'm always jealous of my relatives from the Netherlands because they can speak Dutch and English.
And if they live close to Germany, a little bit of German.
I'm jealous of people who are fully bilingual. because they live in a place where that's an advantage.
In North America, we're not cool. Most people speak one language.
And that's it. So if you speak multiple languages, I think you're cool.
I think that is a very, very cool thing to be able to do. playing an instrument, there are some activities that are just cool.
I do not play an instrument. But when someone plays the guitar, when someone plays the piano, when someone plays the cello or the violin, I'm a little bit jealous because I think it's so cool.
Playing an instrument is cool. So once again, If you are someone who plays an instrument, I think you're cool.
If you speak more than one language, I think you're cool.
If you are someone who is good at playing an instrument, I think you are cool as well.
And that's... Those are useful things that make you cool like a beanie doesn't make you useful.
It might make you cool. But being able to speak more than one language, being able to play a musical instrument, that I think is cool and useful.
Doing a backflip. So this was always the goal of my children when they were on the trampoline.
Their goal was to learn how to do a backflip.
A backflip is when you jump, and then you rotate backwards.
So, you jump and then you flip back and you land on your feet again and if you're really cool, you can do it just standing on the ground.
But I think that's a lot harder. But doing a backflip is always considered cool at... the high school where I work and I think at every single high school, If there is a kid that can do a backflip, everyone thinks that is cool.
The teachers, the other students, everyone thinks doing a backflip is cool.
There was a time in my life where I thought having a motorcycle was cool and I did actually own a motorcycle for two years.
I had a Yamaha 400 Maxim red and I did feel cool when I drove it.
I'll admit it when I had a motorcycle. probably the only thing I've owned in life that made me feel a little bit cool.
This is not the motorcycle that I had. I had a much older and smaller motorcycle but sometimes when you see someone driving a motorcycle you might think oh person is very, very cool.
Sports car. So, sometimes men my age in particular are decide to buy a sports car because they're starting to not feel cool and they want to buy something that makes them feel cool. would probably not buy a car like this.
I've always said that if I had more money than I knew what to do with I would buy a brand new minivan.
But definitely, sometimes people will buy a sports car because the sports car is cool. but they also feel cool when they drive it similar to the motorcycle.
So sometimes people will buy, Something to make them feel cool, but the thing they buy is also cool.
I think this car is cool. I don't think everyone who drives one automatically gets to be cool as well.
And we talked a little bit earlier about the word vintage. vintage is used to refer to anything that is old and sometimes it would be something that is collectible.
Sometimes people like to buy vintage or video game consoles.
They like to buy vintage cars also called classic cars.
Maybe they have a whole bunch of vintage stamps like postage stamps that they found somewhere.
So anytime we talk about something that is really really old, And it usually has some value as well.
Like if you have old video game systems that still work, you have vintage video game systems. you could probably sell them for a lot of money.
Smart glasses, will these ever be cool? So a number of years ago, Google came out with a pair of smart glasses and they weren't cool enough.
Right now Ray Ban I think has a pair of smart glasses out that are a little bit more cool.
But will smart glasses ever ever really be cool?
I don't know. I think when they eventually look like a real pair of glasses which they almost do now.
They're very very close. I think you will see more people wearing them but certainly One of the first pairs had like a little screen that went in front of your eye.
Not sure it was cool. Water bottle. is one of the ones that I find interesting but every year it seems like there's a new cool kind of water bottle that you need to buy in order to feel cool or be cool.
I don't do this. At school, I take a mug and I fill it up from the tap but there are a lot of people who have a cool water bottle.
I think they have an bottle right now. It used to be VSCO.
Don't quote me on the names but it can be cool to have a water bottle.
Uh what I do know is that 15 years ago, no one had a water bottle.
I think maybe we were all dehydrated possibly. but it's certainly cool right now to have a water bottle if you're a teenager or a university student or even as an adult. bluetooth speaker so a bluetooth speaker is a small speaker by the way a water bottle keeps your water cold and allows you to carry water throughout the day and keep it cold so it is pretty cool.
A Bluetooth speaker lets you play music out loud.
So, here's what I have found interesting is that when I was a teenager, People bought radios that we called boom boxes and they played loud music.
But also people were starting to buy Sony Walkmans. and they were starting to listen with headphones.
And then for a long time, It was cool to use headphones and then now AirPods or earbuds.
But lately, it's become cool again. to have a Bluetooth speaker and play your music loudly for everyone to hear.
So I don't know if you have one. Jen has one. that she uses when she goes out to the field.
Um I would say when I'm at school as a teacher, I probably see ten Bluetooth speakers a day. where students just have it and maybe during their lunchtime they play some music.
So Bluetooth speaker, a speaker that is rechargeable, You can connect it to your phone via Bluetooth, so wirelessly, and you can play music.
Fidget spinner. This is no longer cool. This was cool like 12 years ago.
Some people still have them. It's something that you can spin.
It's all it does. It doesn't do anything else.
It just spins for a very long time. And we actually have a few. because during the fidget spinner craze, that's how we would describe when the time when everyone loved fidget spinners, we bought some for our children but I don't see them very much anymore.
Once in a while but they they were certainly very cool a long time ago.
A beanbag chair. This is not something I own, but I do wish we had one.
This was cool when I was in university and I think it probably still is cool. for university students.
A beanbag chair is a chair filled with actual beans possibly or styrofoam fake beans.
And it's a chair that's kind of moldable.
Like when you sit in it, you can, it will mold to your body if you wiggle around and they're very, very comfortable.
Jen had one. when we got married, when she was in university, she had one and then it eventually broke.
It was smaller than that one but it was it was certainly very very cool.
And then what else is cool? Anything made by Apple.
Now I'm not saying everything made by Apple is cool.
They do make some cool stuff though, but.
As I look around me at work, I notice that probably more than half, if not three quarters of the students When they buy a phone, they buy an Apple phone or an iPhone.
A lot of them have AirPods. A lot of them have, well, not a lot.
Some have Apple Watches. Um we don't see a lot of iPads at school.
Um a lot of them have MacBooks. Their computer will be a MacBook but certainly at this point in the world, Apple makes some pretty cool stuff.
I will give them that. They make some pretty reliable stuff and a lot of people think their products are cool.
A lot of you are probably watching this on an iPhone right now.
So anyways, thanks. Apple for making cool products.
And I'm sure the people who like them think they're very, very cool.
