Sunglasses

Everybody knows about sunglasses. Those dark colored things you stick over your eyes when it gets bright outside. Yeah, you’ve heard of them. But what’s more amazing than your knowledge of their existence is their distinctly different usages. Of course, we’re all familiar with the more practical purpose, i.e., to protect the eyes from the sun, (hence the name sunglasses). But there’s something else that has popped up, one day, by some long-forgotten individual. Sunglasses are no longer out there just to protect your eyes from the sunlight that wishes to blind you. Somewhere down the line, some genius realized that wearing sunglasses suddenly made you cooler.

It’s a well-kept secret as to who realized the coolness of sunglasses, but it’s everywhere now. From movies such as The Matrix and Men in Black, it’s a verifiable fact that once you put sunglasses on, you become at least 200% cooler. Somewhere down the line, there’s probably some sort of logical reason for the coolness of sunglasses, but being that it would be so much trouble to discover that answer, and the fact that it would probably be boring anyway, I will provide some likely ideas.

Ironically, the closest thing to sunglasses is glasses. Not all that long ago, wearing glasses was the epitome of nerdyness. You didn’t wear glasses unless you absolutely had to, and hated every minute of it (outside of the fact that you could now see things five feet away.) Sunglasses were the alternative. You didn’t wear sunglasses because you had to, but because you chose to wear them. Back in the day when sunglasses were clunky and ugly just like normal glasses, someone had to have rubbed in the fact that “you’re wearing those glasses because you have to, but I’m wearing these sunglasses cause I feel like it.”

Mysteriousness is cool. I think it has something to do with curiosity. You always want to figure out what’s around the other bend, what the building that says “DO NOT ENTER is for,” what’s inside that dirty van with “FREE CANDY” spray painted on the side, etc. Someone in a dark suit is kind of mysterious. But someone in a dark suit and wearing sunglasses, now that’s mysterious AND cool. The Matrix taught us that much. If you don’t know about something, than there’s always that potential that it could be awesome and interesting.

Maybe, just maybe, they’re also cool just because they are. That might not seem like much of a reason, but coolness is a factor in itself. Some things are just whatever they are because they simply are. Irregardless, they are cool. Someone in the world probably knows the reason why, but until they speak up, there’s a couple of ideas.

So, go find your sunglasses, hope it gets sunny outside, and stroll out reassured in your self-instilled coolness.