8 Ways to be the coolest kid in town

I was the biggest loser in my junior high school. I had no friends. The nerds wouldn’t hang out with me because I wasn’t into video games or D&D, and the cool kids wouldn’t come near me. Of course, the same things that made me a teenage loser made me very cool silicon valley geek. Like all hard problems, this one has a simple solution.

Here are 8 ways to be the coolest kid in town. (Or, if you’re a teenager, to be a huge loser).

1. Make friends with everybody.
   I really want to be friends with everybody. Seriously. Even homeless people and republicans. If you walk down the street and everyone collecting cans in a stolen shopping cart says hello, you are cool. (If you try to be friends with everyone in junior high school you’ll get you ass kicked.)
   
   
2. Get some good clothes.
   This really isn’t as hard as it might seem. Here are 3 easy steps:
   A. Take out all your clothes and put them on your bed. Stuff half of them into a bigh trash bag. Take the bag outside and give it to a homeless person. Now you’ve eliminated 50% of your terrible wardrobe and made friends with a homeless person. 2 points!
   B. Take your whole paycheck to any clothing store. Find the most attractive salesperson, give them all you money, and buy exactly what they say.
   C. When dressing, match the texture of the fabrics instead of the colors. This will make you look mysterious but fashionable, since a really stylish person can look good wearing clothes that don’t match.
   
   
3. Have an obscure hobby.
   Pick something meaningless and dedicate yourself to it. Me, I choose to modify stuffed animals and sell them in art galleries. My brother Moses dresses like a clown and rides tiny bicycles. My friend August paints soviet space program imagery. Some things that don’t count as an obscure hobby: sports, video games, guitar, linux.
   
   
4. Take them there.
   I have a friend who people call I-T-Y-T, which stands for “I’ll Take You There.” Because he will take you there. When you sign up with ITYT for the night you can be sure you’ll end up doing something fun and outside your regular activity list. Which brings me to…
   
   
5. Have a great nickname.
   If you have an obvious strength or feature, make it your nickname. For example, I knew of a guy in Austin who would do small jobs very quickly, like picking someone up from the airport. His nickname: Speedy. (Also I think he might have been a speed dealer.) Either way, he was always speedy, so everyone remembered his name. Name recognition = cool.
   
   
6. Have a great logo.
   I know this sounds like a horrible hipster graffiti hip-hop thing, and it is. Pick a logo that matches you great nickname and put it everywhere. Everything I own now has a grapefruit sticker on it.
   
   
7. Go to every party.
   Your instincts might tell you to only go to good parties with other cool people. You are wrong. Go to every single party you are invited to. This helps with becoming eveyone’s friend, and you never know which party will be fun anyway, so just go to all of them. If it sucks, you can always say you need to go to another party. The host will feel honored that such a rock star party animal like you came to their party in the first place.
   
   
8. Talk about how much of a loser you were in junior high school.
   Nobody likes a bragger.