It is the goal of corporations to keep this separation between the desire of mass youth culture to possess "cool" and the reality that "cool" can't be owned through possession or commodity goods, an invisible gap. It is corporations' goal that consumers understand that by purchasing commodity goods, they are participating in the very system that can bestow to them a feeling of becoming what they want. Purchasing commodity goods that reflect a feeling of what they desire is the admission to being a part of it and becoming what they want. They are becoming the objects they are buying, they are becoming "cool". It is then the corporations' task to convince young people to believe that they are "cool" by buying their product. Consumption then acts like culture. It allows individuals to share a consciousness solely through acquiring by purchase. Consumption, however, is neither culture nor a community activity. It is an individualizing process masquerading as culture. As explored further on, Jean Baudrillard, in his piece, The System of Objects, discusses how individuals realize through consumption (15). This realization then means individuals perform, for the corporation, the desired result of acquiring to cooperate in consumer culture. Because our commodities so effectively act as social communicators, status symbols and indicators of taste, there is clear motivation to consume the specific goods that convey the most appropriate and desired details of who we are and what we like. It is a representation or a perspective of our social identity, transmitted through commodity goods. This communication is performed through the acquiring of new and different commodity goods whose engendered meaning we hope to share with the world through ownership and display. This, however, puts consumers in a position of constant want and need for new objects and apparel. Colin Campbell, in his article The Desire For the New, explores concepts of desire, various kinds of "new", and their relation to consumerism. Campbell describes the "Veblen-Simmel model of modern consumption" as a regulated and involved process of obtaining objects that communicate position, intuition and perception, as an inherent system of rapid obsolescence to maintain superiority, and as a hierarchy of style with elite classes constantly embracing the fresh and novel (50-1). Colin Campbell examines the "Veblen-Simmel" ""trickle down" nature of fashions" approach to trends, as originating with high art and an aristocratic division and then being imitated and adopted by lower classes (48). Campbell, however, also writes about the limitations of the "Veblin-Simmel" system, and about how trends do not exclusively originate with the elite, but also from so-called lower classes (51). Campbell quotes Paul Blumberg as indicating the appropriation of underground subculture to be emulated in couture, and in turn, mainstream mass fashion (51). This appropriation is seemingly relevant to youth culture and the co-optation performed by the corporation. By utilizing "cool hunting", the corporation is executing the same kind of exploitation of expression and trends of young people to sell to the mainstream that Campbell quotes Blumberg as illustrating. Campbell's article investigates Veblen's theory of "conspicuous consumption" to maintain competition through consumption of communicative commodity goods, and its design to keep participants in a pattern of procurement in order to maintain participation itself (Campbell 49). Pierre Bourdieu, in the introduction of his Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, writes about "cultural competency" and having the appropriate knowledge to be able to understand a cultural object or practice (2). Again these authors' position is consistent with the appropriation of youth culture. By employing "cool hunting", corporations are able to commandeer familiar and informed signs of "cool" from underground youth-culture to sell back to mainstream youth in order to maintain cooperation of consumption. Part of the institution of consumption, as Campbell illustrates, is the relatively quick onset of age, worthlessness and abandonment of commodity goods (50). Campbell informs us of the ongoing desire and experience of want that disappears when possession occurs. This cycle of longing is practical for the selling of commodity goods; however, it places the consumer in a position of constantly searching for satisfaction through consumption. This structure of rapid, abrupt and swift obsolescence is not unfamiliar to a structure of "cool". Both have a period of desire and emulation, and both change invariably. I would endeavor to say that the ideology of "cool" so suitably works with, and for, consumerism for these very reasons.

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