The axis of cool: MTV reality edition

For my first attempt at actually plotting something on the axis of cool, I turned to MTV's The Hills (of course!) as well as The Paper, which I haven't felt the need to blog about since its greatness is readily apparent. Anyway, let's see where the casts of these two wonderful shows fit on the axis of cool!

The Hills


For The Hills, we have Lauren, Lo, and Whitney in the harmless no-man's-land of quadrant II. None of them are interesting enough to be cool (although Lo comes the closest), but none of them fall into the annoying zone, either. (Please note that while I have argued that the characters on The Hills are compelling, I never called them cool.) Audrina, however, is so extremely bland that she is slightly annoying. Heidi and Spencer are off the coolness grid altogether. This is a very rare and extreme occurrence, not intended as graphic hyperbole. They have only managed to transcend the borders of the grid because at this point, they barely qualify as human beings.

The Paper


For The Paper, we have Amanda in quadrant IV. Contrary to what her classmates seem to believe, she has the greatest potential for coolness. Cassia is also very near the green area, but she is not quite unique or interesting enough to qualify as cool. Amanda and Cassia are both young, though, and have a solid shot at migrating towards the green area as they mature and hopefully become more chill/subdued or unique/interesting, respectively. Adam also seems to have some potential for coolness (he was voted homecoming king, after all), but at this point he is much too intense. The remainder of the cast - Alex, Trevor, Giana, and Dan - are all, unfortunately, in the annoying zone of quadrant III. Trevor is solidly a tool, as you can see from the graph, and Giana and Dan display a troubling amount of toolishness as well. Alex seems to have a good chance at moving outside of the annoying zone if only he would grow a backbone and stop doing whatever Trevor, Giana, and Dan tell him to do.

So that was the first attempt at judging people on the basis of the axis of cool! If you disagree with my assessments or would like to nominate people (public figures only, please) or things (brands, websites, cultural phenomena - the sky's the limit!) just let me know in the comments!