"the urban sims in this game aren't going to be so worried about personal hygiene and other mundane things like their suburban counterparts are. instead, this game will be all about reputation--doing what it takes to fit in with and then being influential within various (nine, exactly) urban youth cultures, ranging from the celebrity to the slacker/skater. by doing the sorts of things that these cultures find agreeable, you'll be able to endear yourself to them and eventually become a leader among them."

"each of (the) areas (in the game) has its own theme, such as gangsta or punk, so it is up to the player to decide what it takes to “fit in”. fitting in with the other characters is essential to progress upwards in the urbz ranks. in order to gain popularity and recognition, players must act and dress a certain way. so speaking and interacting with other characters on the street is a great way to learn the lay of the land. this will provide crucial information, such as what to wear and the best ways to earn simoleans (aka money).

in past sim experiences, players were required to take care of their virtual buddy right down to the most minute detail. in the urbz, these tasks are still required, such as eating, sleeping, and general hygiene, but they take a back seat to the goal of being cool.

this time around, instead of focusing on moving up in a career, it is much more important to be cool in the eyes of the other characters. this is where talking to the right people and wearing the right clothes comes into play. earning a reputation on the streets will gain the players urbz access to trendy social gatherings and the potential to influence others."

ladies flock to your jock like it's golden
curious, to test the weight you be holdin
but you ain't got no time, to be chasin felines
if she's the chick that you pick then she gets chosen
people treat you like you're ghetto royalty
and all your staff shows you utmost loyalty
you paid your dues, refuse to lose in this scenario
the rep grows bigga, you're a legend and a hero
-gangstarr, the rep grows bigga-

"you want free speech? let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil who is standing center stage advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

lewis rothschild: ...people want leadership, mr president, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. they want leadership. they're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

president andrew shepherd: lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. people don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. they drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

"in our world, where there are more and more faces, more and more alike, it is difficult for an individual to reinforce the originality of the self and to become convinced of its inimitable uniqueness. there are two methods of cultivating the uniqueness of self: the method of addition and the method of subtraction.

agnes subtracts from her self everything that is exterior and borrowed, in order to come closer to her sheer essence (even with the risk that zero lurks at the bottom of the subtraction). laura's method is precisely the opposite: in order to maker her self ever more visible, perceivable, seizable, sizable, she keeps adding to it more and more attributes and she attempts to identify herself with them (with the risk that the essence of self may be buried by the additional attributes)."
-milan kundera, immortality

to days of inspiration
playing hookie, making something out of nothing
the need to express
to communicate,
to going against the grain,
going insane
going mad

to loving tension, no pension
to more than one dimension,
to starving for attention,
hating convention, hating pretension
not to mention of course,
hating dear old mom and dad

to riding your bike,
midday past the three-piece suits
to fruits to no absolutes
to absolute- to choice
to the village voice
to any passing fad
to being an us -for once-, instead of a them

to apathy, to entropy, to empathy, ecstasy
-rent, la vie boheme-

caltech's social cognitive neuroscience lab is doing a study on what it means to be cool. "unlike a mere written test, (this) experiment would use functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI, to measure my (the author's) subconscious response to 140 different products and celebrities, each of which had been assigned a coolness rating from 0 to 5.

depending on how successful my subconscious picks out the cool objects, i would be classified as one of three types: high cool (a "trendsetter"), high uncool(a "critic"), or low cool. ...high cools, i was told, had brains that lit up in response to cool objects. high uncools reacted strongly to uncool objects; they're the snobby tastemakers. the last group, the low cools, was the one i feared. low cools had scans that came out almost entirely blank. it didn't matter whether they were looking at a picture of michael jackson or mick jagger. they were, in effect, cool-blind."

the results from this test indicate that both high cools and high uncools "show activity in the motor cortex, which is normally engaged when the brain is thinking about reaching for something it wants. while that is expected in high cools, it is baffling in the high uncools. do they secretly like the uncool objects, or is it actually a sign of revulsion: a desire to hurl the offending objects far away? likewise, what is the meaning of the activity in the section of prefrontal cortex known as brodmann area 10 - one of several regions that have been tentatively linked to our sense of personal identity?

according to quartz (the researcher), high cool trendsetters, who define themselves by the coolness of their accessories, are more likely to picture themselves with the cool object and to imagine how others will react. but if this is right, why are high uncools defining themselves with respect to objects they dislike? quartz thinks it might be a sign of social anxiety: maybe the high uncools are worried about being seen with such lame objects. "or it might have something do with their sense of self," he muses."