It's a phenomenon highlighted by the UK's annual top 20 " Cool Brands" list released today.

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The University of California at San Diego (UCSD) earned the number three spot this year, climbing up from number 15 on the Cool Schools 2010 list.

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Journe and Panerai on this list of cool watches from the show.

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Waris Ahluwalia is acquiring quite a long list of cool-kid credentials.

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And it is only five years since Yahoo started out as an eccentric list of cool sites online, compiled by Stanford classmates Jerry Yang and David Filo.

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Though most of the cars on this list are probably cool enough to transcend that little rule of thumb.

FORBES: Seven Vintage Cars Guaranteed To Make You Cool

I'm not recommending that, but this is how to get their attention because you don't have to be classy and cool trying to get off the wait list.

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In the interest of keeping cool this summer, we've put together a list of the hottest products out right now.

ENGADGET: 's summer gear guide 2012: e-readers

The great thing about a crowdsourced list is that it combines all of these disparate definitions into a gestalt whole because uber-cool companies deliver on multiple proxies of coolness.

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Since discovering cool venues on your own is part of the fun of using Foursquare, we won't give you a list of everywhere you can earn the CNN badges.

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