The Origin of Cool Black

Back in college, I was developing a pilot for a television show for the campus TV station. (I was a film/television major.) The tentative name for the show was COOL BLACK Entertainment or Television or something like that. The main thing I wanted to make it was cool and black!

Around that time I was looking for a General Hospital fan site, when I found a site called General Hospital Happenings, GHH for short. See a guy watching a soap opera ain't exactly something you tell your boys. (By the way: My Grandma got me hooked on the show around 1985 and I have been a fan ever since.)

When I found the site I was a message board/group virgin. Never even participated in an online chat. I only used the internet for research and shopping. To join a group like this you have to pick a nickname. This was around the same time I was developing the tv show and the name I chose...you should know the rest.

About a month after "making my voice heard", the site manager asked me to e-mail her. (Being a newbie I didn't feel comfortable with having these new people know my e-mail address.) Below is an excerpt from her e-mail reply.

Subj:*Re: Cool Black says Hi!*
Date:*9/6/2000 9:15:07 AM Eastern
Daylight
Time*
From: C*****8@email.msn.com
To: "Cool"

Hi...

The reason I asked you to e-mail me is to find out if you would be interested in writing a column for GHH on occasion. Since you are back in school, I could understand you can not do a weekly one, but how about a monthly one (or twice a month)? You offer a unique perspective as a male, (never mind a black male!), and your writing is eloquent, humorous and to the point. I see how our members respond to your posts on our board and I am sure that would be supportive of you.

Think about it and let me know. (Obviously I cannot pay you, but this is something you could add to your resume!)

cyberhugs,

Shirley

Suffice it to say I accepted her offer and started writing the column I dubbed Cool Black's Mad Rant.

Cool Black Mad Rant - main title

Some of the columns were still on the site and to date I have over 32,500 readers.*

Eventually I started my own sites devoted to media. I started Cool Black's Media Madness devoted to African Americans in the media and Mediaphiles a similar site this time devoted to ALL media.

So after writing for almost a decade on the Internet under the pseudonym Cool Black it is what I’m known as on many sites not just my own.

There you have it. The origin of “Cool Black”. Always Cool, always Black.


*UPDATE-July 2009: MSN Groups was a website part of the MSN network which hosted online communities, and which contained Web pages, hosted images, and contained a message board. MSN Groups was shut down on February 21, 2009 as part of a migration of online applications and services to the Windows Live brand.

Cool Black's Media Madness and Mediaphiles were also hosted on MSN Groups, but I have migrated some info to this the Cool Black Media blog.

Last count on the Cool Black's Mad Rant page was 33,323 visits and 35,672 page views.

By the way I haven't watched General Hospital for about a year or so, but you know soap operas, it's always easy to jump back in.