Why I’m dropping “basic bitch” from my vocabulary
Bros as a construct of behavior vs. basic bitches as a construct of taste
“Nrmls” (ner-muls) is a term my friends and I have been mindlessly throwing around for ages. During one heated conversation last summer, I recounted a party to someone, telling him I didn’t have fun because there were too many “nrmls.” He told me he didn’t think it was nice to call people “nrmls.” At the time, I defended the term, but struggled to explain what I meant when I said it.
Upon further reflection, I realize that “nrmls” isn’t the word I should have chosen to describe why the people at the party annoyed me. I was bothered by the partygoers’ behavior (the people I interacted with were extremely entitled and sort of sexist), and “nrmls” implies that I was bothered by their tastes.
What I called “nrml” has come to be referenced in the universe’s cultural lexicon as “basic,” most frequently seen in close proximity to “bitches.” “Bros” are the closest masculine equivalent I can think of to “basic bitches,” but there’s an important distinction here, which is that in general, “bros” are defined by their behavior. Much like “hipster,” “bro” has become a pretty vast term, encompassing everything from “EDM bros” to “tech bros” to “stoner bros” and even “hipster bros.” “Bros” are allowed a pretty wide swath of identities with which to align themselves.
The term “bro” can be dismissive and demeaning, too, and therefore, I try to reserve it for when it’s deserved. When a dude acts like he’s entitled to touch your butt because he just negged you and he has huge biceps, that’s a “bro.” When a large group of dudes strives to “rage” as hard as possible without consideration for anyone else’s good time, those are “bros.”
However, I can’t bring myself to dismiss a dude altogether just because he wears tank tops, bench presses a gajillion pounds, or sometimes listens to Avicii. I’ve met lots of “bros” with plenty of philosophical and/or emotional depth who, once engaged in one-on-one conversation, were totally insightful people and happened to be into hobbies not typical of your average “bro,” like analyzing Latin American films, dancing in a burlesque troupe (how’s that for heteromasculine?), or parsing regex for fun.
Basic bitches are rarely permitted the luxury of a more complex identity, because once you’re identified as a basic bitch, it’s not worth learning anything else. Being a “basic bitch” has nothing to do with how considerate you are of other people’s feelings. Being a basic bitch is completely unrelated to whether you have mean intentions or whether you’re a bad person.
Sure, the most basic of basic bitches is probably a little bit boring, and creating a caricature of a person, male or female, who is average to the point of hyperbole is a funny exercise. But as use of “basic bitches” has proliferated further and become more widely applied, I’ve become less and less comfortable with it.
“Basic bitch,” at its core, is a term built almost entirely on distinguishing ourselves via hierarchies of cultural capital. A woman who only heard a hip musician’s radio single before coming to the concert? Must be a basic bitch. That chick gets excited about pumpkin spice lattes? Ugh, that’s so basic. Your friend bought her dress at Forever 21? Basic. Bitch.
In any of these examples, we’re dismissing someone as a person based on her depth of cultural knowledge. Maybe concert girl just hasn’t had time to delve deeper into the artist’s work, or only discovered them a couple days before the show. We’re asking pumpkin spice latte girl to invest time (and money) learning about more “edgy,” “authentic” coffee (or worse, to have grown up in an atmosphere where she’d have been taught about them, an aspect of her life entirely outside of her control). If Forever 21 girl wanted to spend a bit less on her wardrobe and feels good about what she’s wearing, why do we care that she’s not wearing a brand with more cache? We’re asking other people to be as invested as we are in our tastes.
In Carl Wilson’s Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, he makes an argument I’ve heard many times now, and one that I generally agree with: “Middlebrow is the new lowbrow—mainstream taste the only taste for which you still have to say you’re sorry.” He argues that the reason Celine Dion is so universally hated is her sentimentality, and that today, subversion is what validates cultural objects:
“Subversion” today is sentimentality’s inverse: It is nearly always a term of approval. To show the subversiveness of a song, TV show or movie is tantamount to validating it, not just in pop criticism but in academic scholarship.
What’s less subversive than a basic bitch, whose identity is formed around all that is average and middlebrow? Why do women in particular feel the need to define ourselves in opposition to “basic bitches”?
Is it because we are desperate to believe that we aren’t average? Are we convinced that if we are average, we have somehow failed as interesting members of society? Why are we so centered on being interesting anyway? Why does good behavior elicit such venomous reactions? While I’m generally in favor of subversion and shaking things up, shouldn’t we also appreciate meticulousness and self-control and everything in between?
I reserve the right to judge both men and women who strike me as shitty, selfish people, but I won’t be calling anyone a “basic bitch” anymore.
