In Defence Of Basic Bitch Taste
Rethinking pop culture style and aesthetics
Ugg boots, skinny jeans, rose gold jewellery. A Michael Kors bag, a Hollister hoodie, and a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte. When you combine these things, what image comes to mind? If my spidey fashion senses guess right, which I’m pretty sure they will for 99.9% of you reading this, then you’ll have conjured an image of a basic bitch.
She spends her weekends at the mall. She races home to watch The Hills, Laguna Beach, and reruns of Mean Girls on TV. She enjoys things which are a little mundane. Amid a Millennial pop culture storm of reality TV taking over and social media becoming a thing, basic bitch style turned out not to be a passing craze. It was here to stay.
But what is a basic bitch? Well, the Urban Dictionary defines a basic bitch as: “She engages in typical, unoriginal behaviours, modes of dress, speech, and likes. She is tragically/laughably unaware of her utter lack of specialness and intrigue. She believes herself to be unique, fly, amazing, and a complete catch, when really she is boring, painfully normal, and par.” Ouch.
Typically, calling someone a basic bitch isn’t a good thing. It’s a way for people to make themselves feel better, more superior than others, by dismissing the things they like and grouping them in a category with everyone they view as less than average, subpar even, sending basic bitches in a download spiral.
And that's all because basic bitches dare to like what they like, regardless of whether it’s cool or not. But being basic is a loaded term. It suggests people, typically women, aren’t interesting enough, they’re not cool enough, and they don’t have any real personality or taste that allows them to cultivate their sense of style.
Basic bitches cling to brands that everyone else likes and they get sucked into a void full of unoriginal trends and copycat aesthetics. It's the stuff of fashion industry insiders' nightmares and big brand and fast fashion retailers dreams.
In today's world, originality and authenticity are prized over mass consumption and keeping up with the trend cycle. There’s been a fashionable emphasis on individuality as of late and aesthetics that stand out from the crowd. You’re cool if you have your own sense of style and taste, you’re a basic bitch if not.
It’s another form of high vs low culture with basic bitches the lowest of the low. And now that what we wear and what trends we like are visible across social media, it's become commonplace to dismiss others that don’t fit your vibe as either being on-trend and acceptable, as in something people should aspire to, or unworthy and basic.
Basic bitch attire is viewed as a guilty pleasure, something to be discussed in secret, rather than brandished out in the open for the world to see. You giggle about liking basic fashion trends with your friends behind closed doors but you never, I repeat never, admit to liking such things in public. Heaven forbid.
But basic bitch fashion has evolved. It isn’t what it used to be and that’s a good thing. ICYMI, Ugg boots and Juicy Couture are back, baby. All hail the next era of basic bitch fashion where people wear what they like when they like, with the subtle irony behind many of these aesthetics now popular in the mainstream.
Instead of this homogenous, anti-fashionable way of dressing shaming the wearers, it's now become trendy and dare we say, a little bit cool. Where once a basic bitch was a talking point in popular culture for all of the wrong reasons, now she's a fashion staple that gives us core aesthetics and trend after trend after trend.
Yes, these looks may be unoriginal and a tad boring. But by freeing themselves of the burden of having to stand out, and by succumbing to FYP pages and trending algorithmic recommendations, basic bitch fashion has become effortless and easy. And who wouldn’t want more of that?
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