Are you "basic?"

[ApatheticNoMore]

DD uses "basic" only to describe someone's personal style or aesthetic. She is 19; at that age most kids are trying to define themselves by their hair style, clothes, jewelry, piercings and tatoos, and choice of transportation.

To be "basic" is to conform to the norms so much that there is nothing striking about yourself. There is pressure NOT to conform, and it looks to me like they mostly non-conform in the same way - see how interesting I am because of my little tatoo, my chunky eyeglases, my vintage t-shirt. It's having a boho apartment and clothes that look like they came from Free People and liking somewhat obscure bands. Now you're not basic, right?

It makes me think of the Red Hat society. It started with a poem about being a singular old woman (When I am old i shall wear purple, with a red hat...Something like that) So all these women who wanted to show how unique and plucky they were got together and dressed in purple and wore red hats. Huh.

It's all based on the idea that appearance, how you present yourself, is deeply meaningful. I don't buy into that. I get that some folks like dressing up, okay. I don't think about style really at all. I'm probably not basic; an older woman with long hair in pigtails flying around town in a neon vest on her electric bike - but it's just practicality, not style.

I think the red hat thing is neat. I wouldn't even interpret it as uniqueness, it's really just a celebration of aging, which isn't going to get much celebration otherwise so ... so it is counter-cultural more than individualistic I would think (yes which is preferable anyway!).

Yea if your young and basically healthy almost anything is going to look good on you, so play about that temporary kindness of nature to get all your clothes from whatever, the city dump maybe, but eventually you'll want to look as good as you can and not be 19 (and sometimes even respectable etc.), and that will take a bit more careful shopping.

[Ultralight]

I think the red hat thing is neat. I wouldn't even interpret it as uniqueness, it's really just a celebration of aging, which isn't going to get much celebration otherwise so ... so it is counter-cultural more than individualistic I would think (yes which is preferable anyway!).

Yea if your young and basically healthy almost anything is going to look good on you, so play about that temporary kindness of nature to get all your clothes from whatever, the city dump maybe, but eventually you'll want to look as good as you can and not be 19 (and sometimes even respectable etc.), and that will take a bit more careful shopping.

So far I have heard a lot of conflicting reports about being basic. I can sum these reports up in a brief list:
1. "Everyone is basic."
2. Everyone is special."
3. People who think they are remarkable are actually basic.
4. "I like being basic"
5. "I am not basic, but it is perfectly fine for someone else to be basic."

[JaneV2.0]

How about "basic is meaningless."

[Ultralight]

How about "basic is meaningless."

Is remarkable also meaningless?

[ApatheticNoMore]

remarkable maybe has only so much to do with "interesting". People who are remarkable are often so in something so esoteric or requiring so much equal ability in that subject to understand that that hardly makes them interesting to most people, in fact it quite possibly makes them boring (for instance stephen hawking's "brief history of time" is often seen as the most bought least actually understood or even read through book ever).

Those who are perceived as remarkable by outsiders are often better at marketing themselves at the end of the day. Marketing more than actual qualities although it doesn't mean they didn't also have real talent. Stephen Hawking was good at marketing in ways (although theoretical physics really is over my head). Many of the artists that are remembered often had equally good peers that were forgotten. Sometimes the difference is marketing. Social movements are sometimes remembered for a historical figure but actually took the work of thousands to bring about. Always 100% of the time? Well with social movements probably so even when they had a rallying leader (but it still takes something to be that leader? well considering the leaders of the civil rights movement all got shot yes, however one questions the wisdom of even having leaders at that point ... aka Occupy). But other things no probably not always 100% of the time (but it would take a lot of historical research to know, sometimes scientific breakthroughs are actually discovered simultaneously etc.). Often enough to have some skepticism about "remarkable".

[Gardenarian]

+1
Basic or remarkable to whom?

[JaneV2.0]

It's the Millennial label du jour; shorthand for whatever they think it means.

[Ultralight]

It's the Millennial label du jour; shorthand for whatever they think it means.

Is Grand Canyon a remarkable place?

[Ultralight]

It seems like the idea of being basic offends a lot of people.

[Alan]

It seems like the idea of being basic offends a lot of people.

I think it's more that people wonder why they must be categorized by a metric that only exists in the eye of the beholder.