Life As A Basic Bitch
I am a basic bitch. When I was a kid, we used the term ‘generic’ to describe things that were common or easily accessible. Generic clothes, generic music. I like the newer term too, and it has a little more punch. In my way of understanding it, a basic bitch is into things that you can pick up at a Target or hear on Top 40 radio, if that still exists. Basic flavors, basic tastes, basic design. Basic art, basic people, basic color of running shoes.
Yes, I am basic.
I neither have pride nor disdain for this fact. But it is a fact. I’ve written a couple of times about what it means to be cool, and that it has eluded me my entire life. There was always something creepy about it. Coolness can be based on others’ opinions, and you can go along with it despite your personal judgment. It’s that thing you wrestle with as a teenager, and you assume will be gone when you hit twenty-five or so. Then you learn that adult life is just an extension of high school in many ways, and some of the dumbass cultural shit sticks around.
My favorite coffee is Starbucks. I love the interior of Starbucks, too. The lighting, the color scheme, the occasional soft chairs and fireplaces. Love it. Why not spend time at a local coffeehouse instead of a corporate behemoth? Because I’m basic. I love vanilla ice cream the best. My favorite nerd culture stuff is Star Wars and Spider-Man. Yes, Spider-Man, the most popular Marvel character of them all…that’s my guy. Star Wars is now an entity that has creeped into baby clothes and kitchenware. My seventy-three-year-old mother is into it. I can’t get enough.
I have friends much cooler than I who have thoughtfully thrown some underground stuff my way over the years. Ideas, theories, concepts. Alternative ways to exist on earth. Music I never would have heard before that I now treasure. In the 80s I loved the Beatles, Van Halen, and Led Zeppelin. Ever heard of them? I liked the hair-metal songs on the top 40, and my first two concerts were Whitney Houston and Def Leppard.
I liked T-shirts and jeans. I wore Nike high tops because Marty McFly did. I read Stephen King. I loved baloney and cheese on white bread. Embracing who you truly are is part of all kinds of recovery and therapy. I am basic.
Cool is innovative, talented, sexy, subversive, memorable.
Basic is expected, average, chaste, bland, safe.
I get a handful of people in my life who come to my aid when I talk like this. They say that good guys are the real cool. Good husbands, devoted fathers, reliable men. That’s all bullshit. We all know that’s not true. However, I don’t find it a failure to be uncool. I’m something else.
Don’t confuse cool with popular. Popular is measured in units sold. Cool is measured in secret handshakes and knowing winks. A basic bitch doesn’t see any of these things. They never gravitate toward something because it is a ‘fuck you’ to society or because it is a top seller. They like the first thing off the rack that appeals to them. Basic bitches say: ‘Yum! Can I have another scoop?”
Maybe, in a way, basic bitches don’t care. I’d like to think so.