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    The Problem With All This "Basic" Business

    Give it a rest already, internets.

    The "Basic" Problem

    Here's the thing. This "Basic" name-calling has GOT to stop.

    When it all first started popping up on the interwebs, I had a hard time figuring out what the heck "Basic" even meant. It all just seemed like lot of lists of characteristics and things that almost young woman likes or has. Stuff like mugs, coffee makers, candles, and nail polish. What I couldn't figure out is why liking those things is portrayed in such a condescending, demeaning, and negative light. It's apparently not acceptable by the good people of BuzzFeed to like things that a lot of other women like. This was such a bizarre concept to me that at first I wasn't sure if the lists were all some joke I wasn't in on, or if the writers really did find themselves superior to the "Basic Bitches" they were writing about, but an Urban Dictionary definition set me straight:

    "Basic Bitch
    Someone who is unflinchingly upholding of the status quo and stereotypes of their gender without even realizing it. She engages in typical, unoriginal behaviors, modes of dress, speech, and likes. She is tragically/laughably unaware of her utter lack of specialness and intrigue. She believers herself to be unique, fly, amazing, and a complete catch, when really she is boring, painfully normal, and par. She believes her experiences to be crazy, wild, and different or somehow more special than everything that everybody else is doing, when really, almost everyone is doing or has done the exact same thing. She is typical and a dime a dozen. There are many subtypes of basicness, such as the basic ratchet, the basic sorority bitch, the basic groupie bitch, the basic I'm-so-Carrie-from-Sex-and-the-City bitch, etc, but ultimately, they all share the common thread of being expendable and unnoteworthy and, in some cases, having absolutely no redeeming qualities."

    Now, I know BuzzFeed is snarky. I get it. You poke fun at social groups. But this feels different. Darker, meaner. And I think I've figured it out. The "Basic Bitch" concept is an excuse for women to cut other women down without consequence. I don't exactly know how it became acceptable to label women who fall into the majority as "Bitches" and when it became acceptable to write article upon article belittling any one group of people, but for some reason it's ok now, and women who feel the need to cut others down are going to town with it. I'm shocked that BuzzFeed, a space that claims to be pro-women and women-friendly, keeps promoting articles where the very purpose is to mock, insult, and demean women. If articles about any other group were written with such disdain and malice, BuzzFeed would already have come out with a formal apology. But for some reason, the "Basic Girl" or the more offensive, "Basic White Girl" doesn't matter to BuzzFeed. A "Baisc"'s worst crime is being "boring" and "painfully normal". That's a good enough reason to destroy them on the internet? I have an idea. Let's stop hating women. Any type of women. Including, and maybe especially, "boring" or "painfully normal" women. Enough with the "Basic" crap. Enough with the woman-hating.