Basic Bitches
The total embodiment of the basic bitch is honestly my worst nightmare. Although I am painfully introverted, my look is far from subtle, and I've been described as having an edgy goth Snow White look with the temperament and attitude of a Doberman Pinscher.
The horror of the basic bitch, when fully formed, is a boring, manufactured, vapid woman without enough personality to have her own unique opinions and must, therefore, look to others for inspiration. And because she doesn't have any personality, she must congregate among other basic bitches who all create a feedback loop of taste and attitudes resulting in the indistinguishable homogeneous esthetic of the quintessential basic bitch, which I outline as follows:
I envision a shorter-than-average white woman with mid-length light brown hair styled straight with a perfectly contrived curl at the lower third and always highlighted in an ashy blonde like she spends every afternoon sunbathing (even though it's November). The cookie-cutter dye job results in each basic bitch looking as though they visited the same beauty school dropout and handed the novice hairstylist a picture of Lauren Conrad.
She's slightly curvy but never overweight, whose body would be considered generally nondescript, lacking any over or undersized womanly attributes that anyone would find distracting.
She wears American Eagle skinny jeans or black leggings tucked into camel brown flat Steve Madden riding boots paired with a tight-fitting long-sleeved henley that covers her shapeless derriere or an oversized red plaid flannel buttondown shirt topped with a puffer vest from Patagonia or North Face. An infinity scarf around her neck and unnaturally large pearl earrings from Charming Charlie on her earlobes with a single white gold hoop on her helix (upper ear cartilage) are her prominent accessories.
On her face, she uses Mario Badescu skincare, Bert's Bees lip balm, Clinique BB cream, far too much MAC bronzer, Great Lash mascara, the subtle hint of an Anastasia Naked eyeshadow palate on her eyes, black winged eyeliner only on her upper lid, and eyebrows fluffed with soap and overfilled.
After her 20-step beauty routine, she mists her décolletage with Victoria's Secret Heavenly body mist and puts a scrunchy around her wrist in case the wind blows and she needs to put her hair up in a haphazard topknot.
She speaks using vocal fry and uptalk (which gets worse when she converses with men), filling in every pause with a hair flip and an extra-grammatical “like” while looking at each group member to make sure they all agree with her commentary.
She holds a pumpkin-spiced latte or a pale pink pinot grigio, depending on the time of day. She is a huge fan of day drinking at brunch while eating her egg white veggie omelet topped with goat cheese with her sorority sisters she met at Bible college. They prattle on about how "blessed" they are living in their white upper-middle-class neighborhoods in the suburbs with "Live. Laugh. Love." decore hanging on their neutral-colored walls, monogrammed hand towels in the bathroom you can't use because "they're the nice ones," while safely bubbled against "urban" influences (except for the lyrics of a Drake song she'll rap at karaoke when intoxicated on vodka cranberry at a bachelorette party).
These lab-created Stepford wife wannabes are usually dating an (at least) six-foot-tall white ex-jock boyfriend with a vague, tedious, white-collar job or managerial blue-collar job and dream of their future white Christian church wedding with a reception held in a "charming" repurposed barn decorated with Mason jar tealight centerpieces and burlap napkin rings.
The basic bitches and their boos do all activities in herds where the guys stand together drinking Bud Light in pastel-colored shorts or chinos while the basic bitches huddle sipping bad wine and playing with their hair all coiffed precisely the same way.
They hold their oversized Kate Spade handbags as they voice their displeasure in hushed tones, obviously intimidated as they glare at me like I'm damaged goods with my wild black curly hair, large tattoos, a multitude of facial and ear piercings, tall, thin frame and commanding social porcupine aura. They form a blockade around their boyfriends because I look like the kind of girl their men are intrigued by but are too intimidated to flirt with, then pick a fight with their boyfriends because they had working eyeballs, which made all the girlies jealous (but they hate drama, despite always being the cause of said drama). I can't help but laugh inside because, unashamedly, I love me some basic bitch shit.
I own multiple pairs of Ugg boots (the damn things are comfy, ok... and yes, I wear them with mini skirts). I only wear Victoria's Secret bras and live in their leggings. I light Yankee Candles in the fall, and drink Diet Coke like it's a life source. I like throw pillows, think of my dogs as my children, and watch true crime documentaries. I sometimes talk with vocal fry and abbreviate my adjectives. I love going to music festivals, I've seen every episode of Sex and the City, and I work in a female-dominated healthcare field—which can be obnoxiously cliquey. I try, but I can't twerk. I own more shoes and purses than I'd like to admit, and I generally think I'm fabulous.
The difference between a non-basic bitch and a basic bitch is the ability to take something ubiquitous, commercialized, trendy, or over-saturated within the current zeitgeist and reject these things as a fundamental aspect of her identity.
The basic bitch is defined by her lack of taste in such a way that she has to rely on others to decide what it is she likes and then forms a persona around these things, leaving her utterly devoid of distinctive attributes. She exists only in a capitalistic framework where the only things she'll wear, use, eat, or buy are determined by what is popular and deemed safe within her narrow reality. She is a sheep, a lemming, a sardine, always moving in unison, unable to think for herself or deviate from the herd.
A non-basic bitch can take these same items and add their own personality quirks, opinions, and flair to them, tweaking their normative function to better fit who they are and what they want to represent. Non-basic bitches can have the mental flexibility needed to be innovative and free-thinking, whereas the basic bitch lacks creativity and thrives within a hive-mind mentality.
The unfortunate part is the basic bitch thinks she's an interesting, fun, unique, and strong woman when she is anything but. She'd crumble without the affirmation she receives from her gaggle of identical basic bitches and tries to portray herself as a special wild rose whose circumstances are vastly different from everyone else. She can't see just how bland and omnipresent her opinions, preferences, purchases, and life experiences are.
The non-basic bitch, even when acting like or wearing something basic, is self-aware enough to know it's basic but does it anyway because it makes them happy; they (mostly) avoid the "pick me" tendencies and don't need to desperately convince others of their uniqueness because they just are.
A consummate basic bitch is quite pathetic, and if they weren't also judgemental, snobby, superficial, and dull, I'd pity them because I honestly don't believe they can help it. To change would require introspection and intellectual curiosity, which is difficult—if not impossible—to learn.
Her identity is limited because her thinking is limited; she holds on to her basic-ness with religious conviction because it's comfortable and won't challenge her privileged worldview. Going against the grain is uncomfortable, but it also means never expanding your ideas or forming a multifaceted personality.
If the basic bitch were a color, she'd be beige, and I can't think of a worse fate than existing within such a banal, unstimulating microcosm of mass-marketed matchy-matchy bullshit.
So when I see the basic bitches out in the wild, I'll smile and shake my head, and continue to wear my Uggs—but simply because they're warm, practical, and I love them, not because I identify with the sheep's wool snuggling beneath my toes. Baaa