As fall season rolls in, we see more trends crop up, mostly in girls. The girls that walk around with makeup caked onto their faces, pumpkin spice lattes in their hands, Ugg boots on their feet and who wear North Face jackets on top of ‘PINK’ yoga pants are the most popular occurrences. These girls are considered to be “basic.” But what does it mean to be basic? And why does it have such a negative connotation to it?

The actual term “basic” is an adjective meaning “fundamental.” “Fundamental” means something that is “an essential part of” another thing. So if being basic is having fundamental thoughts, thoughts that are essential to being a human, then why are girls criticized for being basic? 

It’s cold out, so we wear pants. Some of us don’t like wearing jeans, so we wear yoga pants. North Face jackets are warm, fuzzy and comfortable on a chilly fall morning. Now, I personally hate coffee and anything pumpkin flavored except pumpkin pie, but coffee has never been a new trend. What is so different now that it’s pumpkin flavored? Makeup has been around since there were tools to make it, and yet just now it is seen as a bad thing to wear makeup.

The human race has a hard time accepting that a lot of people think similar things are cool, fun or pretty. We go out and criticize everyone who does things the same way as other people in society do them. But doesn’t that make the criticizers the exact same as those they’re criticizing? 

They make fun of people for the way they do things. It’s a basic vs. non-basic world. I’ll admit, there are some people who only talk to others that drink the same lattes as them and like the same music and only wear popular name-brand clothes. But if we stop talking to them because of what they wear, aren’t we doing the same thing as them? 

Being basic is just another way of saying they do what they like. Yes, some people wear Ugg boots because they’re popular and they want to fit in, but there are more people who like them because they’re comfortable and good in the winter. You can’t possibly know which the person was thinking when they bought them, so why are you judging them?

This article isn’t to bash on the so-called ‘basic’ people or the ‘non-basics’. It’s to shed light onto how it shouldn’t matter what clothes we wear, music we listen to, celebrities we like or the fashion trends we follow because in the end it won’t matter. 

You’re basic, so what? You fan-girl over Justin Bieber, you totes love Kimye, and Victoria Secret obvi has the best clothes ever. Maybe you don’t even know what a ‘Kimye’ is, so what? It’s okay to be different and it’s ok to be the same as others. Why we make a big deal out of it, I don’t really understand. Whether you’re as basic as a person can get, completely opposite of being basic or somewhere in-between, embrace who you are. 

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