We should stop calling people’s tastes ‘basic’

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In our transition from adolescence to adulthood, our generation has been guilty of placing more importance on social identity than previous generations. In fact, it is a trend that by my observation has been increasing, and will continue to increase, over time.

It is a societal occurrence: people calling each other names on social media, in video games and in public. We have made categorizing each other a regular part of communication, but it is not.

To what lengths will you go to be called “bae” or to avoid being called “basic”? With Fall being the Pumpkin Spice everything season, the use of this term “basic” will be used to stereotypically generalize a large portion of our campus based on their specific likes and dislikes.

If you type “basic” into Google’s search engine, the first result will be a link to the Urban Dictionary definition of the term: “an adjective used to describe any person, place, activity involving obscenely obvious behavior, dress, action. Unsophisticated.”

On this same site it continues, “used to describe someone devoid of defining characteristics that might make a person interesting, extraordinary, or just simply worth devoting time or attention to.”

Granted, this isn’t the most scientific source, but from the public responses I have received about the word’s meaning, it is spot on in pinpointing the derogatory nature of the word.

Some of the factors that I have seen used to characterize someone as basic are whether or not they like Pumpkin Spice lattes, Ugg boots, North Face jackets, Instagram filters, selfies, photos of Fall, iPhones/MacBooks, and infinity scarves (too name a few).

Saying we like any of these things, for whatever reason, has become an invitation to scorn from our friends and the strangers who make shallow judgments from their pretentious pedestals.

I asked some of the baristas at the student center Starbucks and they guessed that every third person in line orders a Pumpkin Spice Latte and that they make thousands in a day.

This represents just a small portion of the actual amount of people who we judge because their preferences are not good enough, not “hipster” enough, not “fire” enough. Why do we continue to socialize these derogatory terms and deem it acceptable?

Many believe that social media and the Internet has been the cause of our generation’s poor social skills, and I can see that the opportunity to edit and publicize an online persona has given reign to the pursuit of sounding intelligent at the expense of vindictive remarks towards others.

How many negative comments are on the average viral YouTube video? How many negative Twitter fights do people start over whether Justin Bieber or Harry Styles from One Direction is the cutest?

The truly unintelligent behavior is that of the hypocrites who believe their judgmental attitude is “worth devoting time or attention to.”

Until we take these derogatory terms out of circulation and stop trying to drag each other through the mud, society will continue to create youth who find their identity in the opinions of others.

Marjorie Kirk is a journalism and international studies sophomore.

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