On being basic

that red lip classic thing that you like

Pumpkin Field in Ladner, British Columbia. Judy Gallagher via Wikimedia Commons.

The other day I was in the grocery story and I spotted a pumpkin spice creamer. There we were: fall had arrived. I’m a black coffee drinker as a rule, but I’m also a human being, so I like pumpkin spice mixes. So I got it. And it was great! I’ve been putting it in every cup of coffee I’ve made since I got it. I even posted a picture of it to Instagram with “it’s fall bitches.” Then Instagram got mad at me for using the word “bitch.” But was I bothered? No. Because I was drinking my coffee.

“Pumpkin spice” is, of course, a stand-in not just for fall, but for basic taste. But then, fall itself is basic. It is the season of Mr. Autumn Man and dragging out that one Keats poem. It is the season of Basic Queen Taylor Swift. (For more on that, read Clare.)¹

October in particular also (and probably not coincidentally, basic-ness wise) kicks off the shared American “holiday” season that lasts through at least New Year’s (though I would argue it stretches to Valentine’s Day).² It’s a time when you can kind of know what you’re going to see wherever you go because everybody is, if not actually on the same page, at least pretending that they are. The coffee shops will be selling pumpkin spice and they’ll have cute Halloween decorations because it’s spooooky season.³ Then it’s Thanksgiving. Then it’s peppermint mocha time and “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has arrived on the radio. And so on. It’s my favorite stretch of the year.

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What makes something basic?⁴ It’s not an inherent quality in things, just a relative one. When you’re little you might distinguish yourself from your peers by being really into Edgar Allan Poe and thus a little edgy and creepy, only to find when you get a bit older that he’s Creepy Fiction 101 and all the real ones are reading Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings or whatever.⁵ Poe himself didn’t change, but his context did.⁶ And at that point, I think you can take the realization that Poe is “basic” in two directions:

1. Poe is basic in the sense of classic: he’s foundational, durable, and so on. A lot has been built on top of him.

2. Poe is basic in the sense of boring: he shows you’re a person without any taste of your own.

Or, emotionally:

1. I guess I should check out Earthlings.

2. Ewwwwwwwwww Edgar Allan Poe is for babies hahaha.