On women who love fall and being "basic"

You can just like pumpkin spice lattes

Kimberly Vardeman/Creative Commons

It’s that time of year when pumpkin everything starts showing up at the stores—and I like it! (Minus the pumpkin spice hummus I saw on my grocery run earlier.) I want to go out and buy fall-themed home decor and pumpkin spice-scented candles. I pulled out all my sweaters and my leather boots from storage and put away the shorts and swimsuits, even though it was still 77 degrees out today.

I also kind of hate admitting that I like any of these things. When you’re a woman, admitting you like fall makes you a basic bitch. And for some women, there are few insults worse than being called basic. Basic means you’re unoriginal, you have bad taste or no taste at all, you’re unsophisticated. The term “basic bitch” conjures up an image of a white woman who goes apple picking, who dresses like Christian Girl Autumn, who has rustic Pinterest-y wood signs in her house that say things like “Live Laugh Love,” who unironically uses the hashtag #blessed, and yes, who loves pumpkin spice lattes. As Noreen Malone wrote in The Cut in 2014:

The basic bitch — as she’s sometimes called because it’s funnier when things alliterate, and because you’re considered a poor sport if you don’t find it funny — is almost always a she. In more sophisticated renderings, her particularities vary by region and even neighborhood, but she is almost always portrayed as utterly besotted with Starbucks’s Pumpkin Spice Latte. It is the setup to nearly every now-familiar punch line about a basic bitch, her love for the autumnal mass-market beverage. Pumpkin Spice Lattes are “mall.” They reveal a girlish interest in seasonal changes and an unsophisticated penchant for sweet. They are sidewalk chalkboards announcing their existence in polka-dot bubble letters. They are from the mid-aughts. They are easy targets.

The woman who loves fall has become a widely ridiculed cliche. It’s inspired a massive backlash to Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte — because, at its core, loving pumpkin spice lattes is seen as something basic, fall-loving, silly women do.

When we call women basic, it’s really, on some level, about class anxiety. It’s a way of policing women’s choices and consumption habits. It’s a way of denoting that one has more unique, original taste, while the basic woman un-self-consciously likes the same things everyone else likes, and we disdain her for it.

As Anne Helen Petersen wrote in 2015:

So what are those who make fun of basics actually frightened of? Of being basic, sure, but that’s just another way of being scared of conformity. And in 2014 America, the way we measure conformity isn’t in how we speak in political beliefs, but in consumer and social media habits. We declare our individuality via our capacity to consume differently — to mix purchases from Target with those from quirky Etsy shops — and to tweet, use Facebook, or pin in a way that separates us from others.

Every year when fall approaches, I look forward to buying myself some mini pumpkins for my apartment, maybe getting a PSL and some scented candles, or bake pumpkin muffins. And I do so knowing that indulging in autumn-inspired treats might make others deem me “basic.” But I think we should all allow ourselves to enjoy what we like, and divorce our consumption choices from our sense of self-identity. Not every purchasing decision you make has to say something about your taste and your unique, original identity. A pumpkin spice latte can just be a fucking pumpkin spice latte, and you can enjoy it unironically.

Some related reading:

• How America invented the white woman who just loves fall (Jezebel)

• What we’re really afraid of when we call someone “basic” (Buzzfeed)

• What do you really mean when you say “basic bitch”? (The Cut)

• Pumpkin spice lattes — and the backlash, and the backlash to the backlash — explained (Vox)

Good things to read

I needed a table. Instead, I found “table season,” The Baffler.

Colonial conditions, The Yale Review. A new short story by Brandon Taylor.

XOXO, Atoosa, Slate. On the return of the former teen magazine queen, Atoosa Rubenstein.

Cody Rigsby wants to be your best friend, Vox.

What’s behind the wave of immersive Van Gogh exhibits, City Lab/Bloomberg.

The myth of the productive commute, Culture Study.

AOC knows exactly what she’s doing, The Cut. On the Met Gala and the “tax the rich” dress.

Help! I couldn’t stop writing fake Dear Prudence letters that got published, Gawker.

Welcome to Dunkin’ World, GQ. Has Dunkin Donuts become a lifestyle brand?

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