Base America

I’ve been formulating this concept on the term ‘base.’ I’m not sure if this is already a common use of the word or if I molded it due to my own arrogance, but I’m going to try and tackle that here.

When I say base, I sort of define it as low or primal. A base need is the very bottom of what you need, eating for example. Lust and anger are considered base emotions, because they’re just primal and pretty one dimensional. Usually I’m equating “base” with lower class of people, whether it’s economically or socially, although the two usually go hand in hand. Some examples are in order.

Food: You can usually spot base food by who is eating it. Children and white trash often participate in base foods. This type of food often taste very good, but again only in that primal sort of way. Deep-fry some fat in sugar and lard, it’ll probably taste great. But watch out, that’s base as hell. Fast food is base. Macaroni and cheese is base. Ketchup and salt are base. Yes we all eat some or most of these things, but the point is they should be eaten sparingly. They’re very flat and sort of fake tasting if you think about it. Compare a McDonalds Happy meal to a good dinner at an Italian restaurant. The good meal will be multi-faceted, involve numerous food groups at once, and make your taste buds think. McDonalds will destroy your body a la ‘Super Size Me.’ Stop eating fast food for a month or two, then try it again. You’ll taste that ‘base fastfood’ feeling in your mouth, a sort of dry guilt hanging out around the roof. Now compare soda with wine. Soda rots your teeth and fills you up. Wine can be enjoyed on many levels and has infinite complexity.

Humor: A good example of base humor is American Pie. While I enjoy the movie mostly, there is a lot of ‘shit/fart’ type humor, which is the epitome of base. Base humor is almost always excruciatingly predictable as well (think of any movie where a guy dresses up as a girl; another guy will inevitably fall in love with/try to hook up with the character in drag). Imagine three grown, overweight men in Kentucky at a local bar. They’re sitting on stools, watching Nascar, and one of them farts. The other two laugh like it’s the funniest thing they ever heard. Base.

The scary part is that base humor isn’t limited to rednecks, although it out to be. Non-base humor has the multi-faceted type of qualities like those mentioned above. “Good” humor makes you think, and is often subtle. Consider a movie like Office Space or I heart Huckabees. You can watch them many times over and catch new things that are funny each time. The humor is there, but it’s subtle and usually open to interpretation. There is no one-time shock value with this type of humor; it is to be enjoyed time and time again.

Ghetto habits: Smoking is base. Think of what percentage of your college friends smoke. Maybe 10%? Compare that to the amount of lower class people that smoke. They’re probably more like 60%. But how can that be, if they have less money wouldn’t they rather not waste it on cigs? No, that’s not how base works. Being base is all about the ‘quick fix,’ short term pleasure with little thought for long term effects. People who care about the long term don’t eat tons of fast food or smoke or buy rims when they can’t even afford rent.

There are many more examples of base behavior, as I use the term, but I think you get the idea. Do I feel better than base people? YES absolutely. But I realize that I and many others participate in base products/activities sometimes, and that’s ok as long as it’s controlled. Similar to the apex of the food pyramid, be base sparingly.