As we reflect back on all the things 2015 has had to offer, it can easily be noticed that most of the things we did weren’t for us. It used to be: if a tree drops in the middle of a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it even make a sound? Now life is filled with this question: if there weren’t any pictures did anything even happen? We’re all basic. From the time we wake up and plan out that Snapchat that lets everyone know how long you’ve been awake to actively choosing a salad to look healthy, our choices are made by the social constructs of society and what people will like.
However, it never used to be this way. Pre-Starbucks and Lululemon, it was all about being bad. The thing that all people aspired to be was rebellious, not in an I’m underage drinking way, but a no fucks given way that somewhat liberated the youth. Leather jackets and cigarettes, check! Curfew and boundaries? None. As told in the story Greasy Lake by T.C. Boyle, the one rule was no emotions and living life for you, “We were 19. We were bad. We read Andre Gide and struck elaborate poses to show that we didn’t give a shit about anything. At night we went up to Greasy Lake.” In present time everyone is being the new bad and repeating the same actions, we’re just calling it basic.
We’re all guilty. Guilty for feeling weird about more than a week gap between our Instagram photos, calculating the footage for our snap stories, and sharing articles and videos on Facebook based on the title which we think will make us seem more interesting. But how did we go from young rebels with cocaine addiction to young and entitled with a social dependency? Maybe it’s that our worries changed. Back then our worries were on a global scale, because we hadn’t yet been desensitized to war and trauma. Now because there is so much, I think it’s easier to view life with a veil of ignorance that lies within our computer screens and camera lens.
Being bad meant to let go, but here we are wrapping up 2015 and we feel the need to hold on and grip our technology to ease our wounds and attempt to have a voice through hashtags. In a world of images we’ve become pixelated life image of costume, Starbucks, Polaroid’s, and base our worth off of the point system that if we are #basic enough then we are in fact going to be liked. It's almost as though we are collecting digital karma, by liking others posts, in the hopes that we appear to be happy and carefree. Really we’re all just kids trying to be basic but just like our bad ancestors from the 80s no matter how hard we try. “I wanted to go home to my parents’ house and crawl into bed.” #Same
