The term basic is used to describe people with interests that are deemed regular or plain. The more we use the word basic, the more we start to see people as simple cookie cutter shapes that look the same. This is not only degrading to the people we are calling basic, but it is also wrong to see being regular or normal as a weakness.

First we need to look at the common activities that are deemed basic. Do you like relaxing at the beach, or watching Netflix, or eating tacos, or drinking wine with your friends? Well guess what, someone out there is probably shaking their head at how basic and normal you are. But as it turns out all of those things I mentioned are really fun. And so many people do them because they are enjoyable. Netflix wouldn’t be a successful business if it wasn’t used by so many people. I argue that people who do basic things aren’t doing them because it’s the easiest way to spend your time but because sometimes what is popular is also what is good.

I am naturally a very critical person and am guilty every day of judging people for what I’ll call tertiary characteristics. I will define tertiary characteristics as interests and hobbies, secondary characterless as personality, and primary characteristics as character and how a person treats the people around them. It is a lot easier to judge someone for interests you don’t have or for wearing clothes you think are tacky or for listening to music you think is bad than actually trying to understand who they are as a person. Interests and hobbies, the things that people most often deem as basic, do not make up everything a person is. Basic cannot define character or personality. In those categories people grow much more complex. Personality tests like Meyers – Briggs can be great for understanding ourselves, but even still interests and life experiences add so much variability into identity that personality alone cannot define a person. To call someone basic based solely on their interests is categorizing them based on a teeny tiny slice of who they are as an entire person. Therefore it should be completely disregarded and thrown out of our vocabulary.

All of this culminates in one idea: It is our shared interests as humans that give us community, friendship, and unity. Successful sports teams unite behind shared goals. People of faith gather because of shared hope. Friends and marriages come from shared values and interests. If everyone was perfectly hipster and individual, the uniqueness would keep people apart. It’s the basic in us that brings us together. Are popular ideas and actions always right? By no means. Does that mean we reject everything popular which inevitably becomes something basic and normal? Of course not. So next time you hear someone talk about how basic someone is think, “We’d probably get along pretty well.”