Kinda remarkable that "based" has somehow established itself as primarily a term of approbation within circles where the term is used 🤔
I can only see it as a pejorative, and react poorly to people unironically applying it to anything I say/do.
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People who know this about me ofc occasionally throw it at me to troll me, but the majority who use it are remarkably uncritical about it, and don't realize it feels between unflattering to insulting to people who don't share the values it gestures at.
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Ie most people who use the term genuinely think they're being complimentary, and aren't trying to troll.
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I'm fine with people valuing basedness and celebrating it, even if it is usually self-congratulatory smugness. Everyone has ideological conceits. What's remarkable here is the obliviousness to the fact that it IS in fact an ideological conceit, just like its frenemy, wokeness
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I suspect if it ever goes as mainstream, it will go through the same trajectory as 'woke' did. Start out as a self-evidently positive thing, then a cargo-cult shibboleth/purity test standard, and finally, a demonic attitude to be avoided in oneself, and exorcised in ones friends.
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Qualification: there's no such thing as fully unironic in our post-Zizekian world of course unless you live under a rock, but relatively unironic. Some sort of new sincerity larp kind of unironic.
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Replying to @vgr
I think there is almost always some, at least implicit irony whenever it is used, regardless of who is using it and what their values are, but I may be wrong. Although by "unironically" you may not have meant wholly unironically.
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The dangerous trap people repeatedly fall into it adopting postures kinda ironically in Zizekian-cynical mode, then it becomes an all-consuming larp/kayfabe and before you know it, the mask has become the real thing.
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New-to-me backstory. Fits perfectly. Ironically terrible can often slide into actually terrible if you don't check yourself. Happened to 'woke', is happening to 'based' and will happen to any reified theatrical posture that's more aesthetic than thoughtful twitter.com/elmkast/status
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Don't intend this as a personal attack or subtweet, and I hope it rises above mere concern trolling. Just planting a couple of caution flags for my own use mainly.
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The Onion called this phenomenon back in 2005. It's the "Why Can't Anyone Tell I'm Wearing This Business Suit Ironically?" effect "
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Never go full ironic
Sounds weird, but irony isn't just an attitude you feel. It's not an emotion. It is embodied by some sort of explicit self-subversion and self-contradictory tension in what you say/do.
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More generally...
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First Law of the Metaverse: Sufficiently comprehensive larping is indistinguishable from sincerity
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