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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30927 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Of the Based and the Cringe

, or a song of Soy and Cope

a deep dive into the linguistic history of internet slang and its political implications.

My first foray into the linguistics of politics since Alex Jones Wordsmith

free-bases cocaine

I had no idea that this was the origin until now, and I still don't know what that means. Since I'm one of the "very online" people, I think this makes it quite likely that the spread of the "based" slang had nothing to do with that etymology; instead, it registers as a catchy version of something along the lines of "grounded" or "down-to-earth", with the implication that someone "based" is the opposite of a duplicitous person who will tangle you and more importantly themselves up in a web of lies, rationalisations and false narratives.

You'd think, but no.

Indeed there was even a joke in 2014 and series of memes "Based in What!?" that had some clueless character insistently asking the question, with the joke being the audience should know its freebased crack. Though you're right most people don't know it and its obscure enough (freebasing) that The crack reference is rediscovered and reinterpreted into the culture of the term fairly regularly.

But because its always being rediscovered, the term is never able to memetically diverge from that meaning

I think the scripted "based on what?" comeback works well enough with the down-to-earth interpretation too, though.

How could we resolve this? Poll about awareness of that origin? For what it's worth, the knowyourmeme article has no mention of freebasing or cocaine, and I would've expected something that is inextricably linked with the public perception of the meme to wind up on there.

Based God (rapper Lil B) (who also has a KnowYourMeme page lol) is an example that predates the wider popularization of "based" and was definitely a reference to freebasing. I think this origin was quickly obscured as the term began to spread though.

Here I was thinking it was "bass head" as someone who listens to loud music with the bass turned up.

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