“Everyone is going to be Barbie this year” — a phrase you’ve probably heard echoed a thousand times since the movie came out. Ever since Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie worked their magic on screen, Barbie has been all the rage and so have her outfits. So, it’s only natural that people all over have been wanting to dress up as her for Halloween. Whether it’s Rollerblading Barbie or Cowgirl Barbie, the options are just as cute as they are endless.
But there’s one slight problem: the above sentiment has been shared by almost everyone, meaning that all foresaw a future Halloween filled with Barbies. This meant that the Barbie costume you were oh so excited about would be seen throughout the night and so oversaturated that it’d be deemed the worst thing of all: “basic.”
As women, this is a label that’s attached to us all too frequently for just about anything we do. Our hobbies and interests are always deemed this term, implying that we’re not unique in anything we do or support. This is why, I guess collectively and unknowingly, we all decided not to dress as Barbie.
I was even going to be the cowgirl Barbie, but I figured I wasn’t the only one with the idea, and for fear of being basic, I opted out of the costume. However, I went out Friday, Saturday, and on Halloween and only saw one Barbie. I guess I wasn’t the only one with this concern. This weekend proved that instead of all of us being Barbie, the “basic phenomenon” led to almost none of us being Barbie.
However what I deem the ironic “Basic Barbie” effect has made me realize a couple of things about this word that we seemingly can’t escape. For one, no matter what we wear or do, as women, we’ll always be needlessly critiqued, which means the word will follow us everywhere we go, no matter how much we try to avoid it. Also, something basic shouldn’t be bad. On the contrary, it’s actually a clear indicator that something is well-liked by a large group of people in society. Thus who cares if something is basic or even if you’re basic? In all reality, it might not be as basic and ubiquitous as you think, as we saw with the Barbie costume. Is the fear of this label really worth missing out on stuff you enjoy? I would argue not.
“Something basic shouldn’t be bad.”
Nikita Jethani
So, yeah, maybe I’m basic for having Taylor Swift as my top artist and wanting to dress up as Cowgirl Barbie, but I’d much rather embrace the things I love than try to prove the people I don’t care about wrong.