How to be a #basicbro: meet the new online clichés who take sunset selfies and snap their protein shakes
Social trends predate the internet; people have been interested in people for many hundreds of years. However, documentation was limited, and trends were recognised as such in retrospect. Now, hashtags collect people and images, memes replicate, and social movements emerge and evolve in real-time.
People in these movements exist IRL but they are more alive online. At a concert, Directioners are just a group of people who bought tickets to the same show; online, they are an army. Online, #bae is your partner in crime; offline, he’s just your boyfriend. And the internet is the #basicbitch’s stomping ground — somehow they look anaemic in the severe lights of Starbucks (life in #nofilter LITERALLY isn’t worth living).
For a long time, these online groups were predominantly female. Fewer men use Facebook and Instagram, which is where these tribes present themselves; also, men are islands. However, this is changing with the emergence of the #basicbro.
Its specific traits are yet to crystallise; at the moment, it is a series of sub-tribes answering to one nebulous bro. It means different things to different people, which is all the more interesting.
For example, to Lena Dunham, the #basicbro exists chiefly on OKCupid. On her podcast, Women of the Hour, she invites a single colleague to talk about the three basic bros of OKCupid. There is Patrick Dateman (“simultaneously the most boring and the most terrifying person you’ve ever met”), who works in banking, attended an elite college and whose signature date move is “twist[ing] his perfect teeth in an approximation of a grin, and buying you another $18 cocktail at this ‘totally hipster’ speakeasy that’s been featured in Time Out at least five times”.
There is Vinjamin Diesel: “tank tops and bulging biceps ahoy, and at least one tattoo embodying his life philosophy — something like ‘no regrets’ or ‘to the nights I can’t remember with the people I’ll never forget’”. Last is “Joss Wheedle”, the indie guy who “isn’t like those jocks and bros” but does not see the “irony of priding oneself as an individual whose identity is defined by consumable media and collectible products”.
These are blunt American translations of British types, though British #basicbros prefer Tinder to OKCupid. Furthermore, the Tinder #basicbro shares more with his fellow man than Lena’s disparate types. He always has four pictures, of which one will be posed with an attractive female friend, and one with a less attractive male friend, and one will likely be him on holiday, possibly taken at sunset (and probably taken by his Dad — it was a family holiday to Sardinia). His biog will include his job, “running”, “music” and at least one exclamation mark (if he’s new to London, he’s likely “looking for adventure!”; if he’s secretly jaded, he’s “looking to meet someone fun and easygoing!”). He will enjoy the gym, though insist it isn’t his life (it isn’t, but it’s many of his evenings). Changes in wardrobe demarcate class and taste, but the essential hallmarks remain the same.
For others, the #basicbro exists only as a parody: the Instagram account @brosbeingbasic (390,000 followers) sends up the common visual motifs of the basic bitch. So there are six lads cosied up around a big cocktail sipping from straws; there are lads posing in bubble baths, and lads posing in swimwear. There are lads posing with pumpkins, and lads posing in bathroom mirrors. However, as anyone who ever started using the word “babe” knows, the evolution from irony to sincerity can catch you unawares: one day, #basicbro is satirical, the next it is a way of life, its existence validated by think-pieces.
The #basicbro is still finding his feet (which will probably be clad in New Balance). But when the memes settle, he’ll be another hashtag legend (#legend).
ArticleWhy #basicbro is the next hashtag legendLena DunhamInstagramFacebookSunset selfies and protein shakes — the Starbucks-loving, clichéd ladies of the web have a male rival, says Phoebe Luckhurst
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