The President of the Harvard Lampoon Has a Message About Basic Bitches
Photograph by Jesse Burke for “Too Black To Fail“
Alexis Wilkinson is the first African American and female president of the Harvard Lampoon, and it turns out she’s actually just as badass as those Lampoon folks are all hyped up to be.
Wilkinson wrote a blog post published on Wednesday for big-time, multifaceted fashion company Opening Ceremony in light of New York Fashion Week. The post, titled “On the Origin of Bad Bitches,” actually has little to do with fashion, but instead oh-so-accurately looks at the vagaries of bitchdom in all their truest forms.
With regard to the ubiquity of basic bitches, she says, they’ve been around for nearly 200 years since Darwin’s written work on natural selection—”in short, when Darwin dropped the scientific equivalent of Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City.” (Points for a On the Origin of Species comparison that doesn’t go way over our non-Harvard-bred heads.)
Although the concept of being “basic” is thrown around on the internet and among everyone who thinks they’re Beyonce, Wilkinson sets a realistic tone as to why being “basic” is ill-fated, and proposes a better empowering standard instead. The full post is worth a read, but here’s what you need to know, according to one of Harvard’s finest:
Everyone is basically basic.
Wilkinson: “The trappings of basicness are the components of modern existence at its least common denominators: a pumpkin-spice latte in her French-manicured hand, a complete lack of self-awareness, and a vocal inflection that makes statements sound like questions … Her only area of study is pop culture, and even that she has yet to master as she mistakenly uses ‘turn up’ as a noun.”
One “needn’t look further than a city-block radius on any given day” for a basic bitch. It’s sad, but true. So that girl sitting next to you on the MBTA while you read this is most likely basic.
Dudes aren’t excluded from being basic.
Wilkinson: “Basic boys think their feverish grip on antiquated concepts of masculinity somehow makes them different, or more real, than guys who don’t need to brawl or watch sports to feel like valid humans. These bros ain’t loyal, and they wear their disloyalty as a badge of honor, not realizing it makes them all exactly the same.”
Be weary of basicness in all genders. That dude with his light beer and flip-flops is not better than you.
The Bad Bitch is the most revolutionary.
Wilkinson: “Where the basic bitch sees an obstacle, the Bad Bitch sees an opportunity. Where the basic bitch is stagnant, the Bad Bitch is a process. Where the basic bitch is, well, basic, the Bad Bitch, like the evolution and life itself, is nothing if not complex.”
The queen has spoken, my friends, in all her witty nature. Alexis Wilkinson is the real deal. Bow down.
