NOT BASED
When Lil B introduced “based” to the world in 2007, the word had strictly positive connotations. “Based means being yourself,” he told Complex shortly thereafter. “Not being scared of what people think about you. Not being afraid to do what you wanna do. Being positive. When I was younger, based was a negative term that meant like dopehead, or basehead. People used to make fun of me. They was like, ‘You’re based.’ They’d use it as a negative. And what I did was turn that negative into a positive.”
But now, the alt-right has appropriated the term and applied it to their folk heroes — the most recent example being Kyle Rittenhouse. Zaron Burnett III looked into the ongoing phenomenon of far-right groups co-opting Black slang, and explains why this form of digital blackface is harmful and derogatory.
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