What the heck does "Based" mean?


How do you do, fellow kids?

I'm no whipper-snapper, but I'm still hip and I can pick up the lingo that the kids are laying down.

The kids these days, they keep talking about "based." Based this, based that, based stickman, based mom. You get the picture. What does it mean? 

Essentially, "based" is the counterpart to "woke." As an in-group term, they both describe one who "gets it." Another way to understand it is that both the based and the woke would regard the other as cringe.

But it's even more fun than that: "Based," as used above, comes from "basehead," meaning someone who freebases cocaine. The term was used frequently in rap, where the meaning shifted from getting high to merely acting high or eccentric, to not caring what anyone else thinks, and eventually meaning simply being true to oneself, exemplified in the self-bestowed nickname of rapper Lil B, "Based God." 

Insofar as "based" means the same thing as "woke" but in an oppositional way, one can infer that "based" means being true to a clear, fixed principle as opposed to the apparently uncertain and shifting principles of critical theory and intersectional Marxism. It evokes the classic imagery of God's prophet against the mob.

As such, "based" serves as a fantastic example of convergent meaning. "Based" has come back to a meaning close to the root "basis," meaning foundation. The etymological path is actually quite clear when one notes that "freebase" is a term borrowed from chemistry, relating to chemical bases. This definition comes from an early description of the acid-base reaction wherein substances fitting that description provided a "base" for the neutral salts (i.e. crystals) that resulted. 

Full circle! 

Sources: The fuggin' internet, man! 

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