loading . . . Ep 67: Basic Bitches, Gen Z, & the Power of Aesthetic Stereotypes | A Discussion with Alice Harberd In this episode, Brandon Polite (Knox College | he/him) talks with Alice Harberd (University College London | she/her) about the power of aesthetic stereotypes. We begin by briefly discussing the relationship between stereotypes and aesthetics -- how certain stereotypes have thick aesthetic content associated with them. This leads us to consider an important example: "basic bitches." A basic bitch is the stereotype of a particular kind of white, middle-class woman with quite mainstream aesthetic tastes -- things that are comfortable, cozy, and feminine-coded, and thus are condescendingly looked down on as "simplistic." Harberd believes the stereotype becomes harmful when one shifts from thinking that a woman's tastes are simplistic to thinking that she herself is simplistic -- intellectually, politically, etc. This leads us to discuss how simplicity has been problematically disvalued, especially among philosophers and other academics. From there, we discuss how our fashion choices -- and other ways we present ourselves to others -- can sometimes signal aspects of ourselves (our tastes, group affiliations, etc.) to others. The standard basic bitch outfit (Ugg boots, leggings, oversized sweatshirt, etc.) could be taken to signal something about a person in just the way a typical goth outfit signals something about a person (their love for the macabre, distaste for mainstream attitudes, etc.). We talk about how this can sometimes be positive but is oftentimes problematic -- involving flattening a person to a two-dimensional caricature rather than a complicated, multifaceted, fully three-dimensional person. This leads us to discuss the intersection of the aesthetic and other domains, such as the ethical, social, and political, and how Kant's notion of aesthetic judgments as inherently "disinterested" just doesn't match most of our everyday discourse and experience of the aesthetic. We next turn to discuss what I'll call "intergenerational aesthetic strife" -- that is, difficulties that members of one generation have with the aesthetic practices and tastes of members of another generation. One important example of this is how Gen Xers often complain about Gen Zers wearing t-shirts of bands and musicians they're not fans of, who perhaps they can't even name three songs of. We consider how, for Gen Z, this involves a pure, decontexualized aestheticization of band t-shirts: they wear them just because they look cool or good rather than, as Gen Z would, to signal something about themselves (namely, their fandom). We talk about how why Gen Z may do this in the context of t-shirts, they don't do it in other aesthetic domains like public statues, where they believe context matters in a way that a Boomer is more likely to decontextualize statues of slave owners or Confederate generals. This indicates that Gen Z is less superficial or simplistic than members of other generations often stereotype them as being. We spend the remainder of our discussion discussing a set of related issues on our aesthetic identities: the value (or possible disvalue) of having a unified aesthetic self, of problems with authenticity and the value of comfort in becoming who we want to be, and how our selves are fundamentally malleable and yet coherent in many respects. References: See Alice's contribution to "Are the Kids Alright? On Cottagecore, Quiet Luxury, Clean Girl and Other Internet Aesthetics," edited by Aaron Meskin and Alex King, Aesthetics for Birds, 2024: https://aestheticsforbirds.com/2024/03/07/are-the-kids-alright-on-cottagecore-quiet-luxury-clean-girl-and-other-internet-aesthetics/ Chapters: 0:00 Introductions 0:24 Aesthetics and Stereotypes: The Basics 1:53 Basic Bitches 11:22 Fashion, Projection, & Stereotypes 17:12 Interested Aesthetic Judgments 23:04 Intergenerational Aesthetic Conflict 33:15 Unified (Aesthetic) Selves 41:07 Authenticity & Comfort 46:36 Malleability & Identity 54:09 Conclusion SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL https://www.youtube.com/c/PhilosophersDiscussingArt?sub_confirmation=1 * Subtitles edited by Athko Ehrnstein https://youtu.be/lmxjDAcW3g4