Personally, I don’t like fall. Fall means school starting, college applications, busy competitions, and a whole ‘nother year until summer vacation. Besides, it’s sad watching the days get shorter, the temperature get colder, and leaves get blown loose from their branches.
What’s especially alienating is when everyone else seems to love fall. Everywhere, I see people raving about pumpkin spice lattes, scented candles, and Gilmore Girls. Maybe I would love fall more if I lived in Stars Hollow, but I still don’t understand this pattern. What confused me even more was when netizens dubbed fall as the “basic white girl season” – I had no idea fall was that huge of a deal! How did we peg that stereotype onto this season?
History
Fall has been associated with school, harvests, and Thanksgiving in the United States. During fall, people feel a refreshing sense of new beginnings (and the urge to buy school or office supplies) long after graduating from school. The proliferation of fresh, local produce at the grocery store or farmer’s market encourages people to try seasonal flavors like pumpkins and apples. People also share the harvest by engaging in social activities, like fall festivals, carnivals, and feasts like Thanksgiving.
Surprisingly, Thanksgiving was once a regional holiday limited to New England. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that Thanksgiving gained national recognition. A nationalistic, whitewashed history of the first Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving recipes spread in national newspapers. Businesses capitalized on this new tradition to sell food, kitchen appliances, and fall decor to women. Housewives everywhere felt compelled to conform to the image and live out the American Dream with their Thanksgivings.
All of these historical factors synonomize fall with nostalgia, family, social gatherings, and warmth in America. These traits are also traditionally feminine. Combined with Thanksgiving marketing strategies, fall has become the season for stereotypical homemakers to enjoy cooking, hosting, and spending time at home with family.
Social Media Trends
Modern women are much more than housewives now, but the marketing strategies and cultural schema have stuck. Starting in the 2010s, netizens have noticed a variety of “basic white girl” essentials, including Taylor Swift, Hydroflasks (and other trendy water bottles), Lululemon, and a fondness for fall. Basic white girls allegedly take aesthetic social media posts in fall foliage, binging fall-themed TV shows, frolicking in their new boots and cozy outfits, and, of course, inhaling pumpkin spice everything. While some think “basic” dismisses the interests of women as shallow, others embrace the label. Even people who aren’t White women post about enjoying fall like a basic white girl! Regardless of one’s stance on this stereotype, it is undoubtedly a pervasive cultural phenomenon.
I’m still not convinced enough to like fall after researching and writing this article, but maybe I’ll dislike it a bit less. After all, fall isn’t just for basic white girls; it’s for anyone to enjoy.
