this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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I thought the whole based/cringe thing was just zoomer slang?
Based started on 4chan. People stole memes from 4chan, where it spread and became Zoomer slang.
Cringe I think has a similar but slightly different etymology; I don't know if it necessarily came from 4chan or if it came from Reddit.
I'm pretty sure it started with Lil B "Thank You Based God".
Lil B was an underground rapper with... varying levels of quality (at least at the time). His thing was calling himself "Based God" as people were calling him "based" as a negative (presumably to mean he was dumb), but thanks to his music and understanding internet culture and turning it in his favour, he managed to turn "based" from something that was negative to a positive.
Then 4chan got ahold of it for Donald Trump's election and that word has never recovered.
Go figure. 4chan was pretty based 10 years ago.
4chan was never based.