To Bae or Not to Bae

I do not have a boyfriend.

But that’s not the reason why I am utterly and wholeheartedly annoyed at the word bae. How can one not cringe when the word is probably as ubiquitous as a Kardashian? It’s sprawling the world, festering every mind of every millennial (and even those above 30), like a virus that its welcoming hosts actually harbor and enjoy. My first encounter with this bug of a word was in Pharrell’s hit single “Come Get It Bae.” I would hear it on the radio, and being unaware of the word, I would sing come get it babe! It was not until a few Instagram encounters that I had a slight grasp of its meaning. Out of nowhere, my pun-addicted classmates began to use this word that I have never heard of. One picture was of this picturesque landscape: “Down by the bae”, was the caption. My cousin posted a photo of herself on vacation, and the accompanying caption read “baesic”. Even the most ordinary photos get the same treatment, whether intended or unintended by the user. Another friend of mine posted a Halloween photo (they donned a Risky Business look), and the fifth comment goes “What a bae”—how unexpected.

The word’s history can be traced back to the 1500s when it was used to refer to sheep sounds. Its rise in popular culture though, began as early as 2005. According to Whitman of Visual Thesaurus, it originated from African American English, in the same way that boo was formed. It found its way into rap songs and later on, into the greatest validation of pop culture success: memes. In 2014, when Pharrell dropped that single featuring Miley Cyrus, everyone wanted to come and get it.      

At present, what does this word exactly mean? How can you clearly explain it to the next tita who asks you for its definition (with its pronunciation being her primary inquiry, of course)? Type in bae on Google and results vary from the obvious internet slang, articles, blog posts, and even a very out of place aerospace company called BAE Systems. The word could even be Bachelor of Agricultural Engineering, if you will it. But alas, one must resort to the ever-reliable Urban Dictionary. The top definition states: “The most fucking annoying way to say girlfriend, boyfriend, crush, or any other sort of significant other”. While others might argue that it’s simply an acronym for “before anyone else”. The last entry described it as the word “used by ghetto people to address their significant other because they have found themselves too lazy to pronounce the entire word "babe".

As simple and straightforward as all the captions, comments, and definitions are, my problem is this: I still don’t know what bae means, and that’s why it makes me cringe. It’s difficult to pinpoint a clear-cut definition mainly because the word’s been thrown at different people, in different settings, and in different contexts.

I try to hack this term’s elusiveness by scouring the web for instances wherein I could probably understand (at least a little bit) why the word is used. I end up at memecenter.com, the “best collection of funny bae pictures”. There are pages full of those badly edited photos of couples, screenshots of text messages to the bae, hundreds of gifs, and even squirrels, cats, and dogs (because apparently, cuddling bae is like cuddling your dog). One recurring theme that I notice though, would be sex. Words associated with sex are explicitly mentioned in most memes, and are only subtly referred to in some—but I am 100% positive that they are talking about sex. Case in point: one post was of a screenshot of texts between one bae to another. “Bae come over :)”, the text read. “I can’t I’m on the rocket to Mars,” bae replies. “Aw, but I’m home alone :(“, the next text says. The screenshot is then followed by a gif of a rocket abruptly landing from the sky. There’s another one of similar innuendos, but instead of bae coming from Mars, bae is just “swimming” but eventually dashes off when he finds out that his bae is home alone. This last one made me crack up the most: A girl texts “Come over,” but unfortunately, bae says he has “gotta watch the house”. A gif of a house being transported upon a large truck implies that bae will get to see bae.

With the majority of the word’s users being the youth, it’s not surprising to discover how sexually aggressive this word can get. I’m only 19, and I can understand how people my age feel when someone hot af passes by, or when your TV show crush pops up on screen. Although infatuation and lust are typically taboo (they’re definitely not things to bring up during a Sunday family lunch), they are definitely universal. And maybe the word bae eases things up a bit. It allows one to express sexuality without being too explicit and R-rated. It even makes sexuality humorous, which is probably what we need in this overwhelming modern society. So does this word dissolve sexual tension? Well, I guess it depends on how well you could cope with “not being able to see bae”.

Another aspect of bae that simply cannot be dismissed (ever!) would be food. Yes, food—that  basic necessity for survival, glorified through hi-res photos of french fries, burgers dripping with cheese, red velvet cupcakes, ice cream, and of course, pizza.  You’re not a millennial unless you have this crazy obsession. Whenever I’m online, there is an 80% chance that I will come across a tweet saying, “Pizza is bae,” or maybe, “This midnight snack is bae huhu.” Apparently, the whole world thinks that food is bae. As I continue this investigation—my hunt for definition—I strike gold. On Instagram, there is this account with the handle @cookingforbae. Since bae is typically associated with feel-good vibes and fluttering hearts, I clicked on the link thinking that the photos would be your usual food porn. However, I was served the exact opposite. What welcomed me were low-res, downright ugly pictures of cooking gone wrong. I could hear Gordon Ramsay screaming in my head. I later on learned that the objective of the account is to represent people’s “hopes and dreams [that] sit at a table [and are] then crushed by the nightmare that is bae’s cooking.”

So, in essence: food is love, and bae is love. Therefore, food is bae.

In relation to pizza being elevated to boyfriend/girlfriend status, I guess I can understand where this is coming from. Humans feel high degrees of emotion every now and then (just imagine the scale of emotions that we, the youth, feels…). We all get excited about everything, and when we do get depressed, it comes down to a level wherein our Twitter feeds sound like the apocalypse is coming. We enjoy verbalizing what we feel, what we stand for, and even the littlest things that we think of—that’s what Snapchat’s for! And so, maybe bae is just like our proliferating world of social media: it allows us to democratize our intense emotions because let’s face it, they can get pretty overwhelming. Pizza is bae. Three words, but it does say a lot.

On the other hand, this whole @cookingforbae movement (they’ve got 147k followers, by the way), could be an inconspicuous representation of how, in modern society, food can be an important aspect of relationships. I hear countless stories of how my cousins and friends randomly receive food from their boyfies. They get uber kilig, and naturally, I get uber jealous. So could this be that food is all the more an expression of love and affection? Well, according to the plethora of memes, bae likes food more than flowers.

“Yeah I would bae, bae it up. She is a legend. You kidding me—‘Hit me baby one more time’. That’s like one of the greatest songs ever written.”

That was Justin Bieber’s response when he was asked about Britney Spears during a game called “To Bae or not to Bae” at an interview with a radio station. He said the same thing about Jennifer Lawrence: “Bae for sure.” The most evident and probably most popular use of the word bae is as a term of endearment. For the lucky young ones and twenty-somethings who are blessed with a significant other, bae is usually used to refer to that special someone. This dating term is interspersed in tweets, Instagram posts, to even the most ordinary conversations IRL. On Instagram, search for #bae, and you’ll be presented with over eight million posts (mostly of girls in provocative clothing, but mostly of dating nonetheless). There are videos of couples going ice skating, beach selfies, and photos of awkward teenagers expressing their love to the whole IG universe. On the other hand, Twitter is prime breeding ground for bae, with Kim Kardashian blazing the trail (thus declaring the word everlasting): “Me & my bae out today…”, one tweet reads.

Though bae puts a stamp on your special someone’s ass (signifying that he/she is your property) just like the words boyfriend/girlfriend, what makes bae unique is its casual and less overwhelming tone. If ever I do have someone special (and hopefully I do), and we were not on the lines of “serious dating”, I would probably settle with the word bae. It does the job without being too terrifying.

Maybe that’s why millennials have become total advocates for the term—because we are still young for things to be taken too seriously. Being young after all can be quite vulnerable. It is a time wherein everything and anything can happen, and probably, there are some people who just don’t want to feel tied down to a single person. This is not to suggest that cheating on your boyfriend or girlfriend is fine. It is also not to suggest that commitment is wrong. However, for those who just want someone special, for those who want to feel kilig but not in a heavy Nicholas Sparks kind of way, then being someone’s bae is the best route. It gives us that option—that in-between longing—because maybe, we as a youth have the tendency to be indecisive, and so we need something that’s just chill. According to baewatch who commented on an article in The American Reader, bae takes that ambivalent side of love that we can’t quite articulate and makes it “kewt and trendy”.

Now, the question is: what’s with bae? Why did it replace that other word, babe?

To be honest, I’m not so sure. Although babe has been memefied in the form of the Rachel McAdams “Hey Babe” meme, the word has never reached bae cult status in terms of popular culture and trends. Pizza is babe. Ian Veneracion is babe. When babe comes home…I guess these permutations just won’t work out because the word hasn’t been used in such contexts. On the other hand, what makes bae extremely popular could be explained by its versatility—even single people like me can use the term and not in the romantic kind of way. Heck, it is also used to refer to a friend; making bae all the more multifaceted since it can be used in the platonic sense. It is amazing to think that this day and age has used this term to make love and affection universal and accessible to anyone and everyone (well, maybe not to your tita).

On the contrary, did bae even replace anything to begin with?

With all the thirst, food porn, lovey-dovey connotations, and its nuances as a term of endearment, maybe bae is something new. It could be that it is simply a word derived from a bunch of other words like babe, boyfriend/girlfriend, or boyfie, and was then given its own genetic spin based on this modern era’s ever-changing preferences (cuz we are erratic af). As a result, it’s this hybrid created by this generation, for this generation. There may not be a singular definition right now, and I’m not so sure that there ever will be, but we’re definitely onto something. So bae it up, if you want to.

REFERENCES 

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