General Discussion

In slang, "based" means being authentically yourself, confident in your own opinions (even controversial ones), and not caring about others' judgment, originating from rapper Lil B's "BasedGod" persona, though it also has roots in "basehead" (drug user) and was later co-opted by certain online political groups, notes Wiktionary, FamilyEducation and Quora. It's used as a compliment to describe someone cool, agreeable, or unapologetically true to themselves, like saying "That's so based!" for an honest opinion or action, according to FamilyEducation and HiNative. The rapper Lil B popularized the term to mean being yourself and free from others' opinions, reclaiming it from its drug-related "basehead" origins, explains FamilyEducation, Wiktionary and Facebook.