from hip-hop, ironic
based
Meaning
- Confident in your own opinion, regardless of who disagrees.
- Used as a one-word approval of someone’s take.
“Unpopular opinion, but that’s based.”
Where it came from
Once slang for a drug user. Rapper Lil B reclaimed it around 2010 to mean being yourself without fear of judgment, and it spread online from there as a general term of approval.