If You Don't See Yourself in Your Bike Basket, Accessorize Harder
In an age of overwhelming personalization, even the quotidian bicycle basket becomes a mirror for self-reflection, especially when the quotidian basket is attached to the most quotidian of bikes.
It's the sort of organic marketing that bike-sharing services like Lyft's CitiBike and Lime dream of: A horde of hip youngs incidentally promoting their brands by snapping candids en route to nowhere in particular.
Because, yes, a surprising number of bike-sharing selfies have quietly pedaled to the forefront of more than a few trend-first timelines, with the riders' baskets often sitting near center frame.
In the same way that the unassuming TSA bin birthed its own aesthetic, these scuffed plastic baskets are, in their own way, a form of personal expression.
Some are over-accessorized in the vein of so many handbags of the now. Many are modestly adorned with essentials in a way that recalls otherwise omnipresent sneakers being made mildly distinct.
Some are left entirely vacant, perhaps to frame the cyclist as sleek urban nomad.
These candid bike seat snaps are fairly common come Fashion Week, when the young, the stylish and the social media-adept descend upon the world's fashion capitals, capturing media res selfies as they flit to runway shows and network-y dinners atop borrowed bicycles.
Perhaps that's why they've started spreading only recently: the most recent fashion week cycle only just ended and, surely, restless outfit posters want to continue posting outfits, especially in the context of getting all dolled-up with somewhere to go.
Because, sometimes, the photo-taker is really just highlighting their look (and themselves by extension), relishing in the unbothered je ne sais quoi of a selfie snapped mid-ride.
Here, the bike basket isn't the star of the show though it often remains remarkably present.
Even when barely visible, it's a sort of knowing wink that the self-conscious subject isn't too good for the same beat-up bikes shared with the other kadjillion city-dwellers who tap in to scoot around.
This framing is both modest and modestly aggrandizing, as the subject contrasts their polished poise against their tarnished chariot.
But that's only half the equation.
On the flip, some of these snapshots photos focus entirely on the basket.
This again channels the humble juxtaposition of a well-worn CitiBike basket and the pristine commodities carried inside.
But this approach simultaneously recalls the frequency of contemporary photo dumps fleshed out with a blurry photo or two, something that shows the unpretentiously human touch of the person curating the digital slideshow.
It's the sort of spur-of-the-moment fare typically best-left to short-lived mediums like Instagram Stories, which is why most of the bike basket aesthetic content that lingers is coming from brands (and trend-hungry marketing teams).
Either way, the bike basket aesthetic was probably inevitable.
Amidst the rise of customization culture — the same movement that's inspired youth culture's contemporary collector craze and some of the more outré styling inclinations — it wouldn't have been long until even the bike baskets became personalized, even in some small way.
The fact that they're so omnipresent, so fabulously uncool in their plainness, only makes them that much more appealing as a canvas for one's own good taste.
And, thus, even if it's in inverse, the perfect bike basket is one that reflects the selfie-taker.
If it's full of stuff — great! It showcases the disparate tastes of the rider, someone who carries around just so much cool stuff that they need this temporary storage nook to carry it all.
If it's empty — cool! It merely means that the bike rider is chicly hands-free, no stress and no mess.
All that really matters is that it's captured for posterity, even if short-lived.
Because if a blissfully brief and supremely stylish bike ride wasn't lensed, it didn't really happen at all.
