chav--explain to a confused expatriate please

Tweak Head

Well-known member
bassnation said:
these people live their lives twice as brightly as everyone else and deserve respect rather than the vile snobbery they get instead.

FFS! I can't believe I just read that, or that no-one here has picked up on it. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but leaving aside the question of the rights and wrongs of mocking or loathing chavs, I can't see a meaning other than that you're saying that these people's lives are somehow brighter, more vibrant, more creative than, say, mine, or even the average person's because they are obsessed with their clothes (or was there some other reason). That is just plain ludicrous.

I'm not trying to be personal here, or to pick a fight with Bassnation, but I couldn't let that statement go unremarked.

And those that suggest that the antisocial behaviour of chavs (or indeed any antisocial behaviour) is somehow "society's fault", i.e. that they don't have a choice as to their behaviour, are as deluded as the mother of three teenage mothers who blamed the schools and the lack of sex education. IMHO.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
what i've found weird about the chav term is how incredibly strongly it has encoded my reaction to the people who live around me (smack in the middle of the estates with no other posh upwardly-mobile twats for miles)

suddenly i'll look at a nice young gel, and i'll be thinking: "shes a chav" such is the, sometimes unpleasant, power of language
 

mpc

wasteman
WOEBOT said:
what i've found weird about the chav term is how incredibly strongly it has encoded my reaction to the people who live around me (smack in the middle of the estates with no other posh upwardly-mobile twats for miles)

suddenly i'll look at a nice young gel, and i'll be thinking: "shes a chav" such is the, sometimes unpleasant, power of language

haha. (i'm not sure if that was supposed to be funny, but i laughed)

unrelated, but, at uni there was a girl i'd see everyday who dressed up as a school girl. she'd come into the coffee shop thing everyday (where i'd be wasting my life away between lectures) and buy a coffee and leave. i'd also see her coming in some days from the toward the tube station. i had a theory that she was pretending to her parents that she was still at school, but was actually going to uni.

they had a "chav" night at my uni earlier this year. i saw pictures afterwards. people dressed up in sportswear and some strange girls put balloons beneath their tops, symbolising that all chavs are pregnant. quite interesting stuff.
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
mpc said:
unrelated, but, at uni there was a girl i'd see everyday who dressed up as a school girl. she'd come into the coffee shop thing everyday (where i'd be wasting my life away between lectures) and buy a coffee and leave. i'd also see her coming in some days from the toward the tube station. i had a theory that she was pretending to her parents that she was still at school, but was actually going to uni.

she works in the main library. she's nice.
 

ambrose

Well-known member
is this ucl (science) library?

if so, i know her....

she isnt pretending to her parents that she is going to school, at any rate.
 

Culla

Cog Diss
Chavs, clothes and class

Round the way of my youth (Surrey/Hampshire borders) if you were “chavving” something you were stealing it. The definition of a pikey was a gypsy who had moved into a house (which ironically, given the snobbery, would have been many of our families a few generations before)

The chav phenomenon broadly refers to most of the descriptions mentioned before in this thread – and has united the nation’s typical class snobbery and regional terminology (ie – northeasterners used the term ‘charver’). Part of this is the complete sartorial hegemony of sportswear, providing easy identifiers. Cull has debated around the issue in a few pieces, and I love the twist that east London grimeheads apply to it – using the word to refer to people from the suburbs with more money but no class (BB’s Saskia and Maxwell, eg):
http://www.whorecull.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=42
http://www.whorecull.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=42

As for the latest point – the youth trend towards very low-slung jeans seems to be cross-strata. It doesn’t make me feel middle class; it makes me feel old…
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Haven't read all of this thread thoroughly, so sorry if I'm reiterating points that have already been made, but here's my tuppence worth:

I grew up in north Kent, and I'm pretty sure that 'chav' has been used on and off for a long time there. To me (and being blissfully unaware of the etymology), it was always used to designate aggressive and unpleasant people who used ignorance as a badge of honour, and I would never have applied the word to anyone who didn't fit that description. The fact that many of said people seemed to move into wearing baseball caps, white trainers and,, later, Burberry, seemed to cement the relation between the word and a particular code of appearance.
 

Paqamaq

Member
baboon2004 said:
I grew up in north Kent, and I'm pretty sure that 'chav' has been used on and off for a long time there.


You're right, it has been used for a long time in the north Kent area, in fact I heard that the word actually derives from the town of Chatham, and not the gypsy word for child mentioned further up. Have been unable to verify that though.
 

run_time

Well-known member
Article in today's Guardian "Bottom of the Class"

Was interested to see an article in today's Guardian looking at 'the chav' phenomenon...by this I'm talking more its use as a derogatory label rather than as a descriptor. Mirrored many of my own viewpoints in that the term is used generally as a virtual stick to beat 'the other' and has its roots very much lying in the old class system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329454896-103680,00.html

Don't really find myself identifying with the commonly used charicatures of working or middle class but don't see that as an excuse to have a go at them
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
baboon2004 said:
Haven't read all of this thread thoroughly, so sorry if I'm reiterating points that have already been made, but here's my tuppence worth:

I grew up in north Kent, and I'm pretty sure that 'chav' has been used on and off for a long time there. To me (and being blissfully unaware of the etymology), it was always used to designate aggressive and unpleasant people who used ignorance as a badge of honour, and I would never have applied the word to anyone who didn't fit that description. The fact that many of said people seemed to move into wearing baseball caps, white trainers and,, later, Burberry, seemed to cement the relation between the word and a particular code of appearance.
I'm originally from east kent. Looking back, 'chav' has always had a bit of a dual meaning depending on the context and, I suppose, on the chav in question - partly it's a youth tribe seen from a neutral point of view as being another set of fashions and styles, and partly a youth tribe as seen from the rather partisan point of view of a member of a different youth tribe somewhat further down the food chain as being some violently conformist tendancies. The parts of chavviness that you objected to weren't the trainers and trackies so much as the tendancy to heave bricks at you in the park.

It was never entirely a class thing, either - a lot of the chavs I knew at school were from very nice middle class families. I get almost as bothered by the Burchillesque argument that ignorance and stupidity are exclusively working class qualities so objecting to ignorance and stupidity is class prejudice as I do by all the media people who've just discovered that 'the chav phenomenon' gives them the chance to exhibit their prejudices and be thought clever for it.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I was always fascinated by the appropriation of Burberry check and how it affected the reputation of the entire brand. Bet the Chief Execs didn't see that coming! Did Owen Jones discuss this phenomenon in his PHD thesis/book?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
miaow!

I think he did, but he's since been involved in another clothing storm: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ent...interview-clothes_uk_58ea7edfe4b00de141043815 . Nice to see him predicting the disastrous Labour election result, too. He lost me after his turncoat act to endorse Owen Smith. Owen fucking Smith! To be fair, he did describe himself as delusional for doing that...before forgetting his delusions to return to trashing Labour's 'collective failure' in that interview of April 2017.
 
Last edited:

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
There were never this many Owens around when I was a kid. Where have they all come from?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Chavs never really existed.

Do poor people on estates still exist? Yes they do - but a lot of them are being forced out of social housing in desirable areas / into the private rented sector.

Are they subject to quite as much scrutiny and derision in the press as they were? No, not quite so much afaik.
 
Top