TinyLittlePuni

I remember an assignment we had was reading Chavs by Owen Jones, and based on that book it seems like sociologists agree that chav was never a subculture, it was the upper classes taking ordinary working class young people fashion and turned it into a made up, monstrous delinquent subculture to paint the working class people as bad or something. Owen Jones said it was not a subculture and nobody unironically identified as a chav. It was purely a classist insult.

For people who aren't in the know, "chav" is this mythical, evil subculture the upper class journalists made up specifically to demonize and mock the poor. It's a gross caricature of working class people. It never was a subculture. These people are terrified of seeing men in tracksuits because the chav is depicted as dressing in one. I've seen Reddit posts where people will claim they crossed the street after seeing men in tracksuits because they "don't want to be beat to death by chavs".

Basically, these people are seeing normal working class fashion trends and thinking it's what amounts to a drop bear.

Not saying that there aren't bad people who dress in that extremely popular/default fashion style (streetwear), there are, just like how you get bad people in any other clothes style, but the subculture they're so scared of doesn't even exist. I find it kind of hilarious, like a grown adult being scared of a boogeyman hiding in their closet.

For people who aren't in the know, "chav" is this mythical, evil subculture the upper class journalists made up specifically to demonize and mock the poor. It's a gross caricature of working class people. It never was a subculture. These people are terrified of seeing men in tracksuits because the chav is depicted as dressing in one. I've seen Reddit posts where people will claim they crossed the street after seeing men in tracksuits because they "don't want to be beat to death by chavs".

Basically, these people are seeing normal working class fashion trends and thinking it's what amounts to a drop bear.

Not saying that there aren't bad people who dress in that extremely popular/default fashion style (streetwear), there are, just like how you get bad people in any other clothes style, but the subculture they're so scared of doesn't even exist. I find it kind of hilarious, like a grown adult being scared of a boogeyman hiding in their closet.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/44683036

Explanation:

spoiler

Both twist something (staples of young white working class fashion, tracksuits, gold, caps, and trainers, a cute Australian animal) into something dangerous (chav/drop bear) and that caricature is wrongfully said to be it's own thing (a subculture/a carnivorous marsupial species - in reality, sociologists have confirmed there was no "chav" subculture, nobody or almost nobody identified as one, it was something made up by upper class tabloids to demonise the white British working class, like how zoologists have said there's no "drop bear" species, it was something to make people fearful of Koalas) in order to make people fearful (chav especially is riddled with classism, though.)

In my early twenties. I live on a council estate and walking outside in a trackie, some Nikes and a baseball cap is just the most popular fashion amongst the working class population. The Chav thing, from my understanding, is a twisted caricature of that plus there was this narrative that said twisted caricature of popular working class street fashion was this bad subculture. In reality there’s no Chav subculture and it was a myth to scapegoat the working class. But I am wondering now, do people still see people like me and assume we are Chavs?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43906664

Just one example of many and another off the top of my head

I do remember while there were some cases of teens killing people in the 2000's, they were few and far between, now it's like you got to watch out for teens rather than adults and there's a very potent hazard of being killed by a pack.

What happened? it doesn't seem to be affecting one area of the UK either but most places of the UK at once. what's going on with British teens?

Just one example of many and another off the top of my head

I do remember while there were some cases of teens killing people in the 2000's, they were few and far between, now it's like you got to watch out for teens rather than adults and there's a very potent hazard of being killed by a pack.

What happened? it doesn't seem to be affecting one area of the UK either but most places of the UK at once. what's going on with British teens?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/38193993

I learned a new word, and it turns out the word is a slur for a person who is working class. That seems very nasty, considering that statistically speaking, working class people are the majority of Britain. Most British people I know online are against racial slurs yet throw around the slur "chav" like it's nothing. Why?

I learned a new word, and it turns out the word is a slur for a person who is working class. That seems very nasty, considering that statistically speaking, working class people are the majority of Britain. Most British people I know online are against racial slurs yet throw around the slur "chav" like it's nothing. Why?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37955021

Cross-posting since this community is also of relevance to my question. To clarify, the city I visited is Wolverhampton.

I'm Greek + English, used to live in the UK years ago, and I visited again see a friend in a new city. What surprised me was how everyone (not literally, but a very large portion) seemed to have their own distinct look.

We went into a busy McDonald's and about a quarter of the people there were dressed head to toe in Nike or Adidas tracksuits, baseball caps, trainers with the bubble soles, and loads of gold jewellery, such as bracelets, rings on multiple fingers, the works. It was always in combination. They looked a bit like white gangstas, or early Eminem cosplayers. One of them was playing this kind of funky house music that had pitched-up vocals on their phone. All of these people were young, middle aged and old.

I mentioned it to my friend and she just laughed and said, "Yeah, that's just the style here." Wherever we went, up town, in a bus, in a chip shop, there were people dressed like that everywhere.

Is that actually a thing? Do different UK cities have their own fashion vibe and I just never noticed?

I'm Greek + English, used to live in the UK years ago, and I visited again see a friend in a new city. What surprised me was how everyone (not literally, but a very large portion) seemed to have their own distinct look.

We went into a busy McDonald's and about a quarter of the people there were dressed head to toe in Nike or Adidas tracksuits, baseball caps, trainers with the bubble soles, and loads of gold jewellery, such as bracelets, rings on multiple fingers, the works. It was always in combination. They looked a bit like white gangstas, or early Eminem cosplayers. One of them was playing this kind of funky house music that had pitched-up vocals on their phone. All of these people were young, middle aged and old.

I mentioned it to my friend and she just laughed and said, "Yeah, that's just the style here." Wherever we went, up town, in a bus, in a chip shop, there were people dressed like that everywhere.

Is that actually a thing? Do different UK cities have their own fashion vibe and I just never noticed?

She called him out for making inappropriate sexual comments online to someone she knew, who was 15 at the time. He ended up getting banned. This caused this man to develop a spiteful obsession with her because according to him, she is slandering him as a pedo.

A few months ago he found her social media and his obsession is now in full force. He's boasted about mass reporting her, making false accusations against her, and replying to irrelevant Tweets with accusations in an attempt to stir up drama. She didn't even mention him or talk about him, he just replied to random Tweets with confrontations and when she refused to engage, he replied again using his sockpuppet accounts agreeing with his own reply. He's also said that he's downloaded her photos to his computer (including ones that are a year or two old) and uploaded them to a porn site. She doesn't wear makeup so it's immediately obvious just by looking at her photos she's under 18. When people confront him he uses DARVO tactics. On some sites he's on he pretends to be civil but on his own site his motivations are much more clear. Several individuals in his friends group have allegedly either owned or defended CP.

The lengths he'll go to in order to find every social media she has is insane and based on his post timings he's often staying awake all night to do this.

And yes, she has reported him, but sometimes the moderation is useless and he's very good at using DARVO to try and make it seem she's the one harassing him. He's also using sockpuppet accounts to make it seem like multiple people are making the same accusations when really it's all just him.