Chavs are a British mythical creature that only snobs are scared of

Comments

• HexesofVexes@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  No… that culture of violence was very very real. The stories may sound ridiculous, but that’s just because of how extreme that culture was.

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  • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I’m not saying that violent people don’t exist. I was saying Chavs don’t exist. Chav is a hateful synonym for a working class person and the middle and upper class people made Chavs up to paint the entire working class as violent and animalistic.

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    • HexesofVexes@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Chav is not a term to describe a working class person - it’s a term to describe a subset of youths who are pretty much feral.

      By feral I mean aggressive and “antisocial” in the “are you looking at me pal” kind of response to eye contact. In essence, a youth whose primary strategy is to escalate to conflict by the shortest possible route in the hopes of winning status.

      What that has to do with coming from an honest working family is beyond me!

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    • HexesofVexes@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Reply to edited chart - violence against adult was not as common. Violence against other kids however…

      Also, 1995–2002 was peak chav ;)

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    • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      In my experience, Chav has never been used to describe a normal working class person. In Northern Ireland, we had our own variant “Spide” or “Smick” which were generally more tame. Less burberry more tracksuits

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Dirty tricks, MI6

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• AngryishHumanoid@lemmynsfw.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Again with this guy pushing a chav war. You’ve been doing this for weeks at least. You are the one claiming chavs aren’t real and that any use of the term is actually referring to all working class people when that is NOT how the term is used. I honestly feel like you must be a troll at this point for how hard you are pushing a false narrative.

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  • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    It is how it’s used. There’s evidence that backs this up.

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    • AngryishHumanoid@lemmynsfw.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Such wonderful evidence you’ve cited. So if I link sources showing that is not the majority use of the term you’ll let it go, right?

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• Zahille7@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Aren’t chavs the tracksuit wearing shitheads, like the thugs working for Eggsy’s stepdad in the first Kingsman?

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  • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Most young working class people wear tracksuits. The “Chav” appearance is literally just your regular working class person, except they’re normal people, not savages.

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• Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  What is it with a bunch of bad takes being posted on this community recently

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  • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    How is this a bad take?

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    • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Because chavs existed. I saw them. My siblings saw them. There are various news reports. Not all working class people are chavs.

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• kip@piefed.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  there is a grain of truth in this. chav culture certainly existed and still exists in the south of england but they came in around 2000-2010 or so for much greater demonisation than their northern (scally) or scottish (ned) counterparts, likely due to UK media being concentrated in the south

  the great chav danger was blown wildly out of proportion and i’ve no doubt the term expanded beyond the original sense of a sort of tracksuit/burberry clad antisocial petty criminal youth to include just about any working class kid in the minds of home counties handbag clutchers

  so to say they never existed is false, and to say they never caused anyone any bother is false. but the middle class media confected version of them never existed in any great number either

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  • bryndos@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    We called them "charvers" or "a charva" up north as long as i can remember in school , certainly well back into the mid 1990s.
    I'd not say it was a middle class term at all though, more sub-cultural within lower classes. Probably the more vocal alt-types used it as an insult/provocation to the more obnoxious trev/sharon types. There's a lot of subcultures and just different people within the lower classes especially at school. Middle class kids at school would keep their heads down and keep out of it for the most part. Upper class kids didn't exist - i assume they were away off in posh schools suffering whatever abuse leads to people like michael gove..

    I'd agree that charvers were a small, but obnoxiously vocal, minority of the lower classes. Much worse at school though with kids being kids and all. But its also something people could grow out of in a few years, or just after a bit of cold turkey, more behavioural/immaturity than class.

    You could probably also trace it back to things like football hooliganism - a fairly easily avoided minority - but not imaginary.
    Maybe the press latched on to it after most of the football firms were locked up and they needed to fill some column inches.

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    • kip@piefed.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      good points, the inter class rivalry in particular. i think it’s a reasonable guess that the term lost its more specific original sense when it escaped containment and got into the mouths of littlejohn et al but just saying middle class was reductive. sun/mirror hacks would have been in on the action too

      i had heard of chav being derived from charva but never heard it said personally - i’m from the south though

      re hooligans there’s definite similarities but chavs lack the same kind of rallying point so were more dispersed. maybe some chavs got promoted to casuals

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• sirico@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Grew up in the era there were definitely chavs it wasn’t a class thing either as a lot of them tended to be role-playing middle class kids who wanted to look hard as usual.

  Walking through local shops and being challenged about which part of town you lived in or getting called a “greebo” all a day in the life of the era.

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• TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  What is your obsession with ‘chavs’?

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• Modest_Toxic@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I’ve always seen chavs as the tracksuit wearing, loads of kids, living off smokes, scratch cards and pot Noddles that sit around soaking up benefits. I know that nay not be the proper definition of chav but I’m not sure what else to call them

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  • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    You just described the average working class teen.

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    • Admetus@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      The commenter said ‘soaking up benefits’, I don’t think the working class people would be looking like ‘chavs’ because many of them are going to and from work in uniform. Plus, you’re essentially equating all working class people with chavs? So walking into a Tescos, every member of staff is a chav?

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• serpineslair@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Of course they exist, ya dummie! I’m working class and they definitely exist.

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  • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    You mean other working-class people exist. Look up how much of the UK is working class.

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• Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Not snobish at all. And even i was scared walking threw fratton Portsmouth

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• FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Is this déjà-downvote I feel?

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• FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I Iived in London around then

  Chavs were most certainly a real thing.

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  • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    By “Chavs”, you mean working-class people.

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• yermaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Roadmans are currently being made up. Kids wearing balaclavas wearing bomber jackets talking with a heavy London grime artist accent dont exist.

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  • Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I see them

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  • TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Back when roadman was just starting to become a term I had a friend who started calling himself one, he didn’t like it when I told him it was just another version of a chav

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    • ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Aren’t Roadmen a Black sub culture while “Chavs” are a myth that was always portrayed as being white and working class?

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• bryndos@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Nessie obviously be a 'ned' not a 'charva'.

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• Admetus@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  While I disagree with identifying the working class with ‘chav’, the origin of the word did start very much in classism and stereotyping (hence my deep disagreement with the term). A pretty good analysis in this article: eathealthy365.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-chav-i…

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