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Underground > Head Shop >

Definition of a chav

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22:58 / 15.11.06

I was just wondering how anyone would define this. It seems that chav culture has come to mean working class culture in general.

23:09 / 15.11.06

You might want to start here for inquiries into class signifiers and reactions thereto.

23:17 / 15.11.06

I'm pretty sure we've been over this before, and the general concensus was indeed that the chav label is nothing but a weak excuse to be classist.

Still, I remember being in school when the term first started being used in my area - and I'm pretty sure it was used by school-kids first. It was only really heard in comparison to other social groups, which (though this is terribly simplified) more or less broke down into goths, skaters, and chavs. Not that everybody - from any class background - had to be part of any of these social groups, indeed the majority of people were just jeans-and-tshirt, with many choosing some unfortunate 'style' of their own to be singled out by, but if you dressed in the same as everybody in a certain social group, and you shared their tastes in music and whatnot, you were going to come under their particular group heading.

Were chavs associated with poverty back then? Yes, to a degree, but it certainly wasn't a mutually exclusive connection - there were rich chavs and poor goths and innumerable people from both sides who couldn't be remotely classed as either. The association was much more with brutal violence.

Before we begin the re-education of yr own joy regarding this issue, I was wondering if it is considered valid to make a comparison to youth cultures of the past? Has this whole subject been analysed into the ground before?, with Mod culture? I'm pretty much working on the basis of Quadrophrenia here, being born a little late, but wasn't that a mostly working class youth movement likewise associated with crime and violence?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:23 / 15.11.06

calmblueoceancalmblueoceancalmblueoceancalmblueocean

Oh-kay. Assuming, in as great a triumph of hope over experience as you ever did see, that Rural Savage is not just a stonking great troll:

This is not how you start a Headshop thread.

1) Define your terms. What precisely do you mean by chav culture? In what context has it come to mean the same as working-class culture? Who is using the term to describe whom?

2) Don't use the word chav. Just don't, okay? It's too ugly, nasty and loaded a term to sling around unqualified.

3) Write a summary. Your topic will get one anyway so you might as well make it your own, even if you just stick down a few key words, or cut and paste the first paragraph of your opening post into the summary field.

4) Oh, wait. There is only one paragraph in your opening post. Dude, this is a discussion board. You need to give people something to discuss. Remarkably few people here can actually read minds and the ones that can are far too polite to do so without asking, so unless you put your thoughts on the subject out there for us to read we're just going to blink a couple of times and say "huh?"

I recognise that there is a worthwhile topic here but you need to do a bit of work. You could start by re-writing your first post to include more detail and information, and adding a topic summary.

23:26 / 15.11.06

Yeah grwoing up I always associated Chav with violence, drugs,cars and music but never really with money. Its unusual with something like Quadrophenia (god I love that film "you killed me scooter") because up until recently chavs listened to dance music then rap and now guitar bands are kinda cool again but at the same time, the mods knew they were mods, do chavs know theyre chavs?

23:26 / 15.11.06

Sorry this is actually my first thread ever

23:30 / 15.11.06

My thoughts are that its more or less a lifestyle choice and it is unfair to associate it with a class of people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the general nastiness it implies

23:32 / 15.11.06

Thanks for the link

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:40 / 15.11.06

The wiki, specifically the guide to Barbelith posting etiquette, is your friend.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:41 / 15.11.06

Also: please stop saying chav, you're making my eyes bleed.

23:44 / 15.11.06

How can I discuss it without saying it? why does it offend you?

23:59 / 15.11.06

You could put it in inverted commas, I suppose. If you're genuinely attempting to examine the term and/or cultural phenomenon with any degree of interested neutrality.

00:00 / 16.11.06

Combining that with the suggested first stage of thinking about and defining your terms would seem to be a good place to start.

00:06 / 16.11.06

It doesn't really work though does it. I would have to know exactly how I feel about a topic before I laid it out and in that case I wouldn't have anything to say. I really just wanted to hammer it out to see what came out but I'm simply left feeling thick. What if I wasnt neutral? perhaps this isnt the place for these questions, never mind, enough said, thanks.

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:08 / 16.11.06

My thoughts are that its more or less a lifestyle choice and it is unfair to associate it with a class of people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the general nastiness it implies

Tell you what, RS. Just to save us having to go through the ground-floor stuff again, read this thread.

Then we can come back and hopefully move on.

00:10 / 16.11.06

I think you need to have a little more idea of what you want to say/ask/explore, Rural Savage. Some terms are more loaded than others, and require extra preparation before use.

00:13 / 16.11.06

I do understand that but I wasn't the one that loaded it

00:13 / 16.11.06

Not the point.

00:16 / 16.11.06

Fair enough, lets leave it at that, I didnt know about the other topic at the start and have enjoyed reading it. I'd rather not argue over nothing really when it could spiral off into a hundred different questions and issues

00:17 / 16.11.06

That's fine. I don't think this is an argument. Mordant's post, above, while tinged with irritation, is actually a really constructive piece of advice on how to go about starting a Head Shop discussion on one of these charged topics.

00:20 / 16.11.06

Yeah its gonna take a bit of practice to be that comprehensive. We'll see how things go

00:23 / 16.11.06

Just mull it over a bit, and try to firm up what you want to say/ask/explore into a slightly less nebulous form. Or read the linked thread and use this or that slant as a jumping-off point for further discussion.

00:24 / 16.11.06

The sooner you raise your game, the happier we're all gonna be, yourself most definitely included.

00:25 / 16.11.06

Thanks

07:23 / 16.11.06

I've said this elsewhere but I don't think someone deserves condemnation for using the word "chav". Barbelith is defintely ahead of the curve in terms of it's criticism of the term - it's the only place I've encountered it discusseed in such a way.

09:34 / 16.11.06

True. It is trickling into general understanding that it's hatespeech though.
There is stuff to explore about the word for sure, even if only as an example of the mutation and evolution of a neologism. I remember when it meant Posh & Becks and nouveau riche burberry and stuff, then it seemed to mutate into meaning 'poor & wearing a cap'.

Rural Savage- read this. That might help.

jentacular dreams

11:39 / 16.11.06

I would argue that the term is also used to connotate a certain attitude of materialism (economic, not philisophical), though obviously this is not the only point of definition. Depending on your viewpoint you may wish to interpret as another aspect of classism (one could argue that the relatively wealthy middle classes have no bias against the lower classes, as long as they "know their place"), but I think this might be a bit of a stretch, and here the negative points are more a regard of economic materialism as a more "base" lifestyle than the user of the term believes they have themselves.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:39 / 16.11.06

Well, yes. Because the user is a hypocrite.

12:43 / 16.11.06

Why am I a hypocrite?

12:49 / 16.11.06

Are you personally identifying yourself with KingOfTheBees' and Haus's comments on a (so far) hypothetical "user" of the term, then, Rural Savage?

12:57 / 16.11.06

No. I never believed it to be a case of money. Growing up it was a division line in the same way that when I was 14 I was a freak for having a Nirvana t-shirt. But the freak label has never changed where as the "Chav" label has fluctuated wildly. Once it was a kind of tacky joke applied to working class people who were attempting to be stylish a la posh and becks but over time it has become to mean something altogether more nasty (not that the first definition is any good thing either). I would feel that it is nearer and nearer a term like redneck or nigger in its usage and that this is an unfair viewpoint.

12:58 / 16.11.06

I'm not sure that anyone's setting out to call you personally a hypocrite, then.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:59 / 16.11.06

Just to be clear - I meant that:

here the negative points are more a regard of economic materialism as a more "base" lifestyle than the user of the term believes they have themselves.

is almost always a hypocritical viewpoint, as the user of the term's consumption is just as arrant as the notional "chav"'s, but is done in a socially acceptable way and for socially acceptable aims.

13:03 / 16.11.06

Its true in that sense I don't feel I am entirely neutral and I wouldn't want to be.

13:04 / 16.11.06

the freak label has never changed

Not too sure about this. The word "freak" has been used in a wide variety of contexts over the years. In suitably vindictive hands, it can be applied fairly nastily.

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