What are Roadmen?

[Confusedbymodernlife]

Can anyone explain what roadmen are, with respect to teenage lads? Are they violent or just harmlessly role playing?

The reason I ask is that I was out walking on a quiet path and encountered a group of male youths blocking my path. Dressed in black and wearing masks. Scared the shit out of me, so I dived into a housing estate and tried to lose them.

Thought I’d seen the back of them, but turned a corner to head home and came across 2 of them. They saw me, changed direction and followed me! I ran for my life, hid in some bushes and called someone to pick me up. I was quite rattled by it, probably because I was mugged before and it brought back memories.

A parent at school has said they sound like the roadmen. They roam around striking up conversations with people and have their own way of speaking- I’ve googled and none the wiser. I have seen kids riding with hoodies and masks on bikes in daylight, but just thought they were messing around.

We are in a leafy suburb, not exactly an urban gangster setting.

What is this weird cultural phenomenon?

I don't have kids and this was what I thought they were!

Every day's a school day.

WTAF? Think I'll stay in my cheap three bed council house in a "bad area" where everyone's lovely.

🤣🤣🤣

Can't remember if it was a social experiment or the pensioners had taken it upon themselves, but when there was an influx of these types of teenagers hanging around on street corners the local residents got the very elderly to dress identical as the teenagers!

Apparently that cramped their style and they moved on!

Hahahhaha

😂😂

Popular music can be shit too. I can't stand Stormzy and had no idea what a roadman was. Some of us no longer live under rocks and are able to buy our drugs on the dark web, so no need to encounter teens. It's not a competition.

Ne too!!!! 😂

Me not ne

Its a new name for an old phenomenon. White boys pretending to be gangsters and talking like they imagine black youth speak.
Ali G was the parody of it, and he was first on the 11 o clock show in '98

I'd never heard of a roadman until my 11yr old dd called 9yr old ds one.
He only wears joggers because he hates the feel of jeans and always wears his hood up even when it's not cold or raining.

He and his bf sometimes say "fam" and "bruv" and I keep telling him to stop it because he sounds ridiculous! 😂

@Wishineverchangedmyname
That's how my son talks to! My daughter calls him a road man. That really made me laugh, he calls me fam, or blud🤣. Hes definitely not gangster,

See TopBoy on Netflix… these guys just sound like small time twats trying to intimidate people.

This type of thing has been a thing much earlier than Ali G.

I won't write the word on here but will link to the wiki entry, as I recall hearing this word in the early 80s -

wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigger

The insinuation is that you are a puffa jacket wearing gangsta wannabe - to wear a puffa is teenage social suicide

I feel like this has not reached us under our rock as I'd never heard of it and every single teenager wears an identical black puffa. Every single one.

I've just bought some puffa jackets for the first time in my life to wear as a 37 year old mum of 3. I hope I'm not mistaken for a roadman carrying drugs in the pram...

Both my ds only wear black tracksuits, hoods up and talk like Ali G as do all their friends, I cringe hearing it come out the mouth of white Scottish boys. They don’t consider themselves roadmen though and are rather scared of those boys so there must be a difference somewhere!

Not everyone is woke.

this lol 9/10 times probs just wannabes

12yr old DS and his, middle class, private school, mates like to think they're roadmen - they swagger about doing silly handshakes, calling each other fam, blood, brother etc.

I recently had to take him into a bank on Lewisham High Street, where a 'real' roadman was kicking off at the cashier because some money he was expecting hadn't gone into his account. I've never seen DS look so scared in his life, he shrank so far down in his seat he was virtually under the table. I teased him for days

Going slightly off thread here......

@edwinbear

You were very fortunate to find a bank branch still open on Lewisham High Street :)

We live in a leafy village. Nike tech fleece joggers / jacket seem a must around here. My Nike tech fleece wearing year 9 dd, who speaks roadman, points out boys as we are driving around town and spots a boy saying ‘he thinks he’s such a roadman’. She likes roadman but hasn’t yet made the connection that she’s into pretend roadmen. So there’s degrees of pretend roadman even amongst the MC.

Also thought it was a hilarious name when I first heard it!

As others have said, it appears to be a phenomena in wealthier areas in our city. They have unfortunately definitely crossed over from intimidation to actual crime and harm, my SDS being a victim more than once (he grew out of his phase of trying to imitate the road men thing… but we’ve no doubt he’s been an absolute prick while working it out.)

This thread is funny, good old mumsnet 🤣

I need to grow a pair, practice my teachery voice and demand they get out of my way next time.

Oh yes. I grew up in a rough inner city area, it was notorious and used to feature in The News of the World on a fairly regular basis.

I now live in a nice seaside town, admittedly there is a problem with rough sleepers but generally they seem quite harmless to me, on the other hand some of the local kids act like gangsters and think they are really tough. I often look at them and smile as I think how they wouldn't have lasted 2 minutes where I grew up.

I intervened one day when a gang of them were attacking another boy, my friend was horrified and said I'd risked her life and mine. Honestly I just shouted at them to clear off and they ran like scared rabbits.