Friend still believes in "chavs"?

[waytoooldforthisshite]

Had a funny (well, slightly depressing) conversation today. my friend came round all flustered, telling me that she'd been "harassed by chavs" outside the shop. One was some teenager who asked for her number 🙄

Tried to explain that "chavs" aren't even real, it's a tabloid invented stereotype/myth from the early 2000s that was basically used to demonise working class people. But she just went on about it like she was quoting The Sun from 2004. I ended up showing her this article. She's 39.... and I expected her to know a bit better but what can ya do eh?

Just feels so outdated now. You don't really hear anyone say "chav" anymore (thankfully), and it's weird how those old class-based stereotypes still linger. I honestly felt like I'd timetravelled back to the Little Britain era 😂

Anyone else still know people who talk like that?

No it isn’t. Everyone on this thread has told you that it isn’t.

I have to take issue here. You seem to have misappropriated a term that applies only to males and are using it for all sorts 😹 May I suggest dickhead, no knobhead, no bellend, no plonker. Oh dear, they’re all make centric 🤷‍♀️

I'm starting to think op might actually be a chav

FWI this is what I got when looking for chav in the gifs.

That's just bollocks though, isn't it. No middle class/upper class people believe that, unless they're very dim. Working class people know what a chav is too.

More likely just very lonely, bored.

There was no “friend”. Simply means to start this thread

Gift her Owen Jones' 'Chavs', it is very cheap on Abebooks. She should be ashamed of herself.

The word chav was originally teenage slang for rough/violent/aggressive teenagers. Then it got co-opted by the tabloids and expanded to mean any working class people with tacky taste. But rough/violent/aggressive teenagers existed then and exist now. I believe they are sometimes now called “roadmen”? But don’t quote me on that because I’m not in the loop. But it’s absolutely bizarre to say they don’t exist… perhaps you have lived an extremely sheltered life?

Anyone who thinks Owen Jones is an authority on anything should probably be given a very wide berth.

This lad would like to let you know that he doesn’t exist.

I've recently started to see the Aussie word "bogan" being used online, which I think predates "chav". But maybe that was by the occasional Aussie in an otherwise mostly British forum.

They are "naughty" teenagers that take great delight in setting fire to (and otherwise torturing) cats, pigeons and anything else they can get their hands on. They also enjoy throwing bricks through the windows of the old and disabled and sometimes pouring petrol through their letterboxes. Do they want to seriously maim the inhabitants, or at least giving them a heart attack - yep, they really, really do. Their behaviour patterns are delinquent, meaning it is out of control (by any standards) and a serious danger to the public at large. People are terrorised by them and terrified of them. I have neighbours who no longer leave their homes because of them, and they are completely justified to be so frightened. If this is your definition of merely being "naughty" then I dread to think of the level of violence and anti-social behaviour you're used to. You must have spent your formative years in Broadmoor.

Satan is also real. He sleeps in my bed, rested behind my knees, most nights, and snarls at me if I dare to roll over/change position.

He prefers to go by Belezebub these days.

A rose by any other name OP. I wish you were right and chavs didn’t exist but unfortunately they do, no matter what you think they should be renamed (or not labelled at all). They’re the ones who holler and shout and loudly swear in public places regardless of young children being in close proximity. They talk loudly on their phones on public transport with their loudspeaker switched on, loudly swearing and talking about their love lives for everyone to hear because they don’t care about other people. Chavvy is more a behaviour than anything else, although certain dress styles can be included in the stereotype if the behaviour matches.

No! These are just lovely working class lads that are being demonised by the middle classes. The poor wee souls.

Oh give over will you? This is just boring now.

They are real! Owen Jones is a posh boy! He most probably has never met a chav, as you have never. That’s why you don’t believe they exist. But you do believe Owen Jones though.

And when Jones uses the word “myth” to denounce the existence of the chav, he is not
likening it to the myth of the Loch Ness monster, he is alluding to a cultural construct, of which there are many. Just like the “yuppie” and the “boomer”, they do exist. Maybe if you see it from a broader perspective you won’t be so offended.

Owen Jones 🙄 Owen Jones is a twat.

Do Slone Rangers still exist?

He's a fictional character played by a friend of David Firth's.

So you glossed right over the harassment and the fact that a teenage boy or young man thought it was OK to pester a grown woman for her number when she was minding her own business...

I hope she blocks you forever and that you'll give your head a wobble.

Ah yes, sorry! What I meant to say was bless their little cotton socks.

They’re either a chav or privileged (upper) middle class who is virtue signalling. My bet is on the latter.

They absolutely do exist. Sadly. I would certainly be telling you to pipe down if I was that friend.

It’s just a derogatory term for people who dress a certain way exhibiting anti social behaviour. I can call the balaclava-ed man on an e-bike on the pavement, with an ankle monitor, reeking of weed as he races past endangering my children and my elderly neighbours, any number of offensive names but ultimately, I would call him a chav. Doesn’t mean I think all working class people behave exactly the same way or that they’re all criminals, just that that man fits all the descriptors of a stereotype and is pissing me off somewhat so I’m not going by to be calling him anything nice! Would it be less classist if I called him a stupid cunt?