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Just feels so outdated now.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?

I work at our local One Stop & can confirm we are harassed daily by people robbing,threatening,swearing/spitting at us.
These people all fit the ‘chav’ description others have used & can also confirm not a single one of them are working class as they don’t work (unless you count selling drugs on our car park)

Agree, the OP may want to be portrayed as a working class saviour- one we didn't ask for!

You do realise words can change meaning over time, don’t you? However the word chav originated, its meaning now is to describe a certain kind of person. For example - women caked in make-up, nails 6 inches long, wearing fake designer gear, holidaying in Benidorm with her kids called Kayden, Jayden, Fayden and Zayden. It certainly does not refer to all working class people any more, and it is certainly still used in mainstream language even if you don’t hear it any more.
Sick used to mean you had vomited, but then it meant something was awesome, and it probably means something else now. 6 7 used to be just a number. I could go on…
Words and language evolve and that’s why the OED is updated every year, perhaps you are the one who needs to move with the times.

Chav is an acronym of council housed and violent.

There are certainly plenty of those around!

As a working class person I've never felt offended by the word chav, because I'm not one. They did exist and still do. They used to be called townies where I was from, and then it changed to chav.

Then you'd be mistaken. If anyone knows more about what it means to be working class, it's going to be a Cambridge University student. They'll have a much greater understanding of it than us, who merely lived it.
I mean, what do we know, as working class folk, we're obviously simple and therefore chavs by very definition - the very clever OP who knows how simple the working class are and thus we need defending. The guardian told her so.

You literal just proved their point. All things are made up, words are constructs, chav is a construct. Whether you like it or not, or whether the Oxbridge declares it otherwise is irrelevant if people use it to classify a group of people. You can’t tell me or other people what exists if we decide it does then to us it does, in our heads and their is enough people on here who says it exists, who are you are or an academic anyone to tell us otherwise. Take your fancy reports and shove em….your poor friend, you sound horrid!

Good Lord. Do you have a life OP? I cant imagine lecturing a friend about something so trivial then going online to make a post about it. Yes Chavs "exsist"

I assume you meant to tag me ? A chav is a teenage thug probably sells drugs threatens people for looking at you longer than a micro second. There’s no need to expand the definition lord knows there’s enough people who fit what I’ve just described.

Let people enjoy their holiday to Benidorm, fake tans and naming their kids Jayden (or even lily may apparently that’s unacceptable to some on here). Or anything else that doesn’t affect you.

More trigger happy to call everything chavvy than the girls we went to high school with who said they had crippling anxiety because they felt a little nervous before a test. Stop overusing words

Chavs are real:- it's a slang term for somebody or a group of people who are classed as antisocial ie drinking in parks or other public spaces causing disruption for own amusement or causing intimidation from forming groups/gangs and being involved in petty crime

Did you even ask your "friend" if she was ok or were you too concerned in addressing her vocab?

Would you have called out your friend if she’d told you she’d just seen some toffs of Henrys outside the local shop?

You sound insufferable

Ok Mrs PC … calm down 🤣🤣 How ridiculous … are you one of those “offended at anything” types?!?

The meaning of words can change through time, especially in popular culture (remember when bad and sick meant good!) So maybe a chav, in origin, started off as a working class slur, but nowadays chav and other similar words like scally, ned etc refer to youths participating in antisocial behaviour, wearing balaclavas and generally terrorising innocent people like your friend. You can’t say something doesn’t exist if the meaning of the term has changed through time. Some of the articles you are quoting are over 10 years old!

Does it really matter what slang your friend used?! You knew what she meant! I’m from the north and chav is definitely still something we say.
I think you need to learn to listen instead of over correcting people and sounding patronising.
Just because you don’t say it anymore, doesn’t mean no one else does. Your friend was just telling you about something not nice happening to her and you made a big deal about something so small and pointless.

Woman gets sexually harassed (yep, if someone was asking for her number, I'm assuming that it was sexually motivated), then gets lectured when she tells a friend because she used the word chav. Rather than the classism issue maybe focus on the sexism and the fact your friend just wanted some polos from a mini Tesco and had to deal with that. It's absolutely ridiculous that was your response, how lacking in empathy. This low level street harassment is awful and constant and should be addressed.

We're the most chavtastic family on our estate.
OP, you're mistaken to think we don't exist.
Working class lads, my arse.

You can use all the poncy language you like and quote all the academic bollocks you can find, but I'll bet my last tenner that none of those arsewipes have set foot anywhere near our estate.

Fuckwits.

lol at that username 😂😂

Let it go. My goodness you could actually lose a friendship over you being ‘right’ you have argued with every single person in the comments who dares have a differing opinion from yours.

Is your friendship really worth you being right??

Your response to your friend being upset because she'd been harassed was to police her language?

OK.

I bet you don't get upset when the new term for chavs "far right thugs" is used.

Chav is just a word to dehumanise the working class when they behave in ways the middle class don't like. As is far right thug, the new term. In some cases, either term is justified, but mostly it isn't.

But if your friend is upset, I'd say that's the priority, not telling her she's not allowed to use a word you don't approve of.

The term 'chav' is not demonising the working class. You can certainly be working class and not a chav. It refers to the antisocial, uneducated who usually happen to be working class and often out of work but not always. We still use the term up north ... chav, scally, common, rough ... They definitely exist.

Not necessarily. Like all these terms, it's just used as and when people want to reach for a class-based insult. It can be directly related to behaviour or attitude but not necessarily. I've heard people be referred to as a bunch of chavs who just happened to be over-performing femininity (dressed up to the nines on a night out, ridiculous pouty lips etc.) while not talking with posh accents. They weren't behaving badly at all, they just weren't posh and their clothes weren't tastefully understated.

She said "chav" and you assumed she meant working class. That's on you. 😆 x

I’ve never seen chavs as working class people. The two young ladies on the news a few weeks back, drinking pints in the middle of the day whilst shouting abuse at an Asian man giving and interview whilst their children followed along - they are what I would call a chav (amongst other things).