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Just feels so outdated now.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?

This thread is a joke! Very well conceived and implemented. Chapeau!!

Chavs are most definitely still a thing, what planet are you on?!

Your luxury beliefs are dipping off you OP. You no doubt also think people protesting migrant hotels are racist bigots. Go get back in your privilege box and stop criticising people who have to live in a different world to you.

No, I was replying to the OP. I have no idea what you said in your comment.

Look, you putting "chav" and "working class" people in the same bracket is more insulting to me, a person from a working class background, than the existence of the word chav to describe chavs...

Either you live a very sheltered middle/upper class life and you're terrified of offending working class people (and yet have) or you are actually a chav and hate yourself for it. I can't see why else you would be like this

My neighbours behind us live in a council house and keep two german shepards locked outside all day and night in a pen, hitting them with skicks. The dads been to prison. The son is morbidly obese. They are chavs.

I’m not sure what you mean. Like Father Christmas…? Because he doesn’t exist but chavs most certainly continue to exist…?

My god this thread is exhausting ive never heard anyone discuss anything like this friend to friend and back it up with articles etc you sound a hoot.

Thank you, that's really informative. I'm a history student rn & very interested in the roots of these kinds of issues.

Makes sense what you say re work being hard but giving a sense of dignity: what the government should have done after closure is obviously try & create meaningful new jobs, hopefully some will eventually address it....

I can definitely understand re immigration, the taboos on discussing it even sensitively are very unhelpful. From what I've read of Rochdale (I understand I could be very wrong), the immigrants were mostly from extremely clannish/insular villages in Pakistan, which played a big role in the lack of assimilation? My area has a longstanding Asian community (as well as Polish, including some of my family) but I think integration worked better because it was mainly poorer but less insular Sikhs and Ugandan Asians. Also huge numbers arriving : I don't think it's necessarily a problem if people have a local immigrant community they spend time with, but once it reaches a certain point, it becomes a huge disincentive to integration with the rest of the population.

Planet Holier-Than-Thou?

It annoys me because some people call me a chav just because I wear trackies, a chain and a baseball cap.

To call me a chav based on that is not too different from someone pointing at a person with brown hair and screaming "look, that person's a demon"

So yes, I too take issue with the word "chav"!

Like OP said, it's like saying a group of people are demons or smth. Demons being the mythic beings from the bible

Are there evil people about? Yea of course. But they aren't the mythic beings you call demons!

I think of chav the same way

That’s what YOU think, however you can be rich but still be a chav, you’re completely missing the point.

I've been called a chav just because I wear trackies, a baseball cap & gold chain

Only once have I hit someone in my life, because that person was attacking my friend

Other than that I get told I'm one of the nicest people they've met

Yet some people, if they saw me with my mates, like much of the thread repliers here, would brand us chavs and go out of their way to avoid us

The chav phenomena has always been about making a demonified version of the average WC person and WC can be classist too just like Black people can be racist

Were they ever a thing in the first place?

I agree with OP. I have also never encountered a "chav" in my life, and I am WC too. People can be good or bad dress sense has nothing to do with it.

Been called "chav" based purely on how I look

From experience it was never a sub-culture anyone identified with, it was purely a hateful label people put on others

Don't believe me?

Look up archives of the site called "ChavScum" you'll see tons of pictures taken without people's consent and called "chavs" based purely on how they look.

Easily the most disgusting site I've ever seen, glad it no longer functions but I remember it being brand new and being horrified!

Wow, you and the OP sound remarkably similar in both your opinions and your writing style!

Who on planet earth looks at anyone and says “oh look there’s a demon”? Does anyone look at a person and SAY “oh look there’s a chav?” Now if I saw a giraffe walking down the street I would say, quite animatedly “oh look there’s a giraffe “.

If I saw you on the street, I most probably wouldn’t even notice you but if I did, I wouldn’t even think “oh there’s a chav”. Look around ypu we are all shapes and sizes. This is not a chav hunt going on.

Please articulate your thoughts on myth, the bible and demons. Because I don’t get it?

Wow, two people are against classism. Is that very surprising?

Did you look up ChavScum.com on Archive.org?

The site that has pictures of people labelled as "chavs" taken WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT! with no less than 30+ hateful comments to each pic?

@ColinWhoIsNotAChav, I am so incensed by your post, I am going to bite again.

What are your feelings on the core points of the thread. The existence or not of the chav and the conflation of the use of the word chav to describe working class people?

The conflation is because chav IS used a slur against WC people. The only people arguing otherwise are repliers to this thread

As OP's links put, the people who are well versed on the subject of sociology say that yes, chav was NEVER a sub-culture, it was a media fabrication used to demonise the WC

Two people who happen to have the same writing style! That’s what surprised me 😉

Yes, writing in English!

Come on… you know exactly what I mean!

Unfortunately the OP lost that argument the moment she used Owen Jones to back up her view. You're going to have to come up with something better than that to make your point.

I love how you seem more concerned about perceived writing styles rather than looking up what I said to look up.

So I'll do it for you

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050611013843/chavscum.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20050611013843/chavscum.co.uk/

I'm sure every normal and rational person can agree that site was disgusting

I’m concerned about people sock puppeting on threads 🤷🏻‍♀️