Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

...to think this 'Chav' board game is inappropriate & unpleasant?

247 replies

ravenAK · 12/08/2012 18:11

Chav

I think it's an unwelcome normalisation of an offensive term. Don't like it at all.

OP posts:
Sallyingforth · 12/08/2012 23:23

Sallying come on...I DARE you to come on here and explain what you meant with your New Addington reference.

Yes I'm very happy to explain. I have a good friend who lives in New Addington. I visit her there every other weekend. I was due to go there today but she preferred to come here. She is surrounded by people who she - and I -call chavs. That's a much argued-over definition of course.
The Croydon press frequently documents the behaviour of local residents, which I would call chav behaviour.
The woman who was recently jailed for her racist ranting on a tram comes from there.
Many of the Croydon rioters came from there too.
There are of course a lot of decent people on the estate, and I'm glad to count my friend and her family among them. But there certainly are many 'chavs' in New Addington.

WildImaginings · 12/08/2012 23:30

We've got that game in our local pub, but it's called 'Chavopoly'

NCForNow · 12/08/2012 23:50

Yes right ok then Sallying I'm sure what you say is true. That a random friend who lives in a working class area was mention-worthy on a thread which is about chavs.

TheQueenOfDiamonds · 13/08/2012 02:44

What I would describe as a chav is anybody who displays the following behaviour;

*Dressing in various identity concealing ways (hoods up with cap and scarf in perfectly mild conditions, possibly all black at night).

*spitting, swearing excessively and loudly at anyone and everyone, damaging public property

*only fight in gangs and only against someone who appears vulnerable

*intimidate random vulnerable people (younger people, old people).

Other characteristics too, they're the main ones. I know people who work who behave like this, its nothing to do with bashing vulnerable people. anyone who behaves like this - if he queen of england herself behaved like this - is what I would describe as a chav. That's what everyone I know describes a chav as. No thought is given to their employment or class status.

Its all well and good wanting to help vulnerable people, but you also need to accept that some people are just plain arseholes who enjoy acting like that, and don't deserve to have excuses made up for them so that they can continue their ridiculous antics.

AdoraBell · 13/08/2012 03:06

I also grew up in a deprived area, vair fashionable now but not when I was growing. Much like cheeky we never claimed benefits, or wore leisure wear and baseball caps. it's not a uniform of the working class, it's a way that some people choose to dress and behave.

In fact that leads me to DBIL, middle class professional parents- home owners in the 60's, he dresses like a chav, drives a BMW, is a dishonest as the day is long and can't string a sentence together. He's raising little chavs too, but they don't claim benefits because that's what chavs do.

bp300 · 13/08/2012 03:43

To me a CHAV isn't someone who in unemployed and has nothing to do with how much money they have, in fact some footballers etc would probably be considered CHAVs by many. It's more to do with the way they dress, behave and attitude.

theodorakis · 13/08/2012 08:21

Another thread that makes people laugh at MN. Yes, it's all nasty Thatchers fault, we all love Labour and read the Guardian. If you don't fit into that category, there really is no point is arguing, you will never win.

theodorakis · 13/08/2012 08:23

By the way, if there were a board game that ripped the piss out of self made rich people, aristocracy or royals, it would be fine, everyone would join in and have a hoot.

NCForNow · 13/08/2012 08:30

Yes theo...because THEY really need protecting don't they?

theodorakis · 13/08/2012 08:34

I don't see it is my responsibility to protect people, rich or poor. Not all of us are ardent socialists.

NCForNow · 13/08/2012 08:37

No theo. It's just some of us care about others. You're obvously one of the "Me, me, me" type. They type who moans about "My tax going to pay for people like THEM."

theodorakis · 13/08/2012 08:41

I am not ashamed of the fact I pay no tax whatsoever. I don't have to share your politics and just because you are lefty doesn't automatically make you an expert on society. Don't be so bloody aggressive and rude. i choose how to live my life, you choose how to live yours. You can't just bully your way through the opinion of anyone who doesn't share your values. I am not scared or intimidated by people like you.

NCForNow · 13/08/2012 08:56

I don't expect you to be scared. And I can talk how I choose on here thank you without you telling me I'm "aggressive". I'm not aggressive, I might be forthright but if you can't handle that then that's your problem. And tbh YOU are the one who comes over as aggressive.

flatpackhamster · 13/08/2012 09:01

NCForNow

No theo. It's just some of us care about others. You're obvously one of the "Me, me, me" type. They type who moans about "My tax going to pay for people like THEM."

Why don't you try living next door to some chavs. Then maybe we'll see how 'caring' you are once you've been kept up 6 nights a week by music until 2am or had your car keyed or had to look out of the window at a front garden covered in rubbish or had to put up with drag racing on your street or found discarded needles on your drive, and every time you complain to the police they 'log' it and that's all that happens.

MrsBucketxx · 13/08/2012 09:02

the game is meant to be tongue in cheek i think, and is probably bought by what the game refers to as "chavs" anyway.

as said above its a lifestyle choice, they choose to wear those clothes and act the way they do. I know my clothes will have cost half of the sports gear they wear and ill look much better Wink its not about not working either. lots of unemployed i know aren't chavs.

MrsBucketxx · 13/08/2012 09:03

flat pack thats terrible, can't you move?

theodorakis · 13/08/2012 09:06

I haven't called anyone names for not sharing my opinions. It is a stupid game but so what? Much more important things to wring hands over or if people are such saints, rather than spouting on a forum, get down the local sure start or community centre. Share your skills, give your time. Make a difference. Talk is cheap.

wordfactory · 13/08/2012 09:08

To me being a chav is nothing to do with being poor, where you live, or if you work.

It is about attitude.
It is about showing a complete disregard for the feelings of others.
It is about revelling in being anti social.

It is the antithesis of being proud working class. A deliberate middle finger to the generations of hard working decent miners, dockers and factory workers and their values...

It's for this reason that the working classes have no tolerence whatsoever for chavs.

Kayano · 13/08/2012 09:08

I don't see Chav as offensive. You call a goth a goth, if you don't want to be a Chav, don't be a Chav Confused

It's not a generic term for the working class. I'm working class and not a Chav

Kayano · 13/08/2012 09:09

Agree with word factory

flatpackhamster · 13/08/2012 09:09

MrsBucketxx

flat pack thats terrible, can't you move?

Not me, I'm pleased to say, but some friends. I thought it was a fine example of chav behaviour though, which is why I quoted it. It's easy for NCForNow to cluck her Guardianista tongue and claim that anyone who uses the word chav doesn't "care", but I'll bet my next paycheque that they've never lived with that kind of misery.

And my friends could move if someone would buy the house. But would you buy a house when the house next door has a mattress and a burned-out car on the drive?

theodorakis · 13/08/2012 09:26

When I lived in the UK we had a reading club in the village hall. It gave some of the local children who weren't able to do their homework or read at home a safe and quiet place to study. Obviously the parents knew they were there as they had consented, but they routinely used to withdraw their consent and would come in screaming and threatening and saying they didn't want no do-gooder telling their kid what to do. It was so tempting to tell them to fuck off but we didn't. Just calmly repeated that all were welcome and we would always welcome them back. It worked for some, we got internet and computers and some of the parents started coming as well, but there were a hardcore of violent and very damaged people who couldn't bear to see people doing well to the point they would prevent their kids from going to school.
They are probably the people who burned our hall down. They won in the end and, no, I don't want to invest money in these people. they can rot for all I care. More involvement in their children from all of society to try to change future generations, all well and good and obviously needed. But, for the current breed of ignorant, violent, spoilt bratty twats, fuck them.

NCForNow · 13/08/2012 09:51

theo I do share my skills. I run theatre workshops for children in a deprived area.

The area I grew up in but have since left, went to get a degree...had a great career and made enough money to live in a better area close to my hometown...thanks only to some very giving people who gave their time to ME when I was a teen in a rough estate.

People who didn't judge or expect ANYTHING.

Flatpack been there and done that thank you. I don't need someone telling me what it is like to live next to antisocial people. I grew up IN that environment.

Sallyingforth · 13/08/2012 10:02

Well said wordfactory. Chav is nothing to do with class. It's all about behaviour.

usualsuspect · 13/08/2012 10:16

That game has everything to do with where you live. Thats the point really , to sneer at those that live on council estates.

Nice.