To think 'chav' is not an okay thing to call people?

[enternow99]

I find the use of chav on Mumsnet shocking. Is this name chavvy? Is this holiday destination chavvy? Is this outfit chavvy? Chavs moved in next door (I'm a leaseholder, they rent!!!!)

I understand its snobbiness but isn't it a bit horrible?

Exactly this!

The only drug users I know personally are rich, they often bragged about it and did it at Christmas parties I attended.

Their kids were known weed smokers, they did coke most weekends and held these kind of parties at home.

Thank goodness I don't know the same people as you. No one I know uses it and I'd think unfavourably of anyone who did.

My oh just said chavs are one step up from the estate he grew up on. They had a van and a job!

Bloody hell, we are council housed and my DH has a work van (we have our own business), we've got no hope 😂

anyone with a work van?! 😆😆

I would and do! Smoking weed is chavvy regardless who does it. I don’t know how you define MC but I called a whole group of boys on expensive looking bikes chavs the other day for deliberately knocking over all the cones in the road

Won't click on a link that spells demonisation with a z
We are not American
And if the Burberry cap fits...

I'd use the word chav, I'd use the word toff, I'd say scally, I'd say scrotes etc - it's just a descriptor!

@chav1 I already own that book and like I said upthread I don't consider 'chav' to be an interchangeable term with 'working class'.

Your neighbours would label me a chav? Why? Because I think they’re chavs?

I think chav is a useful shorthand term which is not aimed specifically at a group defined by wealth, sex, race etc ie things which the person themself has no control over.
The chaviest family I know are very rich and think themselves a cut above everybody else but their behaviour is the epitome of what we generally mean by the word chav.
I think judging people’s behaviour is acceptable in this instance.
I also agree with the pp who said most of those virtue signalling would run a mile from chavvy neighbours or going to a holiday destination known as chavvy.

How would you describe something or someone cheap and tasteless looking, rude, uncouth, antisocial, uneducated and lacking aspiration? Is there an alternative word to use for such things?

At one time "underclass" was used, but for obvious reasons that fell out of favour too

However none of the descriptors above refer to anything admirable, so probably there isn't a word to use that'll avoid offence to those who'd rather they weren't mentioned at all

Why do they see themselves as a “cut above”? What attributes do they have that they think elevates them?

I would and do! Smoking weed is chavvy regardless who does it.

What about an older person who smokes for medicinal purposes? Chavs?

@pattypan they look down on people with less money than them.

Same here!! My dad was a builder and had many a van in his time.

Personally don’t use the word but I don’t get worked up about it but have noticed mumsnet have a particular obsession with defining rudeness and controlling language.

People only really say chav if someone is behaving like one. I use the term and I was brought up on a council estate. It’s just replaced the word ‘common’ really.

It's by British writer Owen Jones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavs:_The_Demonization_of_the_Working_Class

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class is a non-fiction work by the British writer and political commentator Owen Jones, first published in 2011.[2][3] It discusses stereotypes of sections of the British working class (and the working class as a whole) and use of the pejorative term chav. The book received attention in domestic and international media, including selection by critic Dwight Garner of The New York Times as one of his top 10 non-fiction books of 2011 in the paper's Holiday Gift Guide and being long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award.[4][5][6][7][8]
The book explores the political and economic context for the alienation of working-class Britain. It references the impact of British government policy from the Thatcher era onwards and how it has been used as a political weapon to disenfranchise the working class, dismantle societal structures designed to support the working class – such as unions – and pit working class communities against each other.[citation needed]
It was published in Dutch in 2013, translated by Charles Braam.[9]

It isn't interchangeable.
2 very different classes

Yes, I clarified in the post just before yours. People have slightly different definitions of 'chav', but they are all undoubtedly bound up with class, even if what people describe as 'chav' isn't a discrete class of its own.

You clearly don't live in the north west

It sounds less judgmental when people claim it is a term which describes behaviour, but I don't think that's at all true of most of its usage. For many people, someone can be a chav just because of what they look like and wear.

I expect that they do. Of course. Anyone can sneer at difference - especially if they feel they’re being sneered at. The thing that makes chav objectionable to me though, is when it’s used by , in general terms, relatively more advantaged people to convey negative judgements about relatively less advantaged people.

Where in the book does it say chav is interchangeable with working class? I read it's a representation - one of many - and links that to demonisation?

I wonder how many of the people are fine with the word "chav" are fine with being called a "Karen". Not many I'd wager, since there have been numerous threads (rightly) against the whole Karen thing. What's the difference? Funny how when it's aimed at you you don't like it.