Chavs

Monday 21, 21:00, Sky One

Writer Julie Burchill examines the culture behind Britain's biggest phenomenon of 2004, explaining how many regard it as merely a derogatory modernised term for the working class.

 

I don't often agree with Burchill, but this time she's obviously right.

-- Ian

 

I don't have sky so I can't watch it, I do think people use the term wrongly however the term working class is also used in the wrong way.

The term I like to use is scallies, and to be a scally not only do you have to meet some of the stereotypes but you have to swear a lot, be insulting, drink white lightening on the park bench, kick up a fuss when the bus driver dosn't believe you're under 16, cause a fight in their favourite pub - usualy Yates.

To be a chav in pictures

Step 1 - Look like this:



Step 2 - Have several buy one get one free alchohol pops here



Step 3 - Drive home in somthing like this



Of course not everybody who looks that is a scally, not everybody who drinks in Yates is a scally, and not everybody who drives Nova SRis are scallies, there lies the problem, As Morrissey would put it:

"You buy the daily news people and find everything in it but the news, but still you look down on the teenage dad on his estate"

 

See www.scallycentral.co.uk for more details!

Ed.

 

how can someone who can afford 50 quid for a fcuking baseball cap be 'working class' - (ok i know they're knockoffs from down the 'barras). also how do they get the blood out of their chav suits and keep them that dayglo white? perhaps all will be revealed tonight...
cheers


julian

 

That is what I don't get, working classes are supposed to be hard working people who just don't have that much money, a very different thing to a chav/scally.

The only connection is that chavs tend to come from working class areas, but they can come from any type of background or area.

We are not even allowed to call them underlcass, because we are not allowed to insult them, its anti PC, but we can slate the working and middle classes as much as we like.

 

Working class people usually have plenty of money, it's what they choose to spend it on which separates them from the rest of society.

Julie Burchill is possibly the least consistent journalist in the UK. She puts forward what she knows is a contentious viewpoint purely for effect.

 

So if a middle class teacher (just for the sake of arguments) earn't £20k a year, and a so called working class joiner earned the same amount in the stereotypical views what would each spend it on?

Maybe middle class people go out and buy a brand new Mondeo every two years and through all their money down the Ford dealers, yet the working class is looked down on for being sensible and driving a 1995 mondeo?

I think one big difference between the two classes is attitudes towards education.

 

Class has nothing at all to do with how much someone earns, although very few of the working class besides skilled labourers earn anything close to the salary of a member of the professional classes. It also has nothing to do with what people spend their money on.

AT, read some Marx, you'll learn a lot.

-- Ian

 

So how do you define it then? By the way one of the most working class families I know have their own business and live in a mansion in a very very posh area, yet I consider them more working class than other member of my family who live in cheaper houses and earn less.

I think a lot of class (if it even exists) has to with attitudes.

 

It's defined by occupation. I agree it's not defined by what people spend on, but the lower social classes tend not to defer their own gratification.

 

And they breed like er Chavs . . . .

 

Someone who owns their own business isn't, by definition, working class, regardless of how they speak, their education, what car they drive, or any of the other witless drivel used by people who don't understand basic economic categories.

The working class is that class who neither own nor control any means of economic production, and exist by selling their labour. An old-fashioned idea, but it has the benefit of a precise meaning, unlike the sociological garbage which relies on analysing people's choice of baseball caps in order to say nothing meaningful about anything.

-- Ian

 

Its stupid though, my dad was supposed to be middle class, he was a senior librarian so you can't get much more middle class than that, yet he drove a 10 year old Lada which gave off blue smoke.

I think the way people to spend money and their attitudes towards enducation is a better way of classifying it. Of course education also effects the job you may end up doing.

 

AT as Ian said, class has nothing to do with money, it is about status and responsibility. Your father followed a profession, it so happened it wasn't well paid. He was obviously fortunate enough to have a good education, and chose to follow a particular career path.
Working class is fast becoming a myth in this country by standard definitions, as manufacturing rapidly dies out. Hence the growth of a new middle class, those with money but tastes that offend the old school middle class like myself. Hence we pour scorn upon them for wearing Burberry and souping up their Nova's.

 

I'd also suggest a look at www.chavscum.co.uk to brush up on who they are and what they look like.....as for "culture"......I think not.

 

was watching it. the woman's talking out of her arse justifying chavs as some sort of hero or guiding light for society. switched over to a csi rerun instead - hand me the media vallium...
cheers


julian

 

Thats what gets me about the whole thing, people who go out of their way to be obnoxious and uneducated, not to mention walking clone billboards perpetuating corporate control on everything, and they're actually proud of it . N tink it cleva 2talk lyk diss

 

Worth considering that the obnoxious and uneducated etc we're talking about here,will be the older generation in not too many yrs.....where does that leave the next generation....

 

Watch kids tv on saturday and sunday mornings. That will answer your question. I think the word starts with an F, ends in D and has u c k and e in between.
Although environmentally the earth only has 25-50 years left if things carry on this way so perhaps it doesn't matter. Their non-caring will end it all. And its largely thanks to viacom, MTV,Nike, the gap matel etc. who teach kids that all thats important is what clothes, trainers, music etc. they have/like and that not having the latest mobile phone would just be like the worst day ever. My god, tell the people hit by the tsunami or in wartorn countries that! I'm sure they'd all be glad to club together to get them the latest model. We're all screwed.