Comment on Chavs are the British version of the Australian Drop Bear
dgdft@lemmy.world 1 day agoYou’re quoting the political opinion piece of one lone sociologist, though. It’s objectively a hot take that the majority of the field would not agree with.
You can find plenty of physicists who will tell you aliens, bigfoot or alternative dimensions are real. The validity of that statement does not make aliens, bigfoot, or multiverses a physical reality.
TinyLittlePuni@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Okay but other sociologists agree that chav was never an actual subculture. Nobody identified as one (or very few people did, ironically) it was just something the newspapers made up to demonise white working class people. The fashion, the tracksuits, gold, caps, and trainers, are all staples of young white working class fashion that predate the chav myth by decades.
dgdft@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m totally on board with the idea that for academic anthropology, self-identity should be treated as the core determinant of cultural grouping: i.e., people are who they say they are.
But IMO, to take that academic lens outside a scholarly context and browbeat that there’s no point having a commonplace semiotic label for “common behavioral and stylistic trends of white, working-class British youth from the 90s and aughts” is a weird leap that misunderstands practical semantics.
Tmiwi@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
well said, and as someone from Chatham (the word didn’t originated there but was adopted by, and connected with the people of that city, as well as others) this absolutely was used as a descriptor of a particular type of person/s. just like redneck and bogan it was just a societal descriptor of a demographic phenomenon. whether it was chav or some other word it doesn’t matter, the same connotations would have been applied.
Lumidaub@feddit.org 1 day ago
Them: Other scientists don’t agree with this.
You: Okay, but other scientists agree with this.