cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/44683036
Explanation:
spoiler
Both twist something (staples of young white working class fashion, tracksuits, gold, caps, and trainers, a cute Australian animal) into something dangerous (chav/drop bear) and that caricature is wrongfully said to be it’s own thing (a subculture/a carnivorous marsupial species - in reality, sociologists have confirmed there was no “chav” subculture, nobody or almost nobody identified as one, it was something made up by upper class tabloids to demonise the white British working class, like how zoologists have said there’s no “drop bear” species, it was something to make people fearful of Koalas) in order to make people fearful (chav especially is riddled with classism, though.)
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 utility in 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.
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.