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.)

  • Tomtits@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    10·
    2 days ago

    You’re a stuck record aren’t ya?

    Have you ever heard of the phrase:

    “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks?”

  • dgdft@lemmy.worldEnglish
    81·
    2 days ago

    What makes this a recurring fixation for you, OP? Didn’t you post a bunch of old threads arguing that chav is a slur?

    Just a weird hill, mate.

    • Puni@lemmy.worldOP
      24·
      2 days ago

      You say that as if sociologists haven’t said the same thing. Everything that I have said in my explanation is factually correct.

      • Lumidaub@feddit.org
        9·
        2 days ago

        What do sociologists say about people who repeat the same talking points over and over and over without actually engaging with anything anyone else says?

      • dgdft@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        You’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.

        • Puni@lemmy.worldOP
          11·
          2 days 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.worldEnglish
            3·
            2 days 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 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.

            • Tmiwi@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              1 day 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.orgEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            Them: Other scientists don’t agree with this.

            You: Okay, but other scientists agree with this.