Chavs and Bogans

I've been trying to watch this movie Morvern Callar that Ivy lent me straight out of her husband's shopping bag. I think it's pretty great but I'm suffering from an attack of ADD (shit is contagious). Anyway, it's from the UK and arty and a bit of a drag. I just wish I could give it the attention it deserves. But this is all besides the point. There is something about it that I can't put in words at the moment that made me think of chavs.

For those of you who don't know what a chav is, it's the height of style in the UK. I want to say that as loosely as possible. Being a fan of garage/two-step (potato/patoto) and grime for several years (thanks to the time put in at many drum n bass parties in my late teens), I'm familiar with the actual steez - bling (of the gold, not diamond variety), track suits, fake designer shit. Very Ali G for those of you not familiar with the scene. Fake thug. But a chav itself is kinda scummy. From what I read, Brits compare them to rednecks or trailer trash.

And I totally get the fashion association! Now please, my more in the know NYers, I no longer live on the corner of hip and before the times. Anyone remember Von Dutch? Six years (give or take) it became cool in hip circles to dress white trash. Oh the irony. Then 2-3 years later, everyone was all about the trucker hats and vintage T's and whatever else trickled down from the streets to the masses. It's the same exact thing! Only British!

Anyway, I immediately emailed Sarah because during my research I came upon a beautiful nugget of colloquialisms! Here's my email:

between lady fucking sovereign (love her, don't hate her) and lily
allen, all i hear about is chav this and chav that and chav style.
lagerfeld wants to make lily allen his new bitch because the way she
flips chanel chav style. in my attempts to put a finger on exactly
what chav style is, i turned to google. after overly eloquent
britishisms about the class divide and different slang for chav based
on region ("ned" and "kev" for example), i came across this on some
bulletin board:

"Sorry, Spider, you are mistaken.
Chavs are NOT what you are thinking of.
You are thinking of prep.
Chavs are what Americans call trailer trash, or rednecks.
There is also a group in Australia which has a similar stigma, the bogan."

You see, bogan is one of the most used words in Sarah's vocab (she's very Aussie btw, in an American way, if you feel me). My cousin Matt went to college with Sars and when I first told him I work with her, bogan was the first thing he said.

Sidenote: For those of you who don't know who Sov is, it's not Patty Deegan who works at Sovereign Bank, although that could be a great nickname for her. I can't deal with internal links right now, just go to ladysovereign.com.