March 29, 2010

What is a Bogan Today?

It has come to my attention that there was a lot of confusion as to what a "Bogan" is. I found this definition that may be helpful. Also, I realized that I spelled "Bogan" incorrectly last time I posted. So, forgive me for that!



An excellent question. It is time to bring to the world’s attention the means by which we can keep the world’s bogans happy. The word bogan has had a bad rap of late – still associated with wife beaters, flannelette, VB, utes and mullets. But this conceals the new, modern bogan. The bogan with money. The bogan with aspirations. The bogan with Ed Hardy t-shirts. And this is no mere Australian phenomenon – in the US, you have rednecks, in the UK, chavs. While there are variations, the crux of the discussion remains the same.

The bogan today defies income, class, race, creed, gender or religion. The bogan is defined by what it does, what it says and, most importantly, what it buys. Those who choose to deny the bogan on the basis of their North Shore home, their stockbroking career or their massive trust fund choose not to see the bogan. They merely see old class battles revisited. Likewise, the bogan is no mere ‘tradie’. Even if tradies remained low-income workers, many bogans are affluent. And they set themselves apart by their efforts to stand out by conforming as furiously, and conspicuously, as possible.

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