Bogan (pronounced bow-ghin)
(1) A backwater, usually narrow and tranquil or sluggish.
(2) Any narrow stretch of water.
(3) In Australia and New Zealand, derogatory slang used to describe a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behavior are considered unrefined or unsophisticated.
Circa 1991: The origin of bogan is uncertain, about the only thing on which most dictionaries agree (although none have produce anything more than anecdotal evidence) is the term may have emerged in Melbourne in the late 1970s, the earliest documented use dating from 1991. Competing words from the same era (such as bevans, westies, chiggas (or chiggs) & booners), which tended to be regionally specific faded from use as bogan became universal, the speculation being the use on commercial television and youth-oriented FM radio accelerated the process. There is both a Bogan River and a Bogan Shire in central New South Wales (NSW) and it’s speculated some earlier Australian slang may be the basis for the modern use. The first recorded instance of bogan in a jocular adjectival form was in Banjo Paterson’s (1864–1941) The City of Dreadful Thirst:
We don't respect the clouds up there, they fill us with disgust,
They mostly bring a Bogan shower — three raindrops and some dust;
But each man, simultaneous-like, to each man said, 'I think
That cloud suggests it's up to us to have another drink!
The “bogan shower” was thus a poor imitation of the real thing and, presumably by extension, the later “bogan gate” described a rather rough & ready, makeshift farm gate. From here, some etymologists suggest the idea of the bogan as something cheap, inferior and unsophisticated developed although how and why it began to gain critical mass in the 1980s remains unexplained. It has however proved adaptable. In one of Australia's recent spate of defenestrations, the knifed prime-minister was replaced with one a bit boganish and the prime-minister's official residence came to be referred to by some as "boganville" (a play on words referencing Bougainville Island which is (at least for now) part of Papua New Guinea (PNG)). Mischievously, the opposition's spokesman on foreign affairs stood in parliament and asked the deposed leader (by then the foreign minister) "Will the Foreign Minister advise the House when he intends to return to Bougainville?"
The word is the Australia version of those that exist elsewhere such as Chav in England (probably derived from chavi, a Romani (Roma; Traveller; Gypsy) word for child) or Ossi (easterner) in the Fourth Reich (used in post-unification Germany as a disparaging term for those coming to the west from the former GDR (East Germany)). Use is criticized as a form of snobbery which of course it is but a form of inverse-snobbery has emerged with bogans now self-identifying in a modern form of class-pride. The unique aspect of boganism is that, unlike chav or other ethnic-based slurs, bogans are associated, however inaccurately in a world of cross-cutting cultures, exclusively as white and of Anglo-Saxon extraction. This makes bogans the only societal sub-set set able to be derided, denigrated and vilified; bogans having no recourse to the formal and informal mechanisms of protection available to other (ethnic, race, gender, sexual orientation, sex etc) minorities. Society seems to need to have one minority available for disparagement and a combination of legislation and social pressures mean all others now enjoy some sort of protection. Others permissible targets such as fat, stupid people are not actually a separate group; such people presumed to be bogans until proven otherwise.
Winfield Blue was once really blue and advertised: 1976 (left), 1979 (centre) & 1986 (right).
Bogan stereotypes abound and historically they had names like Todd and Chantelle, the archetypical Chantelle a sixteen year old mother of two and in some sort of relationship with a man who isn’t the father of either and while barely literate and probably unable to point to Canada on a map, is most adept with Facebook and TikTok. Of late however, the list of possible bogan names has expanded (including a few original concoctions) and one news site identified (an apparently non-exhaustive list) the most bogan names thus far registered in 2022 which included Brexleigh, Iveigh, Juul, Kardi, Kior, Maevery, Miraccle, Resilia, Salmon & Samanda for girls while boys were blessed with Brave, Draven, Draxler, Kashdon, Knoxlee, Ledgen, Maxon, Roar, Zaiken & Zinc. The novel names or variations in spelling of older forms is new but some cultural markers are intergenerational such as footwear (thongs if possible, Ug Boots if it’s too cold) and cigarettes, Winfield Blue (although the packaging is now plain except for the disturbing photographs of the consequences of smoking) apparently still the most popular and carried usually tucked into a t-shirt’s sleeve. However, despite the most enduring stereotype, the mullet is no longer the default hair-style and the goatee not the inevitable beard, rat-tails and a number of closely cropped variations now common.
Bogan culture
Bogans may seem remote from the progress of civilization but there’s certainly an identifiable culture and, within their cultural specializations, there's doubtless a pecking order. Although derided by the genteel as unsophisticated, that’s a misunderstanding because although sophistication is a hierarchal construct, there are many different sophistications, all of which enjoy their own hierarchies and while bogans may be thought to have appalling taste in most things, in aspects of life in which they’re interested (big televisions, jet-skis etc), bogans are genuine experts.
A recent phenomenon is the CUB (cashed-up bogan) which reflects the higher incomes incomes enjoyed in the last quarter-century odd by those (skilled and trained but not usually university-educated) who have benefited from the resources and construction booms. It’s a term of both social and economic significance and refers to those who have recently and suddenly become richer yet lack the cultural and social skills to match what is typically expected of those with wealth. In this it differs from a parvenu in that conventions of use suggest a parvenu tends to come from the middle-class and is often an employee while a CUB is quintessentially from the trades and will likely be self-employed. Parvenu and the CUB are terms laden with the snobbery of classism. The idea is of those newly arisen (ie the nouveau riche), especially if by some accident or luck or circumstances, being thought by those already there not worthy of their new assertion of status and despised for their attempts to persuade, the sort of people David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), speaking of his Liberal Party colleagues, called “jumped-up grocers”. The CUB by comparison is unaware of or indifferent to the conventions of polite society and, content with materialism, usually makes no attempt socially to climb. That means snobs despise them for other reasons; multiple huge televisions in vulgar houses thought not tasteful, hence the view it’s just appalling for such people to have money because they have not the taste to know how it should be spent.
The highest form of bogan culture remains the burn-out, and the hotted-up Holden Commodore seems still the preferred machine. A burn-out is achieved by applying maximum power to the rear wheels while applying the brakes on the front and object is to destroy the back tyres, preferably by reducing both to chunks of smoking rubber. All this is achieved while travelling a very short distance, usually in somewhat irregular circles. The burn-out’s origin is in drag-racing where it’s done (in a brief, straight-line run), to heat the tyres to the point at which they achieve maximum traction. In such competition, the object is to attain the lowest elapsed-time to complete a quarter-mile (402.336 m) sprint from a standing start. So in drag-racing, there’s thus a purpose whereas otherwise the burn-out is thought a display of bogan barbarism. Polite society frowns on hobbies such as burn-outs but in fairness to bogans, some of the engineering required to produce machines with the robustness required to endure the stresses imposed is of very high quality.
While the hotted-up Commodore is the vehicle of choice, bogans not yet able to afford such a status-symbol (your actual basic bogan), will improvise.
Before the word became associated with opprobrium, Bogan was just another name to be applied to this and that and dotted around the place are many streets avenues so named. Some living at these addresses are not best pleased and for some years residents of a pleasantly leafy part of Sydney’s North Shore have been lobbying their council to change their roadway’s name from Bogan Place to Rainforrest Close. One resident noted there was also the practical benefit to de-boganizing the place given the street sign has been stolen six times in two years. However, he added the main reason was "We're middle class people and it's got really nothing to do with who's in the street". Presumably it’s all Audis and Lexuses there and not a hotted-up Commodore in sight. However, others saw commercial possibilities and Forbes Shire Council changed the name of Bogan Gate Road to The Bogan Way, an initiative of the Tottenham Development Group which expects the new name to attract hordes of bogans in hotted up Commodores anxious to take selfies under the street signs, the attraction being they’ll spend time in community, spending up big on pre-mix cans of bourbon & cola and packets of Winfield Blue, thereby injecting much money into the local economy.
Bogan and Sons is a highly regarded hardware supplier (Unit 10 / 8 Chrome Street, Salisbury, Queensland 4107, Australia).
No comments:
Post a Comment