Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Chavs, beware

At last, it’s about time someone did this.

There’s this song by The Libertines, which has this line: “There are few or more distressing sights than that of an English man in a baseball cap.”

So, thank you Bluewater Shopping Centre for taking the following stance

purplesimon out...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice to see an old British tradition being maintained. A generation ago, many pubs, shops, boarding houses etc displayed signs stating "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs".

Do Bluewater rent-a-goons also insist that all CCTV-obscuring burqas and turbans are removed as a condition of entry, as well as operating a human rights-squashing thumbprint identity scheme?
http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/fraud5.htm

purplesime said...

People can wear what they like, but...

The point I am making is that baseball caps just don't suit English people in general. Contentious? Probably!

Personally, I wouldn't go near Bluewater.

On another note, isn't it an odd thing that many of the shops that are prevalent in this shopping centre sell hooded tops and baseball caps?

As for being racist, which your comment suggests I am, that is so not my intention. I just hate sloppy dressing and the uniform of baseball cap, tracksuit, hooded top and football shirts. These things are not a religious clothing item, as turbans (for example) are.

Anyone living in a town or city will tell you that those people who choose to wear these items tend to be the ones picking fights on a Friday night after too much to drink.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure many town centre dwellers like myself would much rather a few knuckle-draggers knock each other about after a few Stellas as opposed to arranged marriages, clitoral circumcision, honour killings and all those other fun artefacts of religious observance that tend to get excused by their right-on Western apologists as being 'cultural'. Young men fight - always have done, always will - and all that needs to be done is make sure they take it outside, where it upsets fewer people. Tony's 'War on Chavs' is a likely to succeed as the 'War on Drugs'.

Western youth culture thrives on this sort of controversy - in the 1950s, it was the Teds' Zoot suits that got the Daily Mail steamed up, and something similar for each decade since. An 'Acid House' smiley T-shirt and day-glo gloves in the 1980s were as likely to annoy the elders as a mohican and safety pins in the 1970s: if those in authority remember back to their young days, they'll recall what marginalised and trivialised their rebellion was simply being denied the oxygen of publicity.

One could argue quite easily that the burgeoning chav phenomenon has been created by battalions of copywriters getting the most vulnerable members of our society - an economically and educationally marginalised underclass - hooked on the idea of chasing a branded, aspirational, disposable lifestyle that it will never be able to afford, and the resultant theft, violence and other criminality (not to mention appalling taste in polyester sportswear) can be laid squarely at the feet of these middle class double-thinkers. How far personal boycotts of Nestlé products go towards salving the conscience of such people who pay their mortgages using their powers of mass persuasion to con the proles into buying even more shiny crap, one can only hazard a guess.

purplesime said...

I get it now, you're concerned that I'm a middle-class-type who preys on those less fortunate and forces them to make decisions such as wearing polyester clothing and making crass cultural statements with their choices.

I couldn't care less what people wear. I only worry that they are presenting themselves in such a way that is detrimental to their progression in this life.

If you knew me at all (which you clearly don't) you'd know that I come from a working-class background, that I grew up on a council estate. I won't apologise for my thoughts and, while I agree that all those nasty religious issues you brought up should be outlawed, you're also giving credence to the belief that people can do what they like - whether wearing football shirts and fighting or forcing women to undergo clitoral circumcision.

And, you're still staying anonymous. You have some good points to make, but you're taking things rather too personally.

I don't believe anyone should conform if they choose not to. However, the media method of creating a cultural class system shouldn't prevent me from detesting the uniform of the so-called chav.

purplesime said...

Matt,
Just wanted to leave this for you, to say hello.

Must discuss chavs again soon.

:-)