What Bogan is that?

November 5, 2009 6:23 PM

Someone has started publishing a handy guide to the Australian bogan. One bogan is not amused. (Previously)
posted by awfurby (68 comments total)

What's a bogan?
posted by empath at 6:31 PM on November 5, 2009

What's a bogan?

They are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
posted by DU at 6:33 PM on November 5, 2009 [17 favorites]

Australian version of a chav or a hoodrat?
posted by meadowlark lime at 6:33 PM on November 5, 2009

From the about page:

And to head off the inevitable criticisms at the pass; we who are responsible for this are not self-aware bogans. We are not like Woody Allen making Jewish jokes. We are snobs. Hipsters. We mock these people out of sheer spite and an infuriating sense of self-superiority. We are very young, very white, and total arseholes. And that’s how we like it.

How delightful! This must be that vaunted Australian irony we Americans just don't understand!
posted by dersins at 6:38 PM on November 5, 2009 [7 favorites]

Ah sorry - should have included the Wikipedia entry - but, yes, a bit like a chav.
posted by awfurby at 6:38 PM on November 5, 2009

Jesus that's an awful site. Of the five tags you've used, I don't think any honestly apply. I used to be ashamed of the shirtless Cronulla rioters, but now, you know, maybe the hobbits had a point.

Listen up, my fellow Australians: the essence of our national identity is about being seen as clueless provincial dickheads by the rest of the world.

This must be that vaunted Australian irony we Americans just don't understand!

Heh.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:40 PM on November 5, 2009

Well. Working in an inner-city emergency department in Melbourne and dealing with a lot of, let's say seedier sides of society, a lot of the stuff on this website is disturbingly spot on.

Especially about Melbourne cup day. Especially about the drunk girls and beat-up guys after Melbourne cup day.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 6:54 PM on November 5, 2009

Dr. Johnny Fever was fired from a radio station in L.A. for saying "bogan" on the air. They just misheard it as "booger".
posted by evilmidnightbomberwhatbombsatmidnight at 6:55 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

1. You decry bad taste, suburbanism, materialism, boganism, marriage and children or anything else which reminds you of where actually came from

Damn skippy.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 7:02 PM on November 5, 2009

We call 'em bevans around here. Mostly identifiable by broad, loud voices, flanny shirts, ugh boots and doing laps of town in their hotted up Commodores.

They're everywhere, people! Only the name is different.
posted by h00py at 7:13 PM on November 5, 2009

I don't even know what a bogan is any more. When I grew up, listening to Motley Crue et al was a crucial part, along with the wearing of 'battle jackets' (or moccies). Now any enMcMansioned yankophile gets a pass.

That all said: that rebuttal was pissweak.
posted by pompomtom at 7:18 PM on November 5, 2009

Oh, so that's how Australians say fratboy and hipster. Funny Australians and their silly names for things...
posted by qvantamon at 7:19 PM on November 5, 2009

So Bogan is Australian slang for Gosselin?
posted by Frank Grimes at 7:19 PM on November 5, 2009 [3 favorites]

This must be that vaunted Australian irony we Americans just don't understand!

Yes, it's blatantly an inverse-snobbish parody by a bogan of a pretentious inner-city tosser stereotyping bogans.

But I assume you already worked that out for yourself.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:29 PM on November 5, 2009

I for one welcome the day when the booners take control and force the bogans back to the western-suburbs, where they belong. Wait, what do you mean no one can tell the difference?
posted by threeze at 7:29 PM on November 5, 2009

What a dreadful blog. This post was particularly awful.

I can't imagine anyone wanting to read about the disdain of overeducated hipster-snobs for trashy people who give their kids silly names.
posted by eatyourcellphone at 7:42 PM on November 5, 2009

According to the hipsters, I'm not a bogan.
According to the bogans, I'm not a hipster.

Thank god for that.
posted by robotot at 7:43 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh, so that's how Australians say fratboy

Not really, no. The average bogan wouldn't have made it to tertiary education.
posted by rodgerd at 7:47 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Listen up, my fellow Australians: the essence of our national identity is about being seen as clueless provincial dickheads by the rest of the world.

You misspelled "Americans".
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:49 PM on November 5, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'd much rather be all those things that bogan accused tossers of being than any of those things the snobs accuse bogans of being.
posted by crossoverman at 8:06 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Not fratboys, I don't think - don't you have to go to university or college or something to be part of a fraternity? Bogans are unlikely to have any post-secondary education, and are often fiercely anti-intellectual. And not hipsters - the equivalent would be the inner-city yuppies mocked in the Punch article. Chav is closer, IMO. Are there cashed-up chavs?

The key difference between Things Bogans Like and Stuff White People Like is that the former has a really bitter tone to it. Kath and Kim covered the same ground, but with a certain amount of affection and a recognition that many supposedly hip people have a bogan background. Things Bogan Like is accurate, but in a mean and one-sided way. I was raised by bogans (became a nerd as I grew up), and all my family friends are bogans. And I have to say that if you're in trouble and you need help, your bogan friend will always come through for you.
posted by harriet vane at 8:06 PM on November 5, 2009 [3 favorites]

harriet is dead on. This is bitter and what's more it's pathetically derivative from Stuff White People Like.

It's in that sad, awful vein of Australian rip offs. It's like when Steve Vizard ran his imitation Tonight Show which went as far as to copy Letterman's gestures.
posted by sien at 8:16 PM on November 5, 2009

Oh, so that's how Australians say fratboy

that's what i thought too. fratty douchebag type stuff is what i took from the list, mostly. but i'm totally confused about what it really is. cuz from the wikipedia page, it equates it with american white trash, rednecks and hillbillys. but the couple pics look like hipsters to me. and that list isn't really what i'd call hick stuff. ??? so then in the comments meadowlark lime mentions it could be like a chav. ok, what the fuck is a chav? on wikipedia a bogan is like the british chav. alright. then i look at chav and it has that caricature of a chav and that screams "wigger". so wtf?

(sorry about using wigger if that offends. a blog i've been reading lately uses it all the time and it's been stuck in my head)
posted by rainperimeter at 8:23 PM on November 5, 2009

It's like when Steve Vizard ran his imitation Tonight Show which went as far as to copy Letterman's gestures.

Or like when the Americans ran their imitation Kath & Kim, only with all of the humour removed so as not to risk offending anybody.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:29 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think the best term to describe bogans, chavs, and bro dudes is "low-class people acting badly".
posted by dunkadunc at 8:35 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bogans are just bogans. You don't really get the equivalent overseas. Take the awkward upward social mobility of a chav, mix in the fierce anti-intellectualism and tribalism of your redneck, the utter lack of self awareness of the frat boy, baste it in cheap beer and abandon it on a prison island, hidden in the summer for a million years. They're nice, very unusshual, verry unikwe.

That my friends, is a bogan.

Of course, they tend to have broad senses of humour, strong loyalty to friends and family, no matter what the friends and family do, and a certain code of honour that you do not break. Don't fuck with kids or old ladies, share your hospitality, and help folk out if they're in trouble. A bogan may start a fight, but they'll often break them up, too. They may have their rough sides, but most bogans are okay people.
posted by Jilder at 8:38 PM on November 5, 2009 [6 favorites]

Fuck, this is getting too nuanced.

Just tell me which of these two groups of people I should hate.
posted by qvantamon at 8:43 PM on November 5, 2009 [7 favorites]

Yob or wanker, wanker or yob
Pass me the brush to tar ya
make your choice and live your life
c'mon pal whaddareya

posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:46 PM on November 5, 2009 [3 favorites]

Oh! And they tend to be very earnest. Very, very earnest. It's almost painful for folk with a developed sense of irony to have much to do with them. Their flanno is earnest. THeir cheap beer is earnest. They really do like XXXX beer mats and lamb chops served with three sorts of mushy over boiled veg. They aren't critiquing the commodification of the working class, or the stagnancy of tradition. They really just actually like that shit. Hence the vitriol from the hipsters - the bogans broke their brains.
posted by Jilder at 8:50 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bogan spies were good enough for Princess Leia.
posted by ooga_booga at 9:04 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bogans now garnish their boiled veges with no less than three kinds of mushies?

Shit, they're getting sophisticated. I thought they couldn't tell their swiss browns from their portobellos.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:04 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Everything I know about bogans I learned from J'amie on Summer Heights High.
posted by hermitosis at 9:06 PM on November 5, 2009

There's something extremely gratifying about the way in which Ed Hardy/Christian Audigier t-shirts have become the international calling card of the twat.

It doesn't matter where in the world you happen to be, nothing says 'I'm a twat' louder than an Ed Hardy t-shirt.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:13 PM on November 5, 2009 [2 favorites]

It's 'taking the piss' not 'taking a piss', sillies.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:16 PM on November 5, 2009

Every time I see the word 'bogan' I can't help but hear it in Jeff Spicoli's voice.
posted by bwg at 9:25 PM on November 5, 2009

Bogan, please!
posted by peeedro at 9:33 PM on November 5, 2009

Jilder: that code only applies provided your skin is white.
posted by cheaily at 9:46 PM on November 5, 2009

Give your social life a sneaky reach-around.
posted by nzero at 9:58 PM on November 5, 2009

Do yanks even have the equivalent of calling someone a "wanker"?

Because I love using that word as an insult. "Ya bloody wanker!"
posted by Talez at 10:16 PM on November 5, 2009

If you want an affectionate take on bogans, you go across the ditch for Outrageous Forunte.
posted by rodgerd at 10:26 PM on November 5, 2009

Let's just skip ahead a few steps and start a group blog titled "Things Types Of People I Don't Like Like"...
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:35 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

I propose the following amendment to the ICANN policies: no more websites/blogs/tumblrs with titles containing the word "stuff." Ever. Sorry, people of the Internet, but you have demonstrated that you simply cannot be trusted with this word.

Not even decade-old educational websites will get a pass. That's how serious the problem is.
posted by decagon at 12:17 AM on November 6, 2009

... that code only applies provided your skin is white.

Wait, bogans are albinos?
posted by bwg at 12:19 AM on November 6, 2009

albino bogong
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:26 AM on November 6, 2009

Just tell me which of these two groups of people I should hate.

Well, looking over the Bogan's Revenge, it appears bogans:

1. Don't go to music festivals
2. Don't really, really feel for the oppressed
3. Don't have jobs
4. Don't enjoy visiting other countries or experiencing other cultures
5. Enjoy bars that are extremely fancy in decor
6. Don't look like La Roux
7. Revel in the idiot box and all of its anti-intellectualism
8. Dislike large words
9. Disdain deep, meaningful conversations
10. Have no taste, enjoy the suburbs, rampant materialism, boganism, marriage and children

Between the two, I think you should hate the bogans.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:40 AM on November 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

Do yanks even have the equivalent of calling someone a "wanker"?

Jerkoff?
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:19 AM on November 6, 2009

Boost Juice, jesus. Full of Suicide Girl wannabes and lanky guys with thick-framed prescription glasses, taking eight years to do an art degree, covered head to toe in orange and celery pulp, listening to the fucking Hilltop Hoods and touching one another on the backside because hey, I need the blender. Go get a job at a fucking yoghurt shop. What's with all the yoghurt shops? Christ I hate Boost Juice. Just squeeze my apples, put the lid on properly, and slip over in some fucking wheatgrass.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:35 AM on November 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

So you guys in South East Queensland know about the amalgamation of the councils? For a while they were considering combining Logan and Beaudesert and calling it Beaugan.
posted by b33j at 4:28 AM on November 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

it appears bogans:

1. Don't go to music festivals

They don't go to small, indieish ones like Laneway, only the big mass-market ones. Why stand around motionless in your Threadless T-shirt listening to angular math-rock or twee-pop when you can bang your head to some good, honest rock?

4. Don't enjoy visiting other countries or experiencing other cultures

Oh, they do. Bali's a favourite, and then there's the trip to Europe (backpack around, live in London pulling pints and enjoying the cheap cocaine, do the obligatory visit to Gallipoli and Oktoberfest, and piss/vomit on historic old buildings in various towns).

9. Disdain deep, meaningful conversations

Every bogan knows that deep, meaningful conversations and that kind of pretentious shit are for poofters. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mate, but we're not inta that sorta thing round here.

7. Revel in the idiot box and all of its anti-intellectualism

10. Have no taste, enjoy the suburbs, rampant materialism, boganism, marriage and children

The simple things in life are the best. Anything else is for wankers. Or, as someone once said, if you can't eat it, drink it or screw it, piss on it.
posted by acb at 5:06 AM on November 6, 2009

Between the two, I think you should hate the bogans.

What about hipster pseudo-bogans? When I last lived in Melbourne, they regularly advertised "Bogan Rock" nights in Prahran (the upmarket-trendy/chi-chi inner-city precinct south of the river), where trendies would dress up in flannel shirts and ball-hugging blue jeans and get down quasi-ironically to AC/DC. Sort of like Kill Whitie nights in places where even the non-White People are white people. Or perhaps the American hipster trope of wearing stereotypically working-class clothing (i.e., trucker hats) and drinking PBR.

Not to mention all the inner-city indie hipsters who think that blues-rock bands like Eddy Current Suppression Ring are the best thing ever.
posted by acb at 5:11 AM on November 6, 2009

Why is it every time someone creates a "look at these people - they're stupid and not funny" the said group creates a 'revenge' which is neither clever or amusing?

Oh, and I'm 60% "inner-city tosser", apparently. Who knew that 'obtuse' was a long word...?
posted by twine42 at 5:13 AM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

For as long as I live, I will never cease to be amazed and saddened by peoples' eagerness to divide themselves into 'us' and 'them'.
posted by tommasz at 6:04 AM on November 6, 2009

For as long as I live, I will never cease to be amazed and saddened by peoples' eagerness to divide themselves into 'us' and 'them'.

Well, that's you.
posted by everichon at 7:32 AM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

For as long as I live, I will never cease to be amazed and saddened by peoples' eagerness to divide themselves into 'us' and 'them'.

Well, people like you WOULD say that..
posted by Catfry at 8:12 AM on November 6, 2009

Nothing makes me happier (well, not quite true) than Ross Noble's impression of a bogan. Youtube's down so I can't see if a video of him doing the voice exists there, but it's the worst whiney, incomprehensible mess of gibberish and the word fuck that you can imagine. It's fantastic, and considerably worse (more amusing) than the squeaky, drawl of a Geordie chav.
posted by opsin at 8:31 AM on November 6, 2009

Aha.
The two minute mark - Bogan Antiques Roadshow.
posted by opsin at 8:50 AM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

my Aussie friend described bogans as "rednecks with a better dental plan."
posted by archibald barisol at 8:51 AM on November 6, 2009

On a tangent (or rather, following on from the riposte): Stuff White People Like: the Melbourne Version.
posted by acb at 10:06 AM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Comment number one on this page brings us the recently discussed "Ledasha."
posted by paisley henosis at 12:12 PM on November 6, 2009

Damn skippy. - kuujuuarapik

I heard this dumb-as-rocks kid say that in this dumb-as-rocks video, and thought to myself, "Who the hell says 'damn skippy'? It's such a weird phrase, and it makes no sense."

I still don't get it.

Not trying to pick on you, Ku. Just sayin'.
posted by Pecinpah at 12:52 PM on November 6, 2009

I live in one of the most bogan suburbs in Hobart, which probably makes it one of the most bogan suburbs in the country. A clear bogan majority, infact. The suburb is mostly public housing units. I bought my own house from a 38-year old grandmother, and was still finding bongs and nearly-empty baggies of weed hidden in cupboards 6 months later. But you know what? They're friendly and unpretentious. I don't mind my next-door neighbour blasting late-80s Metallica while she cleans her house, because she's always cheerful and invites my son over to play with her son on the trampoline. Maybe this is a Hobart thing, but this attitude certainly a contrast to the carrot-up-the-arse vibe of the folks across the river in Sandy Bay or Newtown. And all the stolen cars that are set on fire out behind my back fence come from those suburbs anyway. My own car and property have never been touched. Salt of the earh, I tell ya.
posted by Jimbob at 1:38 PM on November 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

Damn skippy. It just means wholehearted agreement. I have no idea of the origin, but I am familiar with it from the East Coast of the U.S. If you look back on this site, it's been used since 2000, but not very often. Who says it? I don't know, but I did. Does it make sense? Who gives a fuck.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 10:10 PM on November 6, 2009

Darn tootin'!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:07 AM on November 7, 2009

Isn't "damn skippy" the last thing you hear before being beaten up by a gang of lebs?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:54 AM on November 7, 2009

Huh. I thought it was an Underworld song.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:58 PM on November 7, 2009

Ok, strangely (new transplant to this area) the term (pronounced Boogan here) is completely current in the western Missouri KC/Springfield area. How odd.
posted by Capybara at 8:52 PM on November 7, 2009

So you guys in South East Queensland know about the amalgamation of the councils? For a while they were considering combining Logan and Beaudesert and calling it Beaugan.

Classic!
posted by moorooka at 11:58 PM on November 7, 2009

Ok, strangely (new transplant to this area) the term (pronounced Boogan here) is completely current in the western Missouri KC/Springfield area. How odd.

What's a bogan/boogan in Missouri? Is it like a redneck or hesher/juggalo or something?
posted by acb at 2:31 PM on November 8, 2009