I didn’t know the word “chav” was used in America, but wonder if it has a slightly different meaning then it does in the UK? It’s not (although frequently is used as) a derogative term for the “Working Class” or poor, but for people who willingly live on benefits from the state rather than work. The reason it gets used so much is that some of the tabloids newspapers here glamorised “Chav culture” (The Sun – “Proud to be Chav”), and I guess it lost it’s meaning to most people along the way. Which is not to say that it isn’t a really horrible word, but the comic made me wonder.
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Huh, that’s a lot of quote marks, hope I used them correctly.
@ Michael – if I’m not mistaken, isn’t it a sort of ackronym (possibly even a backronym) for Council Housed and Violent? Sort of roving street gangs of kids on benefits that go violent simply because they can? I may be working off of some sort of old definition here …
February 26, 2009
…I’m picturing the feminist costume as a “This is what a feminist looks like” tee.
April 6, 2009
I didn’t know the word “chav” was used in America, but wonder if it has a slightly different meaning then it does in the UK? It’s not (although frequently is used as) a derogative term for the “Working Class” or poor, but for people who willingly live on benefits from the state rather than work. The reason it gets used so much is that some of the tabloids newspapers here glamorised “Chav culture” (The Sun – “Proud to be Chav”), and I guess it lost it’s meaning to most people along the way. Which is not to say that it isn’t a really horrible word, but the comic made me wonder.
…
Huh, that’s a lot of quote marks, hope I used them correctly.
January 8, 2010
Best thing ever.
May 28, 2010
@ Michael – if I’m not mistaken, isn’t it a sort of ackronym (possibly even a backronym) for Council Housed and Violent? Sort of roving street gangs of kids on benefits that go violent simply because they can? I may be working off of some sort of old definition here …
December 19, 2010
By this definition….AAAAAAAGH I’M A HIPSTER!
Note to the interested: another distinguishing feature of hipsters is that have identity crises over webcomics.
February 2, 2011
The old U.S term for “chav” was “welfare queen.” Nice to know we are moving toward gender equality in our classist epithets
May 14, 2012
I was anti-hipster before it was popular…Now being anti-hipster is too mainstream.