kip

pun-ctuation

good points, the inter class rivalry in particular. i think it’s a reasonable guess that the term lost its more specific original sense when it escaped containment and got into the mouths of littlejohn et al but just saying middle class was reductive. sun/mirror hacks would have been in on the action too

i read about chav being derived from charva but never heard it said personally - i’m from the south though

re hooligans there’s definite similarities but chavs lack the same kind of rallying point so were more dispersed. maybe some chavs got promoted to casuals

i don’t know much about usa subcultures either but it might be somewhat similar to guidos? i’m not sure how well they are known for antisocial behaviour. the closest international comparison i can think of is russian gopniks

there is a grain of truth in this. chav culture certainly existed and still exists in the south of england but they came in around 2000-2010 or so for much greater demonisation than their northern (scally) or scottish (ned) counterparts, likely due to UK media being concentrated in the south

the great chav danger was blown wildly out of proportion and i’ve no doubt the term expanded beyond the original sense of a sort of tracksuit/burberry clad antisocial petty criminal youth to include just about any working class kid in the minds of home counties handbag clutchers

so to say they never existed is false, and to say they never caused anyone any bother is false. but the middle class media confected version of them never existed in any great proportion either