A friend of a friend, an Aussie, remarked the other day that some people considered it "bogan" to like Pink Floyd, which got me to thinking...
Here was me imagining the bogan concept to be the Australian equivalent of the American redneck, the Jerry Springer Show fodder on which US TV audiences seemed to gorge as readily as they do their buckets of KFC or multiple Big Macs.
Did I have it wrong? I mean, I don't like Pink Floyd - I love Pink Floyd.
This required some introspective scrutiny and perhaps a little research on the topic.
Variously, google, wikipedia and the urban dictionary paint a pretty clear picture of boganism which can be summarised as follows:
The typical bogan lifestyle involves wanton promiscuity and copious alcohol intake with scant regard for birth control, typically loud aggressive females, quieter but no less aggressive males who regard a typical breeding season as any Friday night that comes along...
They are regarded to be of low social status, an uncouth, unsophisticated working class, singlet wearing, oftentimes mullet or mohawk coiffured subculture renowned for its hideous bad taste. Old model, muscle Holdens or Fords will be parked in the cluttered driveways while their owners swill beer, talking footy, showing off their most recent home-done tattoos while Cold Chisel, AC/DC, Midnight Oil, Rose Tattoo or any other harder form of classic rock is pounding away in the background.
So far I'm thinking I haven't quite acquired the credentials for boganism as far as the modern understanding is concerned.
But there's a catch - as with the white-trash Zef subculture in South Africa, championed by that potty-mouthed duo going by the name of Die Antwoord (hoozit, Yolandi,)] boganism has ironically achieved an "in" status - it's actually cool to aspire to the style...if you're under 30. If you're older, you flip and look down your noses at them.
Yes, it appears, only stuck-up toffee-nosed snobs are the ones who use the term to derogatorily describe a person supposedly less cultured than themselves, which, by default would make the cultured snobs potentially less cool than the bogans. Does this make any sense to you?
Bear with...
What had to happen here, I mused, was a bogan checklist had to be transcribed wherein I would enter the notations to resolve this dilemma once and for all. I mean, Pink Floyd is at worst psychedelic rock and at best prog rock but it's never been your typical chug-chug, leather jacket and anti-establishment hard rock with anarchic mantras issuing forth (except perhaps momentarily on Another Brick In The Wall Part II - but that was more of an anthem and it was lifted from the autobiographical angst of Roger Waters' troubled childhood.) Syd Barrett and the lads were nowhere near Rose Tattoo, Cold Chisel or even Midnight Oil...but I digress...
1. Dress code: stubbies shorts, singlets, Ugg boots, monkey hoodies, thongs (flip-flops not anal-floss) and home-done tattoos - nope, not even close with the exception of a single, small tattoo up on my right shoulder that I did design but then again, I earned my living as a commercial illustrator for a while in South Africa and the design was rendered by a professional studio in Cape Town so I think that cancels out the home done tat aspect, don't you.
2. Coiffure: mullet, mohawk, long strange looking goatees, single-stranded pony tail, mutton chop whiskers, skinhead - nope again. I have the goatee but it's always trimmed to a No 1 in a kinda designer-stubble arrangement....my hairstyle - traditional shortish with a modicum of product tickled through it - far too metrosexual to be bogan, I'd wager.
3. Mode of transport: Holden or Ford - old model muscle car (in constant state of upgrade and/or modification,) souped up ute - nope. Sad old suburban Subaru Outback station-wagon with auto transmission - about as anti-bogan as you can get, I think.
4. Diet: junk food, predominantly burgers, fries, fizzy drinks, copious quantities of alcohol, particularly beer - oh and cigarettes, often hand-rolled. There may be the occasional spliff involved here somewhere as well - I'm a vegetarian, I don't touch alcohol but do relish a good non-alcoholic beer (ow, I think I got clipped on the back of the head by a passing bogan who heard me using good and non-alcoholic in the same sentence...) and cigarettes - nah, not since 1983. Doob? A bit while growing up but like Bill Clinton - I never inhaled....pfffffttttt...
5. Musical preferences: (As previously noted) classic rock bands from the 70's onward, listen to classic rock stations on the radio and go mental for AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Guns 'n Roses and on and on (and, I'm told, Pink Floyd) - now this is where I do, in fact, start devolving into the realm of the bogan as I have a particular fondness for this genre of music into which I would not specifically place The Floyd, however, if this means the bogan virus is in my blood then it's been there for a very long time - over 40 years, in fact, and it hasn't mutated into an all-consuming pathogen that has driven me to meat-eating, smoking, drinking, muscle-cars, dodgy hairdos, a penchant for home-inked tats or the desire to attend family reunions to pick up chicks...
6. Sporting code preferences: footy period - oh and cricket - meh, not me really. I know the story about the argument over what ballgame would win favour on some colonial cricket pitch way back in the Aussie day when they decided after many hours of dispute to combine them all - rugby, soccer, Gaelic football, netball, lacrosse while wearing their wives' shirts and shorts and this strange pastime eventually "evolved" into Aussie Rules Football which holds sway until this very day for reasons that may become known to me over time. But as a buff old traditionalist, I still prefer that pinnacle of ballgames, Rugby Union followed by soccer. Cricket - it's okay but ever since Hansie put the kibosh on the thing with the match-fixing shenanigans, I don't know if you can trust the process any longer. And T20 - that's more about bums in seats and cash in the bank than it is about cricket but hey, what do I know
Conclusion:
So if Pink Floyd fandom or even worship renders me bogan then I think there might be hope for this subculture yet - there must be bogans in charge of some of the radio stations in fair Adelaide such as Classic Triple M, which in and of itself is a very good reason to hang in this wonderful city.
I'll bet you this - nary a Justin Bieber tune has ever aired itself on the stereo of a bogan muscle machine in a tinny-littered driveway and if that remains a trend in the average boganvilla then I think I could happily be labeled a bogan albeit a very, very watered down version of the breed.
See ya!
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