Bogan Pride

Bogan pride is probably the most important cultural development of the bogan culture.

Calling someone a bogan used to be essentially saying:

“You’re beneath me.”

Increasingly, people started saying:

“Yep. I’m a bogan. Got a problem with that?”

That is classic cultural reclamation. The same process has happened with many supposedly derogatory identities around the world.

But Australian bogan pride has a particularly Australian flavour because it overlaps with:

  • egalitarianism;
  • anti-authoritarianism;
  • larrikinism;
  • distrust of pretension;
  • national pride;
  • working-class identity;
  • humour.

Roslyn Rowen’s research specifically links the positive reappropriation of “bogan” with Australian nationalism and the Australian tendency to celebrate the “ordinary” person.

Cop A Gander At These Rippers Too...

  • The Dark Side Of The Bogan

    It would be a mistake to romanticise the phenomenon completely. “Bogan” can be profoundly classist. It can function as a respectable-sounding way of insulting: And stereotypes associated with bogan culture can also include: But these aren’t inherent characteristics of every person labelled bogan. That’s precisely why the term is so slippery. One academic analysis calls “bogan” a “sticky sign” because it can simultaneously attract contempt, affection, identification and disidentification.

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    Music As A Bogan Cultural Element

    Bogan culture has an extremely strong musical component. The canonical soundtrack includes: And here we encounter another great paradox. Some music associated with bogan culture is highly sophisticated musically and enormously influential internationally. AC/DC, for example, isn’t culturally insignificant because bogans love them. Quite the opposite. The music becomes part of a national mythology. Triple J even held a National Bogan Day in 2002, celebrating the stereotype with music including Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Rose Tattoo and AC/DC. So “bogan music” isn’t necessarily bad music. It is music that has become culturally associated with unpretentious Australian masculinity and working-class authenticity.

  • Where Did “Bogan” Come From?

    This is where things get wonderfully murky. The popular theories include: The evidence currently points most strongly toward Melbourne in the early 1980s, although the ultimate etymology remains uncertain. Historian and linguist Bruce Moore found evidence from 1984, in a student magazine at Melbourne’s Xavier College, describing a fictional “bogan doll”. The character already possessed many of the stereotypes we would recognise today: tattoos, long hair, heavy-metal clothing, sleeveless denim, etc. The word then appears in a 1985 issue of Tracks magazine. By the late 1980s it was spreading nationally. By the early 1990s, it was essentially established Australian slang. The really funny part The word may have been popularised…

  • いったい「ボーガン」って何者なのか？

    ここがちょっとややこしい。 まず、みんなが思い浮かべる“典型的ボーガン像”はこんな感じだ。マレットヘア＋ネルシャツ（フランノ）＋タンクトップ＋黒ジーンズ／ショーツ＋ブーツかビーチサンダル＋タトゥー＋ビール＋ユート（軽トラ的なやつ）＋爆音ミュージック。 このイメージがあまりにも強烈だから、 自分はボーガンじゃないと思ってる人でさえ、 「はいはい、あの感じね」と即理解できる。 でも、最近の研究では“本当の定義”はそこじゃないと言われている。ボーガン＝低所得層 ……ではない。 お金持ちでもボーガンになれる。高学歴でもボーガンになれる。バリバリのプロフェッショナルでもボーガンになれる。大学卒で年収6桁の人が「CUB（Cashed-Up Bogan＝金持ちボーガン）」と呼ばれることもあるくらい。このCUBの登場はかなり重要で、“貧しい＝ボーガン”というイメージを完全にぶち壊した。 より正確な区別は、経済力よりも文化的なセンス（カルチャー・キャピタル）にあるらしい。つまり、ざっくり言うとこうだ。お金はあっても、センスがあるとは限らない。 そしてオーストラリアは、このギャップをネタにしてめちゃくちゃ楽しんでいる国でもある。

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    Back To The Basics To Take The Strain Out Of Strine

    Kangaeroo.com originally started as a bit of a joke site focused on Strine–the word to describe Australian English that is a play on the word “Australian” as pronounced in a broad Aussie accent. In the earliest years of the site, language played a central role in content. I created categories like やばいリンガル, which was loosely for words that were a little bit on the naughtier side, or yabai, in both English and Japanese. Then we had 豪cabulary that honed in on individual words that are distinctly Australian with the category being a portmanteau of go (豪), the kanji abbreviation used in Japanese for the now virtually archaic name for Australia…

  • ボーガン以前のボーガン

    ボーガンという現象は、突然ポンッと現れたわけじゃない。オーストラリアには昔から、 larrikin（いたずら好きの破天荒キャラ）、 ocker（ザ・オージーな粗野キャラ）、 そして各地に散らばる“ちょっとガサツなオーストラリア男性像”が存在していた。つまり、ボーガンはその長い系譜の最新バージョンみたいなもの。「ボーガン」という言葉が全国区になる前は、地域ごとに別の呼び名があった。 地域 以前の現象 Sydneyシドニー Westie Queenslandクイーンズランド Bevan Canberraキャンベラ Booner Hobartホバート Chigga Melbourneメルボルン Bogan やがて“ボーガン”がこれらのローカルな呼び名を飲み込み、全国共通の言葉として定着した。ここがポイントで、 ボーガンは単なる階級ラベルじゃない。もっと言えば、 「オーストラリア的な“ある種のセンス”を語るための言葉」になった。ファッション、趣味、ライフスタイル、価値観—— そういう“文化的な味付け”を説明するための便利な言葉として進化したわけだ。