LIFESTYLE
wears Bintang singlets and flannel shirts. The bogan says “yeah nah”and has two pairs of thongs – good ones and everyday ones.
“It’s compulsory to wear your pack of fags on your shoulder and you must have a tattoo of the Southern Cross,” one post on Facebook says. For another, it’s more about: “Huffin’ down a pack of darts on the daily, Nollsys wat about me blarin’ through the V8 Commy. It’s about Aussie pride and singling VB stubs like your life depends on it.”
Such comments rely on a shared vernacular. Those commenting clearly understand a dart is a cigarette, “Nollsy” is Shannon Noll, who sings What About Me?, a V8 Commy is a Commodore and VB stubs are beers. Humour is never far away from descriptions about bogans. A recent job ad for a professional bogan on Seek insisted applicants should be able to count to 90, be across “air guitar maintenance” and have an understanding of the “risk of running in thongs”.
Comedian Dave O’Neil knows a lot about bogan humour. He’s spent the best part of the past 20 years making jokes about bogans and was the writer of the Poida character played by Eric Bana in the 1990s show Full Frontal. In his new book The Summer of ’82, O’Neil details his bogan upbringing in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne with his parents, Kev and Joyce, and three brothers. “I’ve got bogan rights – I’m proud of that,” he says. “This is despite the fact that I turned my back on the outer suburbs when I was 20 and I wouldn’t ever go back.”
O’Neil, who now lives in inner-city Clifton Hill, sees coming from the outer suburbs as a key part of being a bogan. “My first car was a Torana, I love bogan rock and I grew up in Mitcham,” he says. “My dad was in the air force and then was a trade teacher and my mum was a housewife. Uni was never thought of in our house.”
O’Neil says “bogan” is often used as a derogatory term, but its endurance reflects the pride many feel. “I remember doing Poida in the outer suburbs of Brisbane and the biggest bogans would come up and say, ‘I love Poida’,” he says. “They knew it was coming from a genuine place of fondness – they could see we were one of them.”
It’s interesting, then, that the biggest demand for Bogan Bingo nights run by Darren “Dazza” Hilsley comes from Melbourne’s affluent (“effluent” – as Kath Day-Knight would say on Kath & Kim) bayside suburbs.
The shows feature Hilsley and his pals dressed in full bogan uniform of mullet wigs, Australian-flag T-shirts and flannies. There are air guitar competitions, prizes for the best costume and a few rounds of bingo based around classic rock anthems.
Inspiration hit Hilsley 12 years ago when he saw a drag queen bingo show and decided to experiment with different versions. “We struck gold with Bogan Bingo in 2005,” he says. “I thought if I did two to three shows a week I could get off the dole.”
Now his company runs 400 to 500 shows a year and a team of 12 bingo masters bogue it up most nights of the week. Hilsley puts the popularity of the concept down to escapism and nostalgia.
“People might have s--- going on everywhere else but if you pile 120 people into a time-machine school hall and pump in music from the ’80s and ’90s, it’s gold,” he says. “Everyone is so sick of being something they are not, so they like to go back to who they used to be at 21 before life got in the way and they became the soccer mum doing the school run.”
Sabrina Rogers-Anderson, the author of The Little Book of Bogan Baby Names, puts the enduring appeal of bogan culture down to the fact “there’s a little bit of bogan in every Aussie”. “When an Aussie calls a bus driver ‘mate’, they’re showing their mateship and bogan side,” she says.
The suggestion that bogan is a mainstream concept shows how far the term has come. According to the Australian National Dictionary, it was first used in surfing magazine Tracks in 1985 to define those who were “not with it” or “not us”. Language expert Emeritus Professor Roland Sussex, OAM, says the term “bogan” remains “definitely pejorative”.
“It’s describing behaviour and dress that some people regard as less sophisticated,” Sussex says. “Those who regard themselves as superior in terms of social economic status look down on others who don’t belong to their group. That’s why [TV host] Waleed Aly got into trouble recently. People talk about bogans in public and other people take offence.”
Sussex is referring to the outcry that ensued when Aly, an academic, made a joke about bogans on The Project. A Perthbased small business had said “no bogans need apply” in a job advertisement on Gumtree for an administrative position. This didn’t bother many people. However, the minute academic Aly used the term in a mock derogative way, people got offended. Aly quipped: “If you are not taking bogans, where will you get good admin people?”
Aly later said he was “making the opposite point to what came out”. But the outcry illustrated one important point about bogans: they’re usually happy to be the butt of people’s jokes – as long as bogans are the joke-tellers.
O’Neil agrees that Aly “can’t tell a bogan joke”. “Waleed may have come from Vermont but lives in Richmond and went to Wesley and he’s got that academic thing going on,” he says.
Franklin says where people grew up is key to defining whether they are a bogan. He’s gotten away with making fun of bogans for years because he grew up at Crib Point on the Mornington Peninsula, which was a “bogan paradise”.
“It was all about the bikes, cars, beer and Winnie Red cigarettes,” says Franklin, whose bogan cred may or may not have been blown with his move to Tasmania. “All the kids would ride their push bikes off the end of the jetty and then you’d have to dive in and find your bike. I learnt to drive a Ford Escort which belonged to my mum, but I’m really a Holden bloke.“
His early years were filled with “Aussie pub music” from AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, The Angels and The Radiators. Franklin puts the bogan’s continued popularity down to people yearning for a “better time”. “People see me performing Bloke and they say I remind them of their uncle or their father,” he says.
However, he admits shows such as Bogan Hunters highlight the darker side of being a bogan. The 7mate series from the creators of Fat Pizza and Housos, searched for Australia’s biggest bogan. Finalists included Andrew, “the dad to eight different kids to three different mothers”, and Darren, “the second-worst driver in Tasmania who has 52 charges of driving but no licence”.
“I was on Bogan Hunters, interviewing bogans about their favourite band, their cars and how many AVOs they have,” Franklin says. But he adds: “True bogans are more like Glenn Robbins in Upper Middle Bogan – that’s a very bogan lifestyle – cashed-up bogans driving drag cars. Cashed-up bogans did very well in the WA mining boom. They bought seven jet skis and a purple V8 ute.”
Comic artist and blogger Eloise Grills says the term “bogan” has “become embraced in an ironic way”, in opposition to the negative press from shows such as Housos, Bogan Hunters and Struggle Street. “With the rise of racism and white nationalism, people don’t want to associate with that stereotype,” Grills says.
“There is a group of people who are wearing mullets as fashion statements, but this has become detached from the original context, which makes it meaningless.”
However, she admits the less politically charged bogan stereotype of “ugg boots, mullets and beer, living in places like Moe and Frankston” endures.
So where does this leave the bogan? Franklin worries that the true bogans born in the ’70s and ’80s aren’t passing their bogan traits on to a new generation. His son Jamie, for instance, doesn’t even have a mullet. “But he did have a rat’s tail for many years, so that’s at least one thing,” he says.
O’Neil agrees, saying he’s often struck by the cultural differences between his upbringing and the life his kids lead. “My son was complaining about the type of hummus he had for lunch,” he says.
The younger generation may be particular about the brand of chickpea spread they have in their organic salad wraps, but the bogan – whether cashed-up or traditional – isn’t going away any time soon. Over at gift site Yellow Octopus, they’re doing a roaring trade in bogan gifts such as Heat Changing Girls Strip Coffee Mug ($16.99), Farts in a Can ($14.99) and Man Bowl – a dog bowl for men ($29.99).
And comics such as Chris Franklin are serving up bogan nostalgia to the max. (Taking things to the max is a very bogan thing to do, according to Things Bogans Like.)
As Franklin sings in Bloke: I’m a bloke and a yobbo and my best mate’s name is Robbo Winfield is my cigarette, I dress in flannelette Shearer’s singlet that is blue Throw in a few tattoos, you know you wouldn’t want me any other way.
The bogan, it seems, lives on for another day.