Hayward 'Chav Phenomenon'

Crime, Media, Culture
http://cmc.sagepub.com
The chav phenomenon: Consumption, media and the construction of a new

underclass
Keith Hayward and Majid Yar
Crime Media Culture 2006; 2; 9
DOI: 10.1177/1741659006061708
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ARTICLE
The chav phenomenon: Consumption, media

and the construction of a new underclass
KEITH HAYWARD, University of Kent, UK
MAJID YAR, University of Kent, UK
Abstract
This article argues that the decline of the underclass discourse in the UK, and the rise
of the chav, are not unconnected. We contend that there are numerous homologies
between the meaning content, objects and tenor of these two terms, and suggest that
the chav represents a popular reconfiguration of the underclass idea. However, we are
also keen to note the way in which the concept of social marginality is reconfigured in
this substitution. Specifically, we argue that the discourse of the underclass turned
crucially upon a (perceived or real) pathology in the working classes relations to production and socially productive labour. Its emergent successor, the concept of the chav, is
in contrast oriented to purportedly pathological class dispositions in relation to the sphere
of consumption. In a bid to highlight this shift we consider the emergence of debates
upon social marginality and consumption practices, and attempt to locate popular media
discourse surrounding the chav within this frame, including the various ways in which
purportedly pathological consumption practices serve to organise this form of social
classification.
Key words
chav(s); consumer culture; media stereotypes; social exclusion; underclass
The nomad . . . is distinguished from the civilised man by his repugnance to regular
and continuous labour by his want of providence in laying up a store for the future
by his inability to perceive consequences ever so slightly removed from immediate
apprehension by his passion for stupefying herbs and roots . . . and for intoxicating
fermented liquors . . . by an immediate love of gaming . . . by his love of libidinous
dances . . . by his delight in warfare and all perilous sports by his desire for vengeance
by the looseness of his notions as to property by the absence of chastity among
his women, and his disregard for female honour. (Mayhew, 185162: 6, Volume I)
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2006 SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi,
www.sagepublications.com, ISSN 1741-6590, Vol 2(1): 928 [DOI: 10.1177/1741659006061708]

10
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)
INTRODUCTION
From time to time, a concept breaks out from the normally restricted sphere of academic
circulation, and becomes a part of the popular lexicon. Postmodernism is one such term,
and globalization yet another. Similarly, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the term
underclass became a mainstay in media discussions about social welfare, crime and
disorder, and changing values and morals. The concept, popularized by the conservative
American political scientist Charles Murray, functioned as a focus for reflections (from
both the political Left and Right) on the social causes and consequences of mass unemployment and shifting behavioural norms among the lower classes. Indeed, it can be
suggested that the discourse of the underclass became a lighting rod for wider social
anxieties (or even a moral panic (Cohen, 1972)) about a society increasingly polarized
by the crisis of Keynesian economics and state welfarism, and the subsequent neoliberal
reordering of public policy under the aegis of Thatcherism, Reaganism and the ascendance of the New Right. But, as with all such periodic eruptions of heightened social sensitivity to change, the wave of concern abated, the once heated debate cooled, and the
terminology of the underclass began to lose its hold in the wider public imagination. Now,
15 or so years after its first dramatic rise to prominence, the underclass concept is conspicuous largely by its absence from mainstream media representations and political
debates. However, the past year or so has seen the rapid rise of a new terminology in
which socially marginal groups are characterized, classified and understood the concept
of the chav. For example, we note the results of a Lexis-Nexis search for the appearance
of key words chav and underclass (Anywhere) within UK national newspapers (n. 18)
between 1995 and the present (search initiated 7 June 2005).1 Interestingly, during this
period, citations of the term underclass fell by 50 per cent or more, while uses of the
term chav skyrocketed from virtually zero in the years 19952003 to a startling 946
during the last 12 months (a Google search for the term chav on 4 April 2005 revealed
a total of 302,000 hits).
The starting point for the present article is the suggestion that the decline of the underclass discourse, and the rise of the chav, are not unconnected. We note that there are
numerous homologies between the meaning content, objects and tenor of these two
terms, and suggest that the chav represents a popular reconfiguration of the underclass
idea. However, we also note the way in which the concept of social marginality is reconfigured in this substitution. Specifically, we argue that the discourse of the underclass
turned crucially upon a (perceived or real) pathology in the working classes relations to
production and socially productive labour. Its emergent successor, the concept of the
chav, is in contrast oriented to purportedly pathological class dispositions in relation to
the sphere of consumption. The locus of identity construction, by which popular media
position and produce social marginality, has moved from one pole of the
productionconsumption dyad to the other, reflecting, we suggest, more general shifts
in the modes by which collective and individual social positions are judged and negotiated. For a modern social order oriented around the relations of production and labour,
work provided a locus for the cultural construction of class belonging; in a late modern
social order, increasingly driven by notions of consumer choice and consumer
HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
citizenship (Bauman, 1998; Young, 1999), the use and display of symbolic cultural goods
displaces work as the site within which dynamics of identity construction and belonging
are played out.
The article is organized into three sections. In the first we consider the concept of the
underclass, mapping the ways in which the crisis of socially productive and reproductive
relations functioned as its basic underlying principle. In the second part, we turn to
consider the emergence of debates upon social marginality and consumption practices,
and attempt to locate the emergent discourse of the chav within this frame. In the third
section, we engage in a detailed exploration of how the chav as a new underclass is
currently being constructed in media discourse, and the ways in which purportedly pathological consumption practices serve to organize this form of social classification.
This article also has the implicit aim of seeking to kick-start a critical sociological debate
on what has, so far, been a crucially neglected subject. That said, we accept that this
study is far from exhaustive in its analysis of shifting cultural and class patterns. For
example, the emerging relationship between consumption and classification is deeply
imbricated with existing issues around race and social marginality. However, these racialized dimensions of the debate fall outside the scope of the present piece and deserve
concerted attention in a separate article (a useful starting point for such an analysis may
be found in McLaughlin, 2005). This reservation aside, we nevertheless hope that this
article will serve to stimulate interest in how consumption, class, marginality and identity
continue to intersect and coalesce within contemporary western consumer societies.
THE UNDERCLASS DEBATE AND THE CLASS CRISIS OF

PRODUCTION
Murray (1990) began his influential discussion of the emerging British underclass by
noting that the substance of the concept is far from new. He acknowledges that it can
be traced at least as far back as the early Victorian period, when writers such as Henry
Mayhew made distinctions between deserving, honest and undeserving, dishonest
poor (p. 1). Other synonyms include the unrespectable, depraved, debased, disreputable or feckless poor (p. 1). It has been noted by authors such as Morris (1994)
how, in the period of mass urbanization and industrialization at the start of the 19th
century, these purportedly dangerous classes were popularly held to present an
imminent threat to social order, stability, safety and property. For Murray, the underclass
and its synonyms denote a social strata (not unlike Marxs lumpenproletariat) quite different from the working poor. For Murray (2001), the underclass is distinguished by a
distinctive set of cultural dispositions that inform behavioural patters and choices, such
as chronic welfare dependence and antisocial conduct (p. 26). This distinctive cultural
milieu, at odds with that of society as a whole, is deemed to exhibit pathological dispositions towards two key social responsibilities: the need and obligation to engage in paid
employment, and the need and obligation to provide a stable, nuclear family environment
in which children can be raised. With respect to the first of these, Murray claims that

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young men of the underclass are dismissive of the notion of self-reliance through work,
and typically choose to evade employment in favour of exploiting the dole and engaging
in property crime (pp. 278). This claim is supported by statistics indicating, first, that a
growing proportion of young males are unemployed, despite rapidly falling levels of
unemployment and record levels of job creation (p. 27); also, opinion surveys are mobilized, showing that among many underclass males there is a ready willingness to choose
unemployment over employment (Buckingham, 1996: 177). This is contrasted with
previous generations of the poor who held work in high esteem, and saw it as their duty
to work regularly and work hard (Murray, 2001: 27). With respect to the second cultural
disposition, underclass males are seen to be delinquent in that they fail to provide parenting to the children that they promiscuously father. This claim is supported by citing the
increase in illegitimate births among the underclass; almost 40 per cent of children in
the UK are now said to be born to unmarried mothers (p. 32). The combination of these
two orientations is deemed responsible for subsequent behavioural problems that
emanate from the underclass: non-participation in paid employment impoverishes
communities and encourages crime, and delinquency from parenting robs children of
strong role models and discipline, resulting in a generation of children who run wild and
perpetrate further acts of an antisocial character. Thus, for Murray, the underclass is distinguished by a choice to break with long-established norms about ones role in the relations
of economic production (one needs to work and ought to work) and the relations of social
reproduction (one needs and ought to marry and raise properly disciplined and socialized
children). This association was clearly evident in British press reporting in the 1990s, with
repeated crusades against supposed underclass dole cheats and welfare mothers (see
Grover and Soothill, 1996; Duncan et al., 1999; Golding, 1999).
It should be clarified at this juncture that by no means all theorists and commentators on the underclass agree with Murrays claim that it originates in a culture of fecklessness and irresponsibility. In the USA for example, writers such as William Julius
Wilson (1987, 1996), focusing on the marginalization of Afro-Americans, allocate
responsibility to systemic failures in integrating Blacks into the labour market, resulting
in social isolation and the absence of working men who could act as role models (see
also Lawson, 1992; Young, 2002: 4589). Also writing in the USA, the likes of Barry
Schwartz (1999) blame the rise of an underclass on the culture of rampant market liberalism, which legitimates selfish individualism and social irresponsibility, and undermines
values of solidarity and community welfare. In the UK, writers such as Field (1989, 1996)
point to structural and political factors in the creation of an underclass: the rapid decline
of traditional working-class jobs in the manufacturing sector, coupled with low pay in
those jobs available, and insufficient opportunities for education and training that would
offer viable paths out of the trap of welfare poverty. However, what is significant for
present purposes is what these various perspectives, originating from various points in
the political spectrum, have in common. All discussions of the underclass, whatever their
analytical focus (culture, politics, the individual, or the system) accord central significance to the lack of a normal role in the productive relations of society. It is in the
failure (whether by choice or compulsion) to engage in economically and socially
productive labour, that the essence of the underclass marginality is to be found, and it
HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
is from this exclusion that other associated pathologies (despair, violent conflict, crime,
drug abuse) are seen to emerge. For all the above authors, to be of society is to
produce; lacking such a role, one falls out of society proper all together, becoming part
of its non-assimilable desiderata.
FROM PRODUCTION TO CONSUMPTION: IDENTITY,

LIFESTYLE AND THE NEW UNDERCLASS
The role of consumption patterns and practices in the construction of individual (self) and
collective (social) identities cannot be considered as a novel phenomenon. Authors such
as McKendrick et al. (1982) have explored consumption in 18th-century England, claiming
that during this period it became increasingly central in the negotiation of social standing.
Interestingly, McKendrick and his colleagues view the labouring classes as participants
in this consumerism, drawn to emulation of elites as a means to consolidate their own
social prestige. Campbell (1989) seeks to show how, during the same era, individual selfrealization through consumption came to the fore, a development based upon the appropriation of Romantic conceptions of selfhood. Moving forward to the start of the 20th
century, Thorstein Veblen (1925) identified the emergence of conspicuous consumption
as a means for social class differentiation. Examining the post-World War II consumer
boom, Richard Hoggart (1958) analysed the consolidation of a new youth culture among
the working classes which derived its coordinates from Americanized styles of dress, hair,
and leisure. This focus on the role of consumption in the construction of working-class
youth subcultures continued into the 1970s and 1980s, with the likes of Hebdige (1979)
examining the ways in which distinctive styles (such as punk) were mobilized as forms of
resistance to the marginalization of the working classes in the context of postcolonial
decline and economic crisis. All of this serves to demonstrate that the significance of
consumption in the construction of identity, the struggle for status and the negotiation
of social position has long-standing roots in western industrialized society. However, as
we shall detail later, recent decades may be understood in terms of a significant shift
which has served to accord consumption an increasingly dominant role in the production
of social distinctions and classifications.
In recent works, sociologists such as Zygmunt Bauman (1998) and Jock Young (1999)
have identified a reordering of class, status and the lines of sociocultural
inclusion/exclusion. This they attribute to the crisis of Fordist industrialism and state
welfarism, and the subsequent post-Fordist and market neoliberal resettlement. This transition marks the effective end of the modern society of producers with its emphasis upon
the work ethic and labour as the core criterion through which self- and social identities
are negotiated (Bauman, 1998: 2, 1619). Work can no longer bear this burden when it
is increasingly flexibilized, casualized, part-time, temporary and insecure, and full
employment has given way to chronically high levels of under- and unemployment,
especially for the working class (see also Taylor (2000) on post-Fordism, deindustrialization and the jobs crisis). We now live in a society of consumers in which social

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membership is increasingly grounded in the aesthetics of consumption (Bauman, 1998:

235). As Hayward (2004) puts it:
what is unique about the last few decades of the twentieth century is the way that
the creation and expression of identity via the display and celebration of consumer
goods have triumphed over and above other more traditional modes of self-expression.
(p. 144)
Social and status differences are generated and maintained via lifestyle, which in turn is
organized through patterns of consumption. Individuals not only recognize themselves,
but are crucially recognized by others, through their publicly visible consumption choices.
Shared consumption practices thus furnish a basis upon which class and hierarchical
boundaries are drawn between us and them, defining those who are included and
those who are excluded from group social membership (Southerton, 2002).
The analyses developed by Bauman and others serve to situate our argument about
the shifting construction of the underclass from the sphere of production to the sphere
of consumption. This shift partakes of the more general transition to a society of
consumers and its associated modes for organizing the divisions of social membership.
However, we depart from Baumans analysis in one significant respect. For Bauman and
others (see for example Keyfitz, 1992), what marks out the underclass of the new poor
is their inability to participate in the sphere of market-mediated consumption. This group
are excluded from social membership since they lack the economic resources necessary
to fulfil a meaningful role as consumer-citizens. As Bauman (1998) puts it: In the society
of consumers . . . the poor . . . are recast as flawed consumers. This leaves them
without a useful social function actual or potential with far-reaching consequences
for the social standing of the poor (p. 2).
Where previously the inability or unwillingness to work assured exclusion from social
membership, now the inability or unwillingness to consume furnishes the grounds
marginalization to the hinterlands of normality. However, in our view, something rather
different is currently occurring in the construction of a new underclass qua pathological
consumers. Current popular discussion of the chav focuses not on the inability to
consume, but on the excessive participation in forms of market-oriented consumption
which are deemed aesthetically impoverished. The perceived problem with this new
underclass is that they consume in ways deemed vulgar and hence lacking in distinction by superordinate classes. Thus, as we shall elaborate in detail later, chavs and
chavishness are identified on the grounds of the taste and style that inform their
consumer choices. Recent popular discussions correspondingly focus upon: clothing
(branded or designer casual wear and sportswear), jewellery (chunky gold rings and
chains), cosmetics (excessive make-up, sunbed tans), accessories (mobile phones), drinks
(binge drinking, especially premium lagers such as Stella Artois), and music (R&B, hiphop). This discourse which pathologizes and marginalizes is fundamentally decoupled
from the question of economic capital, replacing it instead with a perceived lack of cultural
capital (Bourdieu, 1984) which could inform appropriately tasteful and refined aesthetic
choices. It is in this context that we can understand the phenomenon of the so-called
celebrity chav one who enjoys a plenitude of economic resources, but whose stocks
HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
of cultural resources are so debased as to result in a fascination with expensive vulgarity. Lets us be clear here we do not dispute the claim that social, political and economic
changes have been responsible for material impoverishment and immiseration, and have
further intersected with problems of crime and social disorder (see Currie, 1997; Taylor,
2000). Rather, in examining the construction of a new social marginality (perhaps an
emergent folk devil) that is displacing the underclass of the 1980s and 1990s, we
discern a fundamental shift to consumerist aesthetics as the grounds of typification, denigration, and vilification.
CONSTRUCTING THE CHAV: THREE THEMES IN THE

CREATION OF A LATE-MODERN PARIAH
Shifting gears from modes of inquiry concerned with the productive-economic sphere
towards more interpretive forms of critical and cultural exploration, we now wish to
embark on a brief examination of how notions of the chav have come to be constructed
within media and popular discourse. More specifically, our goal here is to unpick the ways
in which key contemporary sources of authority on chav culture have sought to identify
and stigmatize chavs as a new and distinct (sub)stratum of late-modern society. We will
argue that a central element in this stigmatization process has been the way in which
notions of the chav have frequently been organized around and predicated upon a series
of supposedly pathological (and allegedly irresponsible and irrational) consumption practices and choices. The section will proceed in three short parts, each one focusing on a
purported facet of chav culture that, if we are to believe contemporary commentators,
serve as explicit indicators of a new form of ubiquitous underclass.
Give a chav a name: The semantics of exclusion

There is nothing intrinsically new about the phenomenon of marginalized youths occupying public space(s) and falling foul of both the authorities and public opinion (Corrigan,
1976; Fiske, 1989; Presdee, 1994; Ferrell, 2001). The latest articulation involves groups
of young people, clad predominantly in sports apparel, who engage in minor forms of
unruly behaviour in and around town centres, entertainment zones and certain fast-food
outlets. Indeed, during the 1990s a plethora of (highly derogatory) terms emerged in
various parts of the United Kingdom that sought to overtly label such behaviour and its
associated conventions of meaning, symbolism, and style. These names include but are
not limited to: Scallies (Merseyside), Neds (Glasgow), Townies (Oxford/Cambridge and
most university towns), Rarfies, Charvers (Newcastle/North East) Kevs (London/Bristol),
Janners (Plymouth), Spides (Belfast), Hood Rats, Rat Boys, Bazzas, Kappa Slappas,
Skangers, Scutters, Stigs, Sengas and Yarcos. What is new and interesting, however,
is the way that one term chav has triumphed above all others as the dominant
synonym. Indeed, for many commentators, chav was the word of 2004 (Burchill,
2005).2 While this may or may not be the case, few would argue that chav has emerged

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as an increasingly ubiquitous term within popular discourse, a catchall epithet used to

pour scorn on everyone from unwed teenage mothers to high-profile celebrities such as
Posh and Becks (ex Spice Girl Victoria Adams and her husband, the England football
captain, David Beckham; see below). But how exactly has this situation come about? Why
has the term chav struck a chord with the wider public consciousness while similar terms
have failed to transcend regional boundaries?
The first thing to recognize is that, unlike similar names, the word chav has longestablished associations with notions of marginalization and social exclusion. In terms of
its etymology, most lexicographers agree that chav owes its origins to the Romany dialect
word for small child (chavo or chavi). This is borne out by the fact that more recent
utilizations of the word (including its use as a term of address for a friend or for a young
adult male) have emerged as colloquial expressions within North Kent in the South East
of England, an area popular with Gypsy travellers since the early 19th century. Furthermore, various recent explanations of the term chav state with confidence that the word
originates in the Medway town of Chatham: The word chav has become common in
southern England, and is generally thought to come from Chatham girls (Chatham is a
town in Kent.) (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 2003). Interestingly, despite recent
attempts to regenerate the town of Chatham and, in particular, its functionally obsolescent dockyard area, the Medway Borough remains an area with high rates of unemployment and above-average levels of poverty and social deprivation. From its earliest origins,
then, as a vernacular noun within English common parlance, the term chav has been
connected with communities who have experienced social deprivation in one form or
another.
However, while chav was traditionally employed in Kent as an expression of amity or
familiarity, more recent utilizations have adopted a far more vicious and discriminatory
form. Indeed, several popular and wholly inaccurate acronymic etymologies of the word
chav (and increasingly chavette) have since taken hold within the public imagination,
including, [C]ouncil [h]oused [a]nd [v]iolent, [C]ouncil [h]ouse [v]ermin and bizarrely
[Ch]eltenham [Av]erage (apparently, this recent interpolation is a term of abuse attached
to young people in Gloucestershire who lack the requisite qualifications to enter
Cheltenham College, one of the foremost private schools in the UK). Leaving aside the
overt prejudice inherent in these acronyms, what is more important, at least in terms of
our argument, is how these fabrications serve to firmly realign the word chav with
stereotypical notions of lower-class, disaffected urban youth. Consider, for example, the
definition of the word chav proffered in the best-selling 2004 book The Little Book of
Chavs (Bok, 2004): chav: Britains new burgeoning underclass. This association with the
urban (and increasingly suburban) underclass is now extremely strong, reinforced almost
daily by both tabloid headlines and chic broadsheet style inserts. Indeed, a brief review
of some of 190 alternative definitions of chav posted on the on-line slang dictionary site
www.urbandictionary.com reveals the extent to which the word is now, for many, a term
of intense class-based abhorrence:
As virulent as bubonic plague and spreading like rats emerging from their lairs, these
undesirables are spawning a legion of illegitimate chavlets.

HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
These sub-human runts have Burberry caps and Adidas trousers tucked into red Reebok
socks. But the worst thing about the chav is that they have genitalia thus being allowed
to procreate and birth new little runtish chavs. Soon like a cancer they will spread and
take over the whole of England.
Humanoid in appearance, but primitive and animalistic in nature, chavs are fast
becoming the bane of humanity. Now all but classified as a completely separate
species, chavs took the left fork of the road of evolution when everybody else went
right.
The chav is like a wild beast. The chav is commonly found in packs hunting on the
open plains of the council estate. Their main source of food is found at the local
McDonalds, where a Big Mac and fries will see them tamed for over twenty minutes
. . . Chavs are responsible for the crime ratings [sic] increase that their country of origin
has seen over the last 5 years. Unfortunately, chavs are seen as the cancer of the United
Kingdom and as such, many professionals have been searching for a cure. As of yet,
all known cures are still illegal.
The striking similarity between such quotes and the type of language used to describe
the so-called Great Unwashed of Victorian England is hard to miss (see Roberts, 1971;
Stedman-Jones, 1971; Pearson, 1975). Moreover, just as was the case in the 19th century,
when terms such as moral wretch, degenerate poor, depraved nomad, and savage
outcast all ultimately came to be incorporated under the umbrella term dangerous class,
the word chav is increasingly acting as a ubiquitous structural category a soft semantic
target for those keen to rebadge the underprivileged and socially excluded among us as
a new from of feckless underclass.
Blinging it: Consumer culture and the chav identity from

ghetto despair to ghetto fabulous
It has become a clich to say we now inhabit a consumer society (Baudrillard, 1970, 1981;
Campbell, 1989; Bauman, 1992, 1998; Featherstone, 1994). But what does this statement actually mean? It is our contention that it has two main implications for the way
we in the West live our lives. The first thing to recognize is the extent to which
consumerism has permeated all levels of society. The vast majority of people in the industrialized West now live in a world in which their everyday existence is, to a greater or
lesser degree, dominated by the pervasive triad of advertising/marketing, the stylization
of social life, and mass consumption. The second important thing to stress regarding the
cultural significance of market culture is the continued move towards consumption as a
mode of expression:
In a culture of consumption, the collective focus is on self definition through the
purchase of goods. Status differentials are based less on ones role in the productive
sphere than on ones ability to consume. Social relations are mediated through objects
. . . As group affiliation at work is replaced by individual achievement, and the role of
the family as a source of ascribed status is lessened, individuals attempt to differentiate
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themselves through their lifestyles, a term which largely connotes consumption

patterns. (Anderson and Wadkins, 1992: 14950)
This relationship between consumer goods and the construction of self in late modernity
is of great importance. So encompassing is the ethos of consumerism within (late) capitalist society that, for many individuals, self-identity and self-realization can now only be
accomplished through material means money (in the form of commodities) as self laundering. Thus, identity, as Christopher Lasch (1979) brilliantly pointed out, takes on the
form of a consumption-oriented narcissism. Twenty years after Laschs seminal monograph, the full force of his message is only now being felt. In the school playground, the
pub or restaurant, the nightclub and on the street corner, products and material possessions are now the primary indices of identity for virtually all strata of society, establishing
status but, more importantly, imbuing individuals with a (narcissistic) sense of who they
are (Hayward, 2004: 45). Such thinking is central to our overarching argument, for if
contemporary fascination with the chav is about anything it is about a reconfiguration
of the underclass idea through the lens of an unmediated consumer society.
As discussed earlier, underclass descriptions, whether academic or populist, have
tended historically to favour either a social democratic explanation (Dahrendorf, 1985,
1987; Wilson, 1987, 1996), or a more authoritarian, cultural critique typically associated
with the radical right (Murray, 1984, 1990). In the former approach, a social structural
argument is proffered, based around the shifting economic and spatial practices associated with postindustrialism. In the latter, a more alarming set of factors is mobilized,
encompassing everything from the recent renewal of interest in hereditary and constitutional factors (Hernstein and Murray, 1984), to the view that current social and political
norms have served to destroy existing mediating structures, compromising established
sources of social solidarity such as the family unit, the neighbourhood and religious association in the process (see Berger and Neuhaus, 1977; Wilson, 1985). While, admittedly,
many of these characteristics are never far from the surface when chavs are discussed
(in particular the belief that chavs represent a lost generation, entirely dependent on
state benefits; on this particular point see Winnett (2005) for an account of the Labour
Governments latest acronymic construct: the NEET not in education, employment or
training), it is our contention that, in contrast to previous commentaries on underclass
groups, chavs are no longer viewed as a stratum of the population who have chosen to
reject or invert mainstream aspirations or desires. Instead the new British underclass are
increasingly understood as flawed consumers, unable or unwilling to make the right
type of consumer choice.
Consider the way that, within popular discourse, the chav is both socially constructed
and widely vilified because of a set of very narrow and seemingly irrational and unaesthetic consumer choices. While the term chav has become an increasingly universal
moniker, used to brand everyone from teenage single mums to car cruisers in their late
20s, the range of material items used to identify and categorize chavs remains very
narrow indeed. Consider, for example, the How to Spot a Chav page on the infamous
website www.chavscum.co.uk, the self-styled Guide to Britains New Ruling Class
and wellspring of much of the recent media hype to have surrounded the chav

HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
phenomenon. According to the anonymous authors of www.chavscum.co.uk, Chavs

have such a tribal dress code that you can spot one yards away! Now what makes the
Chavs attire so funny is that they think they are at the cutting edge of fashion . . . In
reality what they do look like are a bunch of fucking pikeys!. This tribal dress code (see
Figure 1), they claim, is comprised of a combination of seven key indicators:3
The Baseball Cap: What can I say? Im convinced that male Chavs are issued with a
Baseball Cap at birth! Disregard caps worn at a jaunty angle or back to front, the Chav
will use his cap peak to conceal his identity to the max! Look out for the particularly
hideous Burberry variant . . .
Branded Shirts and Jackets: . . . The bigger the brand name on the garment, the
better! Look out for what was this summers [sic] classic, the pink Nickelson polo shirt
and this winters classic, the sky blue McKenzie hoody!
Trainers: Most Chavs dont actually own a pair of shoes. All they have are white
trainers. Like all Chav attire, a prominent, Chav respected brand name is a must! Also
the Chavs trainers must be clean (prison white) to make it look like they were
purchased just that day!
Gold Pendants:
Thick Gold Chains: . . . Size matters, only count a chain if its at least 5mm thick!
Dont be put off if its a rainy day, Chavs will wear their chains outside of any garment
on full display!
Sovereign Rings: . . . This classy piece of hand furniture makes the wearer appear
to be rich and also comes in handy for giving the missus a back hander!
FIGURE 1 Urban chav style

Source: http://www.ratemyhat.co.uk

19
20
Big Hoopy Ear Gold Earrings: Nothing says filthy chavster quite like a nice thick
pair of big hoopy gold earrings! When I say big, I mean a inside diameter of at least
2 inches! If you see someone with earrings so big they rest on the wearers shoulders,
you are in the presence of Chav royalty!
(All abridged from www.chavscum.co.uk)
Similarly, the link between consumption patterns and the chav lifestyle has extended
beyond ostentatious displays of designer labels and jewellery to include a critique of so
called chav haunts or, more specifically, a pejorative list of high street retail
outlets/consuming spaces which allegedly chavs tend to frequent. Consider the following typical posting at www.chavtowns.co.uk regarding the apparent increase of chavs
in the Worcestershire spa town of Malvern:
Ive observed a chain reaction of social devolution. Consider the following reactions:
Small middle class rural town + McDonalds + Halfords [a nationwide chain that sells
car parts and automotive accessories] = Chavs
Most of us have seen that in action. But this is followed by:
Chavs + retail park = Matalan [a discount clothing chain]
And thence:
Chavs + Matalan + supermarket = Morrisons [a national supermarket chain]
Now, a Morrisons might not seem like disaster to you, but this is Malvern dammit, we
have a Waitrose [another national supermarket chain that prides itself on a more
expensive range of products] and were proud of it!!! Now, Halfords does actually have
a function in the world (even decent people need head lamp bulbs and wiper blades)
so I blame McDonalds Inc for the downfall of society. Halfords is a catalyst to the Chav
chain reaction, to be sure, but McDonalds is the reagent responsible for all the
damage.
Note also the extension of chav/underclass-related discourse from its typical association
with the inner city to a small town in a predominantly rural area.
Having examined the material symbols and codes of meaning behind contemporary
representations of the chav from an external point of view, we now wish to go beyond
the narrow interpretations of chav observers and media commentators, and instead
adopt a more explanatory position regarding the relationships that exist between
consumer culture and chav identity. What is the logic of action at work here behind
the overt displays of brand names and other material symbols associated with chav
culture? Why have certain items become so desirable they are now importantly perceived
as essential to individual identity, shifting as that may be from moment to moment?
The key thing to stress here is the way that, within socially excluded urban environments many individuals tend often to over identify (from a normative perspective) with
consumer goods in an attempt to create a sense of identity. As Carl Nightingale (1993)
outlined in his superb ethnographic study of black ghetto life in Philadelphia, one of the
central paradoxes of contemporary urban America is that members of the underclass (a
HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
term disliked by Nightingale and many others) are often in the same moment both socially
and economically excluded yet culturally and commercially included. In other words, while
black youths in the areas studied by Nightingale experienced tremendous feelings of alienation and exclusion from traditional employment and educational opportunities, at the
same time they were also overexposed to American mainstream culture via advertising,
television, music and other forms of mass media that demand their participation (see
Bourgois, 2003; Young, 2003: 3969).4 Paraphrasing Zygmunt Bauman (1987: 14969),
one might suggest that these individuals are at once repressed and seduced. Augmenting the classic material analyses of Robert Merton (1938), Nightingale thus claims that
the tension caused within ghetto culture by this divisive combination is resolved by a
warped overcompensation with many of the symbols of American consumer culture
both mainstream and subversive:
Already at five and six, many kids in the neighbourhood can recite the whole canon
of adult luxury from Gucci, Evan Piccone, and Pierre Cardin, to Mercedes and BMW
. . . from the age of ten, kids become thoroughly engrossed in Nikes and Reeboks
cult of the sneaker . . . (Nightingale, 1993: 1534)
Commenting on Nightingales study, the criminologist Jock Young suggests that this overcompensation on cultural identification can be understood as a development of traditional
subcultural theory.5 Only, no longer should delinquency be explained in terms of a
Mertonian reaction to middle class expectations inculcated in the schoolroom (as famously
suggested by Albert Cohen (1955)); rather, the locus of engendering expectations has
shifted to a multimediated consumer culture and those expectations have in turn changed
beyond recognition:
Cohen is talking about the school whilst Nightingale talks about the mass media and
the consumer market . . . But these differences are easily resolved if we acknowledge
that the school is the chief carrier of undiluted meritocratic values of work, discipline
and reward, whilst the wider commercial culture is not: it is a celebration of luck,
hedonism and leisure, fun and good fortune . . . Furthermore, we are speaking of a
world 40 years on from Delinquent Boys where the wider culture places a much
greater emphasis on hedonism and expressivity than the more balanced motifs of the
past. (Young, 1999: 85)
Returning to the UK, while not completely congruent, it is clear that many of the sociocultural tendencies outlined earlier are much in evidence within our own inner cities.
Certainly, the notion that some groups in society are at once both seduced and repressed
is abundantly clear when one considers the pronounced hypocrisy surrounding chavs
within the mainstream press. While the press media keeps up its onslaught against
chavs and their supposed profligate lifestyle, they appear oblivious to the fact that
many of the products which, they claim, serve to construct the contemporary chav are
often the very ones advertised in their own pages; a point made forcibly by the columnist, Julie Burchill (2005), when she writes: The very things that chavs stand accused
of aspiration, love of material goods, lack of communal values are the very things
that have been fetishised by institutions such as the main political parties and the Daily
21
22
Mail for the past 30 years, but forced on the British people as surely as the Industrial
Revolution was.
This is not the only irony that currently surrounds the chav phenomenon and its close
relationship with strategies of explicit consumer display. For at the very moment that
certain marginalized groups within society are falling over themselves to construct identity
via high-profile brand names and other visible forms of conspicuous consumption, shifting
patterns and mechanisms of social control both informal and formal are slowly beginning to emerge that turn around the same overt consumer symbols; a process that seems
likely to further contribute to the marginalization and exclusion of this latest underclass
classification. Some of the reasons for this development are explored in the final section.
Chav/anti-chav: From celebrity chavs to policing by labels

One of the more intriguing aspects of the chav phenomenon is its association with latemodern celebrity (Rojek, 2001). Press media and key chav websites devote considerable
space to the life and times of so called Celebrity chavs such as glamour models Jordan
and Jodie Marsh, pop stars such as Eminem, ex Spice Girl Mel C, The Streets Mike Skinner,
Brian Harvey and Jenifer Ellison, former Big Bother contestants Jade Goody and Anthony
Hutton, the hapless lottery winner Michael Carroll, and England football star Wayne
Rooney and his shopaholic partner Coleen McLoughlin; many of whom frequently find
themselves the subject of a chav rating or chav-star index. One of the key features of
celebrity chavs is their close association with indeed, often their construction through
designer products (pace the type of multi-page photo layouts that are the stock in trade
of popular celebrity magazines such as Hello and OK). The infamous photograph of selfstyled Queen of the Chavs, former soap actress, Daniella Westbrook, and her young
child, both dressed head to toe in Burberry, and Posh and Becks well-documented
penchant for designer products (including, allegedly, a specially commissioned Italian
designer baby bottle) are obvious exemplars. Given the increased intertwining of tabloid
celebrity and branded apparel, perhaps we should not be surprised that many individuals
are only too keen to follow suit and replicate such overt displays. For example, one of the
softest stereotypical targets of the whole chav phenomenon, the chav single mum, is
often roundly criticized for adorning her offspring la Westbrook with expensive and
thus apparently wholly inappropriate designer clothing and jewellery. Yet, given the
discussion above, such a strategy seems understandable as individuals, or in this case
young mothers keen to give their children an advantage, attempt to equip themselves
with what they consider to be the requisite cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984) to exist and
prosper within (often chaotic) late-modern lifeworlds (Hayward, 2004: 15862).
However, in a cruel irony, rather than helping to recreate the purported lush life of socalled celebrity chavs, street-level attempts to mobilize cultural capital based on overt
displays of designer clothing have instead inspired a whole new raft of bizarre micro social
control mechanisms, including everything from town centre pubs and night clubs refusing
entry to individuals wearing certain brands within their premises (No Timberlands or
Burberry; see Madeley, 2003; Larkin, 2005), to the recent zero tolerance policy imposed
on designer hoodies and baseball caps (Figure 2) by major shopping centres such as
HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
Bluewater in Kent and the Elephant and Castle in South London (see www.bbc.co.uk/
1/hi/england/kent/4534903.stm; see also Coleman (2005) on the re-emphasis of the
visual in the politics of the street and associated strategies of urban surveillance and
control). Thus the situation arises in which many of the labels and monograms valorized
by young people as badges of identity serve also to function as overt signifiers of deviance.
As such they become tools of classification and identification by which agencies of social
control construct profiles of potential criminal protagonists. For example, in the Midlands
town of Leicester, local bars and police are collaborating in compiling lists of branded
clothing that they perceive to be socially problematic.6
A further irony, of course, is that, further up the youth culture chain, we are already
witnessing a pronounced shift away from overt brand names and ostentatious designer
labels, as certain subcultural groups and style setters at the cutting edge of the fashion
and culture industries increasingly attempt to distance themselves from the chav
phenomenon. Consider the situation within contemporary urban Japan, a place where
many of the practices associated with postmodern consumerism are at their zenith.
Among the cutting-edge of Japans shinjinrui (Japans consumption-oriented younger
generation; see Anderson and Wadkins, 1992) the trend now is to eschew mainstream
designer brands such as Nike or Gucci they are simply deemed too accessible (and too
prone to counterfeiting). Instead, a new subculture has emerged that places primacy on
exclusivity. This is an underground world of micro labels that undertake no advertising or
marketing and rely solely on word of mouth. The smaller and more discrete the logo or
brand, the bigger the appeal to Japans passionate specialists or super consumers as
they are known (Hayward, 2004: chapter 4).
As with so much of the current discourse surrounding the chav, this situation has
already been rehearsed within the underclass debate, or more specifically in relation to
the signs and symbols associated with so-called gangsta rap. While brands have always
been an intrinsic element of rap and hip-hop culture, in recent years the stakes have risen
considerably. In the late 1980s and early 90s hardcore rappers like Ice T or Tim Dogg
rapped about US$60 Nike trainers or 40oz bottles of Colt 45 malt liquor, today, the giants
FIGURE 2 No baseball caps

Source: http://www.thesource.me.uk

23
24
of corporate hip-hop like P. Diddy, 50 Cent or Jay-Z extol the virtues of 200 Prada
sneakers, Chanel jewellery or Gucci monogrammed clothing (Roberts, 2002). Yet, at the
precise moment that rappers became tastemakers, rebranding gangster rap by melding
together images of criminality with street gang iconography and designer chic to create
a product that is immediately seductive to youth audiences (see Miller, 1995; Kubrin,
2005), we also saw (largely as a result of the so-called war on gangs, with its overtly
racist overtones) a pronounced shift in urban law enforcement and private policing practices based around these very same branded commodities. Without wishing to labour the
point, consider, for example, Mike Davis on how attempts to police gangsta style and
its associated symbols and codes of stylized meaning within southern Los Angeles, served
only to further stigmatize and marginalize tens of thousands of non-Anglo young people,
creating what he ultimately describes as an entire gang generation (Davis, 1990;
Hayward, 2004: chapter 4). Our earlier statement about the relationship between race
and the chav discourse notwithstanding, we should perhaps mention here the extent to
which such tendencies reflect ongoing appropriations of black ghetto culture by white
youth. This cultural hybridity and racial bricolage can be seen in everything from the
marketing and consumption of the rapper Eminem perhaps the key stalking horse for
crossover white hip-hop to the recent tendency among white and Asian street cliques
to flash gang hand signals, a process initially associated with Chicano gangs and the
Latino Cholo aesthetic (see Vigil, 1988).
Thus we see that the chav phenomenon partakes of a social process in which
consumption, identity, marginality and social control converge; consumption practices
now serve as the locus around which exclusion is configured and the excluded are classified, identified and subjected to (increasingly intense) regimes of management.
CONCLUSION
In this article we have analysed the media construction of chavs by locating this discourse
within the broader socioeconomic processes of marginalization. We have argued that the
chav phenomenon recapitulates the discursive creation of the underclass, while simultaneously reconfiguring it within the space of commodity consumption. This displacementreplacement can best be understood, we suggest, by attending to the wider shifts
through which a hypermediated consumer capitalism has become increasingly dominant
in contemporary western societies. However, our aim is not ( la Burchill) to valorize and
redeem what has been denigrated about these consumption choices and practices. To do
so would merely endorse an all-encompassing consumption-driven socioeconomic system
which itself can be seen as profoundly iniquitous and criminogenic (see Hall, 1997; Hall
and Winlow, 2004). However, nor do we seek to lend weight to the vilification of those
who find themselves seduced by the siren call of lifestyle, sign, symbol and brand. To do
so would merely serve to further obfuscate the underlying dynamics that drive this excessive consumptive process. The current discourse on the chavs finds its ideological mode
of articulation by attributing to individual cultural choices what can in fact be seen as the
outcome of a cruel capitalist perversity: the production, on the one hand, of a social strata
HAYWARD & YAR
THE CHAV PHENOMENON
excluded from full productive participation in the neoliberal economy, and on the other
the relentless dissemination of messages that link social worth and well-being to ones
ability to consume at all costs. It is precisely this dissimulation at the heart of the chav
discourse that, we hold, needs to be exposed and critiqued.
Notes
1 We should state that, although the findings generated from Lexis-Nexis searches are often very
seductive, they are far from comprehensive, drawing on databases that can be either
inconsistent or incomplete. That said, the general trends picked up by Lexis-Nexis are difficult to
dismiss.
2 We should state that in no way do we endorse Burchills rather celebratory stance regarding the
chav phenomenon. Indeed, Burchill, like so many of the social commentators she criticizes, is
clearly guilty of a series of class absolutisms. Consider, for example this slice of essentialism from
her much-discussed Sky One TV documentary Chavs: Chavs stand between us and boring
moribund middle-class tastefulness which is a sort of living death. Chavs are a mirror held up
to us all. The middle classes look and see only their own failings. They hate us for their lack of
moral values. They envy us our flare for fun. Theyre jealous because we not they are our
nations heroes . . . when they laugh at us they only show what fools they are (Chavs, Sky One
2005)
3 This emphasis on consumption practices in the construction of the chav identity is further
illustrated by the much discussed chav rating system posted at

www.getlippy.com/play/quizzes/chavquiz/. Of the 40 questions posed in a bid to ascertain ones
so called chav rating, 26 relate to specific consumer items (including seven specific brand
names).
4 The term down-loaded is useful here in that it helps to explain how certain emotions and social
messages can be received and assimilated by the individual despite often being inherently
contradictory or paradoxical in nature. For example, the emotions engendered by advertising
very often, both incite and deny, compel and preclude.
5 See relatedly many of classic early criminological studies on the relationship between crime and
style by the likes of Finestone (1964) and Chambliss (1991). Here much is made of street style,
proper dress (Finestone, 1964: 2845) and seemingly irresponsible forms of expenditure a
great deal of which had much to do with the concept of portable wealth (i.e. one needs to turn
ones day-to-day street life into a gracious work of art (p. 284) because it is here (and certainly
not at ones domicile) that reputations were made and displayed).
6 See Chav Ban to Deter Thefts
(www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/3983633.stm)
and Pub-goers Facing Burberry Ban
(www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3583900.stm).
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Email: k.j.Hayward@kent.ac.uk
MAJID YAR, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Kent, UK. Email: m.yar@kent.ac.uk


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Crime, Media, Culture

The chav phenomenon: Consumption, media and the construction of a new

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The chav phenomenon: Consumption, media

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CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

THE UNDERCLASS DEBATE AND THE CLASS CRISIS OF

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CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

FROM PRODUCTION TO CONSUMPTION: IDENTITY,

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CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

membership is increasingly grounded in the aesthetics of consumption (Bauman, 1998:

HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

CONSTRUCTING THE CHAV: THREE THEMES IN THE

Give a chav a name: The semantics of exclusion

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CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

as an increasingly ubiquitous term within popular discourse, a catchall epithet used to

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HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

Blinging it: Consumer culture and the chav identity from

CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

themselves through their lifestyles, a term which largely connotes consumption

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HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

phenomenon. According to the anonymous authors of www.chavscum.co.uk, Chavs

FIGURE 1 Urban chav style

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CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

Chav/anti-chav: From celebrity chavs to policing by labels

HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

FIGURE 2 No baseball caps

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CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

illustrated by the much discussed chav rating system posted at

CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

Downloaded from http://cmc.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on March 7, 2008

HAYWARD & YAR

THE CHAV PHENOMENON

Downloaded from http://cmc.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on March 7, 2008

CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2(1)

KEITH HAYWARD, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Kent, UK.

Downloaded from http://cmc.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on March 7, 2008

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