The Bogan-People

I often sit back, relax, sip my caramel latte and wonder if Bogans own mirrors. Is it just me or do you often wonder if they are aware that they are exactly the same as every other Bogan? They are all so unmistakable, it’s uncanny. They have that leathery, brown skin that looks as though it was just draped over a doctor’s office skeleton that had a can of bourbon and coke propped in its hand and then sent on its way at ten in the morning; and when they aren’t under-weight, they’re over-weight. Then there’s the poor-speech and lack of pronunciation; the forward head posture; the ‘it’s never my fault’ mentality; those white ten dollar hoodies that are noticeably pilled with that dirt-yellow tinge you get in your whites when they don’t get washed; the trash Aussie pride that puts me off being proud myself (see blog) and, how could I not mention, that…[slow exhale]…classic mullet. But, even though they are the succubus scum of our country and we essentially fund their habits with our taxes, I kind of love Bogans. They actually perform a bit of service to the country. Somehow, they have inadvertently established themselves as a minority here; almost like a new race of people, and yet because they aren’t actually a different race of people, we can still tease the shit out of them and laugh at their frequent public-shenanigans without looking prejudice.

I don’t know about other Australian cities, but here in Sydney, a lot of the Middle-Eastern youth seem to feel that their ethnic-roots obligate them to act like morons and turn our roads into racetracks. The problem here is that it’s hard to have a laugh about any of that without looking like you’re launching into a racially-motivated attack on every Middle-Eastern person in the world, and there are people that I’ve met who genuinely believe that all of them are trouble-makers…all of them. I may make jokes, but I’ve never shared this belief. But despite all of that, at heart, we are all a little prejudice, no matter how open-minded you think you are. The general belief that Asians can’t drive is probably the best example of this that I can think of.

Like I was saying before, you’ve seen one Bogan and you’ve seen them all, and I know that, but do they? Because the young Arabs that I speak of seem to live on a ‘my brother/sister/friend does it so I’ll do it’ attitude, and that’s how it has become this widespread trend, but I get a feeling that Bogans don’t share that same level of self-awareness, like they all stumbled into it by accident or something…y’know, because they’re stupid. A Lebanese kid trying to assimilate himself into a friend group will stand in front of a mirror for hours, making the conscious decision to look and act like his friends in a bid for acceptance, but I don’t see Bogans doing this, especially considering that being Bogan is probably the last route you’d want to take when seeking acceptance.

This is the beautiful service that Bogans offer us Australians. They give us a group of people who aren’t different enough to be officially established as a minority group, but just different enough to be generally-recognised as a deviated group regardless, a group whom we can distract and unload our own racism on without actually being racist at all. The delicate art of loopholes.

And there you have it, a prejudicial post without actually being prejudice – a distraction for anybody who has something negative to say about Middle-Easterns, Europeans, Asians, Blacks, Whites, the disabled and the homosexual.