With young people disillusioned with life in the UK,  it’s no surprise that Chav culture has returned to the forefront of youth identity …

Reebok classics, an Adidas tracksuit with a Champion jumper and a Nike TN hat. No, I’m not writing down the description of a 1990’s football hooligan, this is the description of the man sat in front of me on the 19:21 southeastern service from Cannon Street to Slade Green via Greenwich for The DLR, and I bet you he gets off at Deptford. I’m trying to decide whether this man is cool or not, is he a hipster or a chav? Is he Wavey Garms or sports direct? Or are they all just the same thing now?

Somewhere and somehow the borderlines between being a chav and being cool have become blurred. Chav culture, the culture that comes with an unruly amount of bad press is now seeping across the UK wearing Versace glasses, a Moschino shirt and shell-toe Adidas. Throughout the likes of Shoreditch, Hackney, Dalston and Deptford the ‘traditional chav’ is sprouting up quicker than you can say ‘loadsa money’. But what is it about chav culture? Why are so many middle class, under and post graduates now relating to it? How did it come to represent the youth of the UK?

But what does this have to do with Chavs? Think about it. What is a Chav? It’s a marginalised sub culture of the UK. A group of people that is oppressed, laughed at and mocked. A group that formed in the housing estates of the cities that many graduates now find themselves in. Is it really a surprise that Britain’s brainiest kids have now started flocking to this culture? A culture that represents them so perfectly.Lets be honest, being young and living in Britain is pretty shit right now. More young people than ever before are now living under the poverty line and there doesn’t seem to be much light at the end of the tunnel. The economy is fucked, rent is ridiculous and jobs are a premium as Britain’s future workers desperately seek to find their way in life. Young people are a marginalised group, cut off from the political system that governs them, and cast off to the margins of society. Even if you go to Uni, all it seems to do is shield your eyes from the reality that awaits you. Uni is the matrix, it’s the blue pill: It sells a dream to you that is never going to be your reality, it tells you everything will be okay when it won’t and it doesn’t set you up for the harsh realities of life at all. You come out in a fuckload of debt and realise that having a 2:1 doesn’t really count for anything anymore. It all comes down to experience when going for a job – even though that’s impossible to get, because you need experience. In the end you start working for free, or as good as free.

But it’s not even the Chav fashion that been adopted, whilst teenage boys are awash all over Facebook looking for the latest Tommy or Polo windbreaker to grab off Wavey Garms, the music of Chav culture has bulldozed its way into the UK’s nightlife scene. Garage, grime, house and techno form a mass part of a young persons iPod. Nights centred around old skool bangers and club classics are of regular occurrence across south London and beyond as people relate back to an era where it was good to be under the age of 30. Things were exciting,  job prospects were developing as new technologies were released. Its no surprise to see the likes of Skepta, JME, Dizzee, Wiley, Stormzy and Kano reverting grime back to its former glories and coming to the forefront of the UK music scene. It’s the shit young people want to hear now. It doesn’t matter if their white or if they’re middle class, they can relate to that music more so then they could in the past. Young people of all classes, race and backgrounds feel the struggle, they know it now.

I guess this a staunch defence of the new chav and realisation that the old one wasn’t all that bad. I used to be anti chav, but then I was a 15 year old grunger and chavs were my rivals. I also hadn’t woken up to how shit the world around them was. Now I get it and I relate to them. I wear reebok classics, I have a gold chain and would quite like a nike tn cap. What I’m saying is this isn’t really a fad, its almost a uniform. Young people are in this world together and are going to have to walk arm in arm through the shitty swamp that is british society, at least do it looking like a straight up, mother fucking G.