chavs 'n hipsters

among the many fascinating phenomena YouTube has brought us is this one: a comparison between the two groups that brits and americans love to hate -- respectively, the chav and the hipster.

the chav can be thought of as the british equivalent of urban white trash. given how wonderfully politically correct we americans are, and that in our urban areas the chav equivalent is often not white, it's unlikely that such a mockery would ever be made. americans therefore "take the piss" out of a species that likes "taking the piss" out of everyone else -- the hipster, or the holier-than-thou-cultural-know-it-all. i have no idea if a hipster equivalent exists in britain, but given that the british have so few qualms about mocking the laughable chavie species, it seems that for brits, looking down on others isn't something to be looked down upon. so bottom line is that even though they're different, on a general level of mass revlusion, i sense that chavs and hipsters occupy an equivalent sector in the group brain of teens, 20 and 30 somethings in the UK and the States.

now, what does YouTube have to do with all this? it's the satires of said groups, my friends, the satires of said groups that brits and americans place up on YouTube that're of concern.

here we have a satire of the american hipster group. clearly, it is horrible. the concept itself isn't that bad -- that even after a nuclear war, hipsters care only about being tragically cool -- but when you're mocking a group that everyone already mocks all day long in normal conversation, you better be extra creative about it, and write some good lines and do some good acting.

which brings me to this chav satire, of a "scientist" "observing the chavs" in their natural habitat. now, of course i realize that being relatively foreign to me, i'm more entertained by the novelty of the chav than i am by the familiar mockery of the hipster, but the writing and acting and editing are far superior, and so is the concept -- a much richer satire comes out of this fake documentary than the little hipster drama conceived by my american brethren.

and there's something else going on apart from the basic suckiness of this american satire. given the much higher number of chav satires on YouTube compared with the number of hipster satires, it appears that brits are far more comfortable with public mockery of their favorite hated group than we are. this makes sense from the american side, with our absence of a monarch, obsessions with democracy and individual equivalence, etc etc – we hate people that hate or look down on others, while brits are comfortable with being haters – or hipsters. it’s actually a lot harder hating on hipsters because by hating on them you’re kind of becoming a hipster yourself in trying to elevate yourself above them. which brings me to the point that i had no idea was going to come out of this diatribe: brits are hipsters and americans are chavs. go figger.