Talk:Bogan

Etymology
The etymology of Bogan is not unclear. Bogan is old English word from folklore for a small, disheveled (badly dressed), usually malevolent (ill behaved) household spirit. Similar to a boggart, brownie, or bugbear. The parallels between the dress, behavior, and overall appearance of the Australian Bogan and the Bogans of folklore are easily apparent. 2605:A601:1143:DC00:593E:36F9:F489:4613 (talk) 18:49, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * But this page started and grew all about the Australian slang term for a scorned social class. If you believe other usages of the term are significant in an encyclopaedia, you can create articles for them and a Disambiguity page. Since the Bogun (with a "U") already exists on the article you linked, you could add a Template:Distinguish between the articles if you think they're really likely to be mistaken for one another. However, until a recognised dictionary publishes that "bogun" is the etymological root of the Australian term "bogan", its etymology remains unclear. Beware of WP:OR. 49.180.142.155 (talk) 02:33, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

My name is Stuart Bond in Perth Western Australia. Teenagers in the area I grew up in were roughly separated in to three groups, the English skinhead and associates, they dressed like the English tribe with doc martin boots, the group farthest from the coast were the rockers who wore black, denim and ripple sole desert boots and the beach suburb surfers who wore Golden Breed, board shorts and tennis shoes for skateboarding. I was a skate boarder, a roller skater and an ice skater so I was fairly well known to all the sub groups who met in Perth city on weekends. I wore Dunlop Volley flat sole tennis shoes, black Levi jeans and Dark Golden Breed shirts. Young rockers referred to themselves as Bogs, young Surfers referred to themselves as Grogans. December 1975 or Jan 1976 with a group of rollerskates I met some Perth locals in the Hay Street mall who had with them a visitor from Melbourne who was well known as a senior Sharpie, he was very puritanical about tribal clothing and my mix of Rocker and Surf culture offended him, so he started being verbal, asking who I was, what I was, who were my tribe, who was I loyal to. I told him if I needed a label to be safe with the tribe, in the city I was a Bog and on the beach I was a Grogan, so that made me a Bogan. Following that, for a year or so my friends would call me the bogan and laugh at me, it was a nick name that did not stick. I next heard the word used to describe some AC/DC fans in black who were attending an Australian Crawl concert in Frankston Melbourne in 1981 or 1982. I hope this information is accepted in the spirit it is given, as a way to anchor our particularly strange version of the English language. 210.8.252.78 (talk) 03:56, 12 August 2021 (UTC)


 * @210.8.252.78 interesting; in Melbourne in the mid  80s to early 90s,  around Melbourne there where racist skins but many more non racist skins, there where mods and punks too. Surfers where refered to as skegs,  skateboarders as skaters. In some circumstances I do believe that bogan was synonymous with heabangers. I think I was at times a mix of a few but as a skippy I was a bit ocler so was probably a bit of a bogan. I too cut my teeth at the local roller+city and the most interesting thing in the early 80s was watching the sharpies into bogans. Now sharpies wheren't strictly all skippies and the term wogan started to come about. 124.170.111.13 (talk) 20:43, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @124.170.111.13 I think what people see as bogan today I would have called a yobo back then 124.170.111.13 (talk) 20:52, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @124.170.111.13 upon completion- I'm not a bogan at all- since Cronulla Bogans are just flag waving yobbos. I'm definitely more of a skin or a sharpie- in the early 2000's I was in Sydney with staggers tight jeans, winkle picker shoes, Woolen jumper, head cropped with a rat's tail 20 cm long, skanking on the dancefloor. I got kicked out of heaps of their shitty pubs- those Sydney Bogans didn't know what to think- I was just being Norf side of the Yarra. in syders they where scared of me. I'm not a bogan, I'm a Norf Side Skip who loves to dress sharp+ I'm pretty ocker but I'm a heavily Wog influence. 124.170.111.13 (talk) 07:09, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @124.170.111.13 my nick name growing up was Jacko as in Mark Jackson the Aussie Rules footy player and hit record success with 'Im an Individual'. that's how ocker I am, but I m not a dead shit, flag waving yobbo- bogan. I used to make Bogan Art. I love hot cars- Commodores are shit boxes 124.170.111.13 (talk) 07:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @124.170.111.13 since Cronulla with all those bogan- skegs beating up lebboes, I'm not down with that. 124.170.111.13 (talk) 07:17, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

This is also a racist term for First Nations people used in Canada. Should this be added to alert people not to use the term in Canada? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qrater (talk • contribs) 07:02, 3 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Qrater dead set mate, since the Cronulla riots, Bogans in Australia are just a bunch of flag waving racists- I used to think that all Nash(ethnicities, Nash short for nationality) can be bogan- my experience of Australia is multi-culti, in that we all have a back ground beyond here- except for the 80000 years of inhabitation before 1788, most of those mob are mixed up( las Americas is heaps different) but yous aboriginal mob in Canada must be heaps mixed up with settlers? I reckon it's totally legit to mention how it's a derogatory term in Canada, especially considering how Bogan in Oz has become synonymous with 'real Australians' and flag waving yobbo-nationalism. 124.170.111.13 (talk) 09:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Qrater mate, I'm not Indigenous to nowhere- most of my mob are Normans to Ireland via England to Oz over the last 1200 years, maybe some Welsh or Scott beyond that. I'm fucking dis-custard how people can say their efnicity is, Australian when it's not an ethnicity just a nationality, and so many Bogans reckon they're 'real Australians' makes me sick 124.170.111.13 (talk) 10:09, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Georgian word
In Georgia we have exact word with same meaning from old Georgian books like The Right Hand of the Grand Master and the word was used in 19th century to describe lower class people, same meaning. I have no idea why and how did the word got in Australia and became a slang. It's not only called "Bogan", but "Bogano" in relative pronoun.

There is even an ARTICLE about bogans in Georgian language on wikipedia. Just google "ბოგანო" - same meaning! Please consider this for I am not an advanced wikipedia editor and its up to you to merge these two articles together for they have the same meaning. Spontanovich2222 (talk) 12:14, 13 October 2018 (UTC)


 * For those following along at home: here's the native page and translated page. 49.180.142.155 (talk) 02:33, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

List of international "equivalents"
I find the list of international "equivalents" to the term bogan misleading, since a lot of them are only related in the sense that they're also working class stereotypes/subcultures. This is especially unfitting for terms that, in their countries of origin, are associated with gangs/criminality (e.g., Ah Beng, Gopnik, Mat Rempit, Maloqueiro...). Others are associated with a level of poverty that's not even remotely comparable to the socioeconomic status of "boguns" - favelados for instance. I would like to either (a) prune this list significantly to remove some of the more clearly unfitting examples, or (b) move the list wholesale into another article (like Working-class culture - although it would need to be trimmed to fit that subject as well - or into its own article, maybe something like List of social class subcultures). Tserton (talk) 17:08, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

representation in popular culture
why is Mark Jacko Jackson' song ' I'm an Individual not mentioned here. Jacko who played for the Sydney( South Melbourne) Bloods and Geelong Cats released this song in '85; it was a celebration of Bogan but not yobbo-nationalism like wearing the flag like a John Batman cape bashing People. 124.170.111.13 (talk) 09:24, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Barassi Line
I reckon boganism is heaps different norf-east of the Barassi Line! 124.170.111.13 (talk) 09:35, 14 June 2023 (UTC)