Talk:Feral (subculture)

I think this article is hilarious and I'm not even a colonial!

Yeah, it isn't the description I usually see
If you look around the web you'll find other depictions of this subculture. (Feral Cheryl, the TV Show "Snobs" etc) :)

I agree. section 9 below.  Petedavo talkcontributions 

NPOV
From starting off as "too aggressive" this article has now gone on to become a complete wankfest. I have no problem with a passing reference to aging hippies who want to "reclaim" the feral moniker, but I draw the line at the current version - it reads like a Ravi Shankar spiritual tract being handed out at the Eumundi markets. The article needs to refocus on the primary meaning of feral, which is by and large the same as chav, white trash, etc etc.

Pretty Typical in rural Australia
Anyone who has attended ag college in Australia is very familiar with this term.

One of the biggest problems of the land. Got a cat cap? 59.100.151.215 (talk) 12:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)ailahusky

It's in the bush where the term originated. Petedavo talkcontributions 

NPOV
Way too aggressive, even for an ethnic slur article


 * ??? "Feral" isn't an ethnic term, the article even points that out. As for the article being NPOV, it covers multiple (though similar) definitions of a term. If you think there's another side (or three) to the story, add them to the article. matturn 13:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Where would you find references of people who are "ferals" being unemployed, owning Commodores, wearing thongs etc. anyway? 203.206.56.229 20:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Possible bias
Parts of this article refer to "ferals" as people with "bad teeth" or who "come into town once a fortnight to fill in their dole forms". These descriptions smack of prejudice and fail to assess the "feral subculture" in an objective, dispassionate way. For example, the section "Ferals in the Daintree" describes "ferals" as exclusivley non-Indigenous Australian. In fact, there are Indigenous Australians who accept the "feral" moniker as a description of social alliance, regardless of ancestry. Characterising members of the subculture as purely non-Indigenous, purely welfare-dependant, or indeed only as living in the Daintree area of Queensland, Australia, appears as conjecture at best.

I took the liberty of editing some of the more biased sounding statements out.
Forgive me if I overstepped my bounds, but the heading and the meat of this article is too skewed in one particular direction for me to let it stand as is.

(I will not be hurt at all if people edit out what I have added to make a more informed and coherent sounding article)

Edited toward NPOV
Removed some blatant point of view: "usually justified"

Added a link to wiktionary for feral, reworded the sentace that referenced it, however it is still unconnected.

Reworded a few other bits.

Robprain 12:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Eh?
Does the following that appears at the top of the article actually make any sense at all?

''a "feral" generally refers to a person who dresses and acts in what is seen to be an uncontrolled manner. This may be because they have little understanding of cause-and-effect, leading to poverty [1] and behaviour the labeler believes to be outside the social norm. It may be because they are left wing, and the labeler believes they are not restraining their empathy enough.''

I assume the person writing this was not being entirely serious. At least I hope so...Argenteum 19:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Original usage
If I'm not wrong, I remember to term feral was applied to the johny come lateley wannabe hippies living off the land in the bush or just living rough around the new age towns of Margaret River, and Byron Bay, whose original hippish colonisers from the 60's and 70's had already made home and had by this stage become quite affluent. These well off old surfies and ex hippies resented the feral come latelys who were being accused of drugging up in the parks and doing petty crime and generally making the place bad by living rough etc. There appearred to be an associated stereo type of ferals being come latelys to the wilderness movements who drove down to the forests to chain themselves to trees yet were being seen to be doing a diservice to the original enviromentalists of the 60's era by their living rough, pretty crime, drug taking, and driving gas guzzlers, whilst the original enviromental drop outs had become affluent living in the country towns running new age businesses etc. Unfortunately my memory isn't as good as a proper citation, so we'll need proper references please. There was an ABC program on Nimbim and Byron Bay that discussed this very issue in the 1990's hosted by Geraldine Doogue or Andrew Ollie, can we find it?petedavo 15:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Sort of...
The term "Feral" as applied to the sort of neo-hippy lifestyle, may have sprung up in a few places. The first time I heard it, I was involved in a forest blockade of Coolangubra state forest, in the south east of NSW, in 1989. A university group came to our forest camp to make a film about the protest, and someone in that group had the bright idea of calling us "ferals", to differentiate the rough-camping, long-term blockaders from the lobbyist and student protesters that were also featured in the film. We thought the name was hilarious, and quite apt, and so jokingly started using the label to refer to our social group. In Australia, the alternative/protest movement is/was quite small and insular, and the name quickly took off amongst the wider environmental protest movement. Later, it was used by the media to refer to young hippie-influenced alternative lifestyle types in general, such as in the ABC report on Byron Bay, etc. This report was made some years later, in '91 or '92 if I remember, by which time the term was already well established. After media exposure, people not connected to the original group applied the term to themselves, and helped to solidify it as a subculture with a particular style of dress and behavior.

If anyone can find the film that the previously mentioned university group, this may serve as a citation for some of the these claims. I think it was either Melbourne Uni or RMIT. I am aware of another claim that the term was first used in the media when a group of youths were refused transit on a plane in north Queensland due to their dreadlocks, piercings, etc. Again, this was a year or two later.

I remember the ABC program, and there was also an earlier 60 Minutes George Negus report, as well as later articles in (magazines) The Australian and Good Weekend. These should be accessible at the National Library in Canberra if anyone could be bothered following this up. By the way, I have met a few "Ferals" of Aboriginal descent, and a couple from the Torres Strait. 61.68.231.51 10:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)ailahusky


 * "By July 1991, there was a successful blockade mounted at the Chaelundi Forest conflict in northeast New South Wales dubbed 'Feral Camp' (Cohen 1996:189). According to Cohen, it was Chaelundi which spawned 'a new generation of young, alternative environmental activists'." Yep, I think I'm finding some references to what your talking about. regards.  Petedavo  [[User talk:Petedavo|talk ]] contributions  03:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

--New Age usage--

In UK term Traveller or Crusty used to describe post punk ( oft dreadlocked ) urban environmental squatter subculture, with members being called Travellers or Crusties. In UK Travellers also synonmous with Gypsies, particularly Irish Gysies who are not related to the Roma.

--Alt Usage--

There is also psychological/sociological usage of feral to describe people who find it very difficult to interact with others and cope with life.

This usage is often self-applied by people whose difficulties socially interacting with others appear almost identical to the symptomology of mild autism only they describe their feral outlook and nature as stemming from social causes, usually childhood neglect, abuse or childhood institutionalisation or a combination of same. These feral types often appear to be self-contained and to have immense difficulty maintaining close relationships of any kind. It could be that feral is simply being used as a substitute for 'personality disorder' - a judgmental term devoid of any hint of social causation. The people who self apply the 'feral ' term in this way are usually intelligent, insightful and have a deep sense of natural justice despite their inability to fit in.

Some of these feral types naturally gravitate towards the urban feral/traveller/crusty subculture but they are unlikely to be able to fit in with the group dynamic for long as their difficulty interacting and emotional fragility and ego centric  conduct usually repels over time.

Desika (talk) 19:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Utter shit
This article is absolutely awful. No cites, just full of OR from highly intelligent people I'm sure. I'm taking an axe to it.Ticklemygrits (talk) 14:50, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation
Tried to clear up the article to give a better idea of what the subject actually is. I think people were getting confused about "Ferals" as a subculture and the Australian slang term "Going feral" to mean going out of control, etc. I hope this helps clear things up. I believe the subject deserves an article because the feral movement, albeit small compared to other subcultures, was an important movement. If the "sharpies" have a page, so should the ferals.Ailahusky (talk) 08:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Removed cleanup banner
I removed the "cleanup" banner, because it related to the page before it was rewritten and disambiguated. The previous argy-bargy was related to different interpretations of a term used to describe differing social concepts.Ailahusky (talk) 12:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

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