Real England

ok wait #24

wait

all of it

some WS UK candidates in that shit tho

all of it is amazing but if i can narrow it down to three then i go with 21, 24 and 62

special mention to 4, 65 and 67

but yeah, a work of great scholarship obv

i dunno, i feel this precariously straddles the line between high quality real england material and jeremy kyle-style gawping at the other.

draw that line tho

can nothing be enjoyed on ilx anymore

is fancy dress for 66 'muslim w/ blackface'?

figured the perceived issue with J Kyle-as-entertainment was less the 'otherness' and more the degree of misery that's being gawped at. not really seeing much misery here

#63 in my personal top three for sure

we need a thread in otherness and we need it ringfenced

describing this shit as 'other' is the problem, Merdy - we've ALL been one of these people, once

yes. once. that's right.

*cough*

ha

you'd look well in a tutu imo

pictures convey that nice mix of joy, threat, next-day regret and doing yrself irreparable damage that constitutes the great British night out

the event night out tbf

surprisingly similar to any other weekend ime

I feel like I'm out of touch with something in that I don't know anyone who dresses up in themed costumes to do nights out - it looks liberating

ya i mean i think there's a strikingly and endearingly chaotic camaraderie and stuff to a lot of them, maybe most of them, but i dunno that i or that many of the people viewing these have ever been e.g. that guy with his kecks doon tae his ankles in the middle of an empty dancefloor.

i should get back in touch with all of my schoolfriends so i'll have the opportunity to go on this kind of bender, not gonna happen rarefied academic/weirdo circles i move in.

poll

Generally, high street binge drinking culture seems to have this thick benign vibe going on at the centre of each little group - thick like honey or concrete. In the calm at the eye of the storm, they could do each other no ill, best mates forever, and if you look closely a reminder that people don't have to be especially intelligent or friendly to be, again, benign, at peace. Big rough violent people, giving each other piggy backs, or doing that tiger-paw petting thing, towselling each other's hair and saying 'Ah, you fucker, haha'.

On the other hand, when the edge of one group collides with another ...

could also be read as self-loathing & anxiety manifested as the desire to be subsumed into the collective blur of laughs

projection of intent or emotion onto lumpen drunkenness is almost entirely wasted (WASTED LOL) IMO/e

depends what yr up to. freud thinks its therapeutic cos we're repressed & struggle to express ourselves &c. lumpen drunkenness is about as real england as you can get imo.

there's levels of intent or blitheness to it but ime yr serious drinkers, the slabdevouring shithouses and litredowners almost always go at it like its a job of work that needs done, or a social task in which to participated release may or may not come but I don't think the urge is necessarily there to seek it, even subconsciously

post-work pack drink culture is more what I was thinking of rather than yr hardcore individuals

oh yeah idk you could populate fifty profiles of types I was referencing the ppl who end up in the depicted situations tbh

just saying that as the bar for problem drinker is somewhat higher in the british isles than most of the rest of the world, lads&lasses on tour are v mundane (hence real). anyone who is up for cheerfully disgracing themselves & enabling others to do the same can get involved, the resulting stories to be used as fuel for future sessions

thread idea?

I know of no other culture in which so much bonding takes place through vomiting

but idk bruce parry is always throwing up, mb I need to rethink this

there are surprising resonances between homosocial english working class bonding and parent-young bonding in ciconiiformes.

is that a Madonna reference

Class is involved in binge-drinking in all kinds of difficult ways

My impression is: back in 00-03, when I was a teenager (prob giving away too much about myself) in the north of england, the very poor, very hard kids in tracksuits and hoods (about 90% of my school peers) were binge-drinking when they got together, but this demog now seem to have moved overwhelmingly on to weed, from what I can see.

My peers' binge-drinking was a sort of knowing underage mimicry of the IBIZA and AGIA NAPA portrayed in aspirational tv shows, music vids and adverts ... I guess in the recession, GOING TO IBIZA as a theme might have got too expensive for this demog, and also smoking weed is gonna be cheaper than buying the equivalent amount of booze it takes to get the same reaction?

This impression is strengthened by the time a couple of months ago when I found myself obliged by the government to pick up some litter as part of a group. Most of the folks I was with had done time, they were the poorest rung of the ladder, and they very much dismissed city-centre binge-drinking as something for twats who work in offices, basically (they didn't use the word) 'squares'.

Certainly in my city, the vast majority of city centre binge drinkers are either students or young professionals who live in flats in the city centre or in the suburbs. However much money they do in fact have, though, and whether or not they are at a university or have been to one, there's a stark difference between ppl who are culturally lower-middle-class and ppl who are culturally middle class ... they coexist but hardly interact or notice each other.

This divide, despite the enforced casualisation of everything: one lot always wear polished shoes, smart jeans and a button up shirt, the other lot always have some kind of wiffly haircut, tight jeans and converse, and these outfits seem like class uniforms proper, these days.

I'm always struck by the lower-middle-class male LAD type's constant attempts at aggression - the way they occupy a space with their bodies and voices, their idealisation of the Warrior archetype, even be it through layers and layers of irony and Lynx adverts and sports tv, still there ... – particularly because my city has its fair share of people who actually do live by violence, who weave in between the crowds of LADS, with hoods up and a dog on a leash, not stopping, somewhere to be. The LADS don't seem to notice or really have very much self awareness. Now one of them's squaring up to his mate and his other mate's saying 'Woah, woah, lads, respect, respect', but that fight won't ever come to a bottle in the head down a back alley, only a bust nose on the high street

The culturally middle class types I mentioned have their own defining trait, which is, I'm pretty sure, to go out to a city centre where everyone has gone to get pissed, to go to a nightclub, get pissed and take drugs, with 100s of others like yrselves, but pretend you're not into it; seems like a thread that's run right through from the days of skaters and nu metal 00-03, thru high-end landfill indie'n'electro days 2008-2012, thru to today's ... BBC6 types for want of a better word

I'm trying to guess whether this is Leeds or Nottingham.

I think cardamon is talking about mcr. everyone seems to have v individual takes on class distinctions now, makes it tricky to discuss

Think it's pretty well established that right across the UK, regardless of class, males who continually address their conversational partners as "Lads! Lads!" are almost perilously insecure in their masculinity.

depends tho on yr definition of binge drinking

I just spent far too long trying to work out what My Chemical Romance had to do with Real England, ogmor.

haha, did you come up with anything?

Well, it did make me remember the time I passed a gang of teen girls proudly affirming to each other that "we're the Black Parade, motherfuckers". They were pretty cool. I think there's wiggle room here.

ofc, what could be more english than the figureheads of the self-harming emo cult leading our youth astray?

http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b527/nutzweiler/SAM_0726_zps90f6f088.jpg
http://rs1290.pbsrc.com/albums/b527/nutzweiler/SAM_0729_zps2d03a1bd.jpg~c100

http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b527/nutzweiler/SAM_0729_zps2d03a1bd.jpg

so many fonts

http://i.imgur.com/FAOUYdf.jpg