Chav gender identities: traditional media representation and recent TikTok developments

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, “chav” entered the English dictionary as a pejorative epithet for (usually young) people whose appearance and demeanour were perceived as showing what was commonly seen as a lack of taste and education, as well as anti-social behaviour. The term has now long passed its peak usage; however, it seems to have maintained an interesting degree of staying power. Indeed, teenagers and young adults from various countries are currently sharing and reappropriating semiotic objects on TikTok relating to a concept that originated in one locality, bringing their various interpretations, backgrounds, and creativities into play. This certainly makes the notion of “chav” worthy of academic interest, even if the particular term used to refer to it may soon fall out of use, as it seemed destined to in the second decade of the twenty-first century before the recent TikTok “Chav check” trend revived it.