Listened to this week’s TWiT and was intrigued by the comment that the iPod could possibly have become “chavvy”, whatever that term means. I guess it’s a British slang term, as you can read about on Wikipedia.

The term “chavvy” seems similar to “trailer trash” in America, combined with “new money” and through lack of taste or just stupidity, spending it on “bling” like Burberry plaid hats, gold chains, casual sports wear, and track-pants tucked into white socks and iPod Shuffles. Who knew.

I asked a British co-worker his definition of “chavvy,” and supposedly a good celebrity example is David Beckham while the American version would be Britney Spears. He also suggested a general youthful hooliganism and the disease of anti-social-behavior which resulted in the government issuing an Anti-Social-Behavior-Order against chavs, resulting in a new term for the generally disaffected youth wearing iPod Shuffles: Asbo Generation.

Anyhow, after reading the description on Wikipedia and this site might “chavvy” simply describes pretty much every other American suburban teenager who listens to Eminem?

So while it’s to Apple’s credit that the technology in the iPod continues to get cheaper and accessible to more people, this also means that the luxury-technophile cache is slowly diluted as more people are able to buy them (are they being sold at WalMart?). I guess that’s why Apple divides its lines into Shuffle, Nano, and iPod. Anybody with a Shuffle probably wanted the Nano but couldn’t afford it, and only someone who didn’t realize this about themselves would think wearing the Shuffle around your neck would be appropriate, as anybody truly embarassed to be unable to afford a true iPod would tuck the Shuffle deep into their inside pockets to avoid being found out.

Anyhow, I’m always fascinated by conceptual terms that are so clear in one country but have no direct translation into another, especially when it involves iPods.

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Categories: General, Technology :: ::

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