Lad culture
Encyclopedia
Lad culture is a subculture
commonly associated with Britpop
music of the 1990s.
"The image of the 'lad' or 'new lad' arose in the early 1990s as a generally middle-class figure espousing attitudes conventionally (though not necessarily correctly) attributed to the working classes". In an ironic, self-conscious fashion, "lads took up an anti-intellectual position, scorning sensitivity and caring in favour of drinking, violence, and a pre-feminist attitude to women as both sex objects and creatures from another species".
.
Part of "the postmodern transformation of masculinity...the 1990s 'new lad' was a clear reaction to the 'new man
'...most clearly embodied in current men's magazines, such as Maxim
, FHM
and Loaded
, and marked by a return to hegemonic masculine values of sexism
[&] male homosociality
". At a time when "men saw themselves as battered by feminism
", one could also consider that "laddishness is a response to humiliation and indignity...the girl-power! girl-power! female triumphalism which echoes through the land".
Lad culture now reaches beyond men's magazines to movies such as Snatch
and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
and to the TV
sitcoms, Men Behaving Badly
and Game On. The Men Behaving Badly and Fantasy Football League
television programmes present images of Laddishness that are dominated by the male pastimes of drinking
, watching football
, and sex
. These are presented as being ironic
and "knowing". (The masthead
of Loaded is "for men who should know better".)
The American equivalent has been termed "'Frat Boy Nation'...a backlash against the sensitive, pro-feminist male" of a very similar order.
The new found form of LADish behaviour had now moved to the internet. LADs take it upon them seles to detail events, stories or general LADish behaviour and post up onto the website TrueLad.com where, other LADs can read these accounts at great length and at their own personal rate, taking in many of lifes lesson, spread via other LADs.
Without TrueLad, many males wouldn't be the same today. The world would be a different and difficult place to live in, but gladly, we have a bible, a tradition, a way of life to live up to, which makes us all the LADs that we are.
Contrasting the two gender constructs, Tim Edwards, a sociologist at the University of Leicester
, describes the new man as pro-feminist
, albeit narcissistic
, and the new lad as pre-feminist, and a reaction to second-wave feminism
. The new man image failed to appeal to a wide readership whereas the more adolescent Lad culture appeals more to the ordinary man, says Edwards. Social constraints also meant that "it is easier to be a lad rather than a new man in most workplaces".
However, Edwards also points out that lad culture men's magazines of the 21st century contain little that is actually new. Noting a study of the history of Esquire
, he observes that there is little substantial different between the new man Arena and GQ and the new lad Loaded et al. Both address assumed men's interests of cars, alcohol, sport, and women, and differ largely in that the latter have a more visual style. From this he infers that "the New Man and the New Lad are niches in the market more than anything else, often defined according to an array of lifestyle accessories", and concludes that the new lad image dominates the new man image simply because of its greater success at garnering advertising revenue for men's magazines.
Arguably at least, the lad has been succeeded in the 21st century by the postfeminist man. "On the one hand, the 'postfeminist man' accommodates backlash scripts - drawing upon characteristics of the 'new lad'. On the other hand, he is more self-aware...could be described as the 'new lad' grown up or a less sensitive 'new man'...a melting-pot of masculinities still negotiating the ongoing impact of feminism on his identity".
critiques it in her book The Whale Woman (2000); while others note that "it's a dark world that Loaded and the lad culture has bequeathed us".
A study by Gabrielle Ivinson of Cardiff University
and Patricia Murphy of the Open University
has identified lad culture as a source of behavioural confusion, and an investigation by Adrienne Katz has linked it to suicide
and depression
.
A study of the architecture profession found that lad culture had a negative impact on women completing their professional education. Pundit Helen Wilkinson believes that lad culture has affected politics and decreased the ability of women to participate.
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
commonly associated with Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
music of the 1990s.
"The image of the 'lad' or 'new lad' arose in the early 1990s as a generally middle-class figure espousing attitudes conventionally (though not necessarily correctly) attributed to the working classes". In an ironic, self-conscious fashion, "lads took up an anti-intellectual position, scorning sensitivity and caring in favour of drinking, violence, and a pre-feminist attitude to women as both sex objects and creatures from another species".
Origins
The term "new lad" was blended by journalist Sean O'Hagan in a 1993 article in ArenaArena (magazine)
Arena was a British monthly men's magazine. The magazine was created in 1986 by Nick Logan, who had started The Face in 1980, to focus on trends in fashion and entertainment. British graphic designer Neville Brody, who had designed The Face, designed Arena's launch appearance.The magazine featured...
.
Part of "the postmodern transformation of masculinity...the 1990s 'new lad' was a clear reaction to the 'new man
New man
New man could refer to* Novus homo, Latin term for a man who was first in his family to serve in the Roman Senate* New Man ** New Soviet man, imagined archetype of Communist ideologists....
'...most clearly embodied in current men's magazines, such as Maxim
Maxim (magazine)
Maxim is an international men's magazine based in the United Kingdom and known for its pictorials featuring popular actresses, singers, and female models, sometimes pictured dressed, often pictured scantily dressed but not fully nude....
, FHM
FHM
FHM, originally published as For Him Magazine, is an international monthly men's lifestyle magazine.- History :The magazine began publication in 1985 in the United Kingdom under the name For Him and changed its title to FHM in 1994 when Emap Consumer Media bought the magazine, although the full For...
and Loaded
Loaded (magazine)
Loaded, first published in 1994, is a British magazine for men that is considered to be the "original lads' mag". Its motto is "For men who should know better".-History:...
, and marked by a return to hegemonic masculine values of sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
[&] male homosociality
Homosociality
In sociology, homosociality describes same-sex relationships that are not of a romantic or sexual nature, such as friendship, mentorship, or others. The opposite of homosocial is heterosocial, preferring non-sexual relations with the opposite sex...
". At a time when "men saw themselves as battered by feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
", one could also consider that "laddishness is a response to humiliation and indignity...the girl-power! girl-power! female triumphalism which echoes through the land".
Lad culture now reaches beyond men's magazines to movies such as Snatch
Snatch (film)
Snatch is a 2000 crime film written and directed by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, featuring an ensemble cast. Set in the London criminal underworld, the film contains two intertwined plots: one dealing with the search for a stolen diamond, the other with a small-time boxing promoter named Turkish ...
and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 1998 British crime film directed and written by Guy Ritchie. The story is a heist film involving a self-confident young card sharp who loses £500,000 to a powerful crime lord in a rigged game of three card brag...
and to the TV
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
sitcoms, Men Behaving Badly
Men Behaving Badly
Men Behaving Badly is a British comedy that was created and written by Simon Nye. It follows the lives of Gary Strang and his flatmates, Dermot Povey and Tony Smart It was first broadcast on ITV in 1992...
and Game On. The Men Behaving Badly and Fantasy Football League
Fantasy Football League
Fantasy Football League is a British television programme hosted by Frank Skinner and David Baddiel. The Programme began on BBC Radio 5 and was hosted by Dominik Diamond before transferring to BBC 2, with three series being broadcast from January 1994 to May 1996...
television programmes present images of Laddishness that are dominated by the male pastimes of drinking
Drinking culture
Drinking culture refers to the customs and practices associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Although alcoholic beverages and social attitudes toward drinking vary around the world, nearly every civilization has independently discovered the processes of brewing beer, fermenting...
, watching football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
, and sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
. These are presented as being ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
and "knowing". (The masthead
Masthead
-Media:* the masthead , a list, usually found on the editorial page of a newspaper or other periodical, listing the publisher, editorial board, advertising rates, etc....
of Loaded is "for men who should know better".)
The American equivalent has been termed "'Frat Boy Nation'...a backlash against the sensitive, pro-feminist male" of a very similar order.
The new found form of LADish behaviour had now moved to the internet. LADs take it upon them seles to detail events, stories or general LADish behaviour and post up onto the website TrueLad.com where, other LADs can read these accounts at great length and at their own personal rate, taking in many of lifes lesson, spread via other LADs.
Without TrueLad, many males wouldn't be the same today. The world would be a different and difficult place to live in, but gladly, we have a bible, a tradition, a way of life to live up to, which makes us all the LADs that we are.
Postfeminism
The rise of the new lad coincided with a backlash against feminism by both men and women, and in particular against the figure of the new man as "one who has subjugated his masculinity in order to fulfill the needs of women...this passive and insipid image". At a time when "the sterotypes for men attentive to feminism were three: Eunuch, Beast, or slag", - and when women were increasingly feeling that "no men are fine in the kitchen, but who wants them tidying in the bedroom?" - the "new lad" image offered "a space of fun, consumption and sexual freedom for men", as well as "a refuge from the constraints and demands of marriage and nuclear family".Contrasting the two gender constructs, Tim Edwards, a sociologist at the University of Leicester
University of Leicester
The University of Leicester is a research-led university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is a mile south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park and Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College....
, describes the new man as pro-feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, albeit narcissistic
Narcissism
Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...
, and the new lad as pre-feminist, and a reaction to second-wave feminism
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
. The new man image failed to appeal to a wide readership whereas the more adolescent Lad culture appeals more to the ordinary man, says Edwards. Social constraints also meant that "it is easier to be a lad rather than a new man in most workplaces".
However, Edwards also points out that lad culture men's magazines of the 21st century contain little that is actually new. Noting a study of the history of Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, he observes that there is little substantial different between the new man Arena and GQ and the new lad Loaded et al. Both address assumed men's interests of cars, alcohol, sport, and women, and differ largely in that the latter have a more visual style. From this he infers that "the New Man and the New Lad are niches in the market more than anything else, often defined according to an array of lifestyle accessories", and concludes that the new lad image dominates the new man image simply because of its greater success at garnering advertising revenue for men's magazines.
Arguably at least, the lad has been succeeded in the 21st century by the postfeminist man. "On the one hand, the 'postfeminist man' accommodates backlash scripts - drawing upon characteristics of the 'new lad'. On the other hand, he is more self-aware...could be described as the 'new lad' grown up or a less sensitive 'new man'...a melting-pot of masculinities still negotiating the ongoing impact of feminism on his identity".
Negative effects
Lad culture has naturally attracted criticism from feminist circles. For example, Germaine GreerGermaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
critiques it in her book The Whale Woman (2000); while others note that "it's a dark world that Loaded and the lad culture has bequeathed us".
A study by Gabrielle Ivinson of Cardiff University
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
and Patricia Murphy of the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
has identified lad culture as a source of behavioural confusion, and an investigation by Adrienne Katz has linked it to suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
and depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
.
A study of the architecture profession found that lad culture had a negative impact on women completing their professional education. Pundit Helen Wilkinson believes that lad culture has affected politics and decreased the ability of women to participate.
Ladette
The word "ladette" has been coined to describe young women who try to emulate laddish behaviour. It is defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary as:
Young women who behave in a boisterously assertive or crude manner and engage in heavy drinking sessions'
In literature
- In the wake of laddism, the adolescent Noughties hero of Hard CashKate CannKate Cann, is an English journalist and writer of fiction.-Biography:Kate Cann wrote stories and diaries in her youth, and took two degrees in English and American Literature at the University of Kent, B.A., 1977, M.A., 1978...
, while making outMaking outIn human sexuality, making out is a sexual euphemism of American origin dating back to at least 1949, and is used synonymously with the terms necking, heavy petting, and hooking up to refer to non-penetrative sex, though "hooking up" is also used in some cultures to imply casual sex.-History:The...
with a girlfriend-to-be, finds himself "having these unreconstructed male thoughts like - she went to that party cos of me, she owes me".
- "One of Nick HornbyNick HornbyNick Hornby is an English novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and for the football memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.-Life and career:Hornby was...
's concerns in Fever Pitch is to represent the way in which the 'new men' of the 1980s and 1990s have to struggle with reconfigured constructions of masculinity...this 'new lad' phenomenon".