The bogan is prone to inward-looking, self-serving, short-term behaviour. For this reason, it is rarely found to engage in any form of social cause aside from unionism, which is arguably self-interest dressed up as collective interest anyway. This all changes when a disaster occurs that costs the lives of Australians. Instantly, the bogan transforms itself into a generous, empathic creature who will dig deep in order to get behind the charitable appeal related to the disaster.
It is even better when the disaster takes place in a region whereby the bulk of victims are not Australian, but there is a notable Australian presence. This allows the bogan to engage in their standard nationalistic giving, while giving an outward appearance of racial tolerance. Non-disaster-related charities suffered in silence until someone figured out how to activate the bogan’s unique trigger points. It had to be glitzy, it had to be on commercial television, it had to have celebrities, and it had to offer the prospect of exhibitionism for the bogan itself. The telethon was born.
One of the commercial networks will cancel the day’s programming so that it can show its – and only its – celebrities manning phones, taking calls from the bogan populace. In addition to the possibility of speaking to a reality TV star or footy player, the bogan is motivated by the hope that their friends will see their name on the scrolling ticker across the bottom of the screen that announces recent donations.After all, there is no point to being charitable unless the world is aware of the charitability. The logical culmination of this is, of course, the moment when
By making a donation, it becomes possible to confidently participate in social conversations about the appeal, and wait impatiently to mention that they’ve dug deep. The one-off and public nature of the donation is enormously alluring to the bogan, who generally lacks the conviction and consistency to provide quiet ongoing support to a social cause. A more recent (and laudable) innovation in bogan philanthropy science is to incorporate charity into music festivals. Here the bands play for free (glitz trigger), the bogans can ruin an event (exhibitionism trigger), it can be rebroadcast on TV (commercial TV trigger), and Peter Garrett (celebrity trigger) can promote the ALP to a generation of young bogans who didn’t realise he was the singer of AC/DC.
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oh my this blog just keeps on giving! I just can’t believe how accurate your description of mainstream australia is. Surely you need to do one on “being the worlds best sporting country…when it comes to sitting on our fat collective arses” or even one on AFL culture..
thats the worlds greatest sports loving country..when it comes to watching it on tv. Sorry.
Wouldn’t it be NRL?
No it would be AFL.
I didn’t know they still had telethons. I remember years ago there were reports that x dollars were donated when the program was on air but only a small percentage of that was ever actually banked. The bogan got their 2 seconds of screen fame and then never carried through with the donation. Credit cards have probably solved that problem, for the charities anyway.
A bogan chick at work ran up a huge debt on her credit card and was really struggling to pay it off and find enough money to eat/pay the rent. She regretted signing up those couple of world vision kids. Abdu and Yimam could afford to eat but she couldn’t.
berihebi you obviously don’t live in Perth where we are subjected to a telethon and an appealathon each year. You see if ch 7 has one then ch 9 has to as well. And I suspect, as you state, they raise in reality far less than the amount shown on the big shining sign at the end of the nauseating 24 hours.
um, peter garrett was the lead singer of midnight oil not AC/DC..
I think they knew that (see tags at bottom of page). It’s more a stab at the possibility that young bogans might NOT know that.
ummmm, yup that was the gag idiot. You’re not a bogan are you. How’d you slip through?
Nice one. A faux-pas for Parfait.
my bad..
How about a post on Nannas at the football with thier thermos flask and disposable poncho?
Nothing like having a couple of white shoe wearing faux-hawked reps come in to put hundreds of fucking stickers all over their products advertising the fact that 1 cent from every carton of beer goes to tsunami relief. Then watching Eddie MacGuire’s moonpie face light up in sweaty bogan like self-congratulation at the end of a charity cricket match. ‘Cause it’s all about da children.
On a side note, I know this is off-topic (and I’m not having a go at these ladies attempts at further bettering themselves), but aren’t the names of these little tykes just so original!
couriermail/story/0,23739,26510066-3102,00.html
Ha ha
Oh dear…
Those names are worse than any we made up on here.
so it is true! people ACTUALLY call their kids crap like that. well, these kids will learn to fight real quick!
Welcome to South-East Queensland.
is that like a funky spelling of of kahlua (coffee alcoholic beverage)? maybe an homage to the intoxicant at the time of conception???
Hey, don’t be hating on the ladies.
Making fun of teenage mothers is VERY nouveau-bogue.
Good on them for getting out there and getting an education, they should be applauded for that. But Bec, you’ve got to admit, those names are quite offensive.
“Noveau-bogue”. I LOVE it!
Bt what about the -thon suffix? Presumably from marathon – or indeed Marathon. Charity as Olympic sport – noice. If only a celebrity could deliver the news at the end and drop dead.
bahahahahahahah
the names of those children!!!
Worst ever.
Great post. I’ve been waiting with bated breath though for a post on fake nails and the ruination of the formerly classy French manicure. Please?
Sandringham???
Sorry if we’re not conforming to your preconceived ideas of bogan geography, but the menace is far more widespread, and whitebread, and well-bred, than people may realise. So yes, Sandringham. – TBL
yeah, believe it or not, sandringham is a MASSIVE bogan hotspot, at least for ‘friday/saturday night’ outings. quite funny, outside one of the nightspots, there was this MASSIVE billboard ad for the army/navy/something military. it struck me as odd, as the ONLY bit of fighting some of these ‘lads’ will ever do is outside bridie o’ reilly’s at around 2 am…
LOL. But not Toorak. 🙂
Just deviating from the topic of telethons, a prime-time news bulletin tonight featured a story on a mother and her son who both got booked by police for speeding (the mother said he was goading her son into driving faster; go figure) … the video footage showed the bogan-mobile – a late-model BMW, decorated from bonnet to boot in tinsel.
May one reiterate S-Mans comment?
Welcome to South-East Queensland.
why stop at french manicures ?? How about French EVERYTHING……everywhere I look are french soaps, clocks, tables, chairs, signs and people buying them by the tonne.Bogans thinks buyinf “french like/made in china” furniture adds provencal chic .
What about the french spin on literature, eg. nouveau bogue?
Think there is a typo here….
“There you go Ben!’ All of this is interspersed with bite sized snippets of entertainment from said celebrities.”
Should it not read ‘…..from sad looking second rate Aussie bogan celebrities’?
Dudes, you’ve crossed a line here. Bashing the Good Friday Appeal, hang your heads in shame. Anyway, people only ever give to a charity when it directly affects them or their family. Otherwise, people will donate their time to their local community.
Where, exactly did we bash the Good Friday Appeal? We mock the bogan for only giving charitable dollars in a conspicuous and public forum. The telethon. Please stop projecting. – TBL
I don’t know about over East but here in the West I’m pretty sure Telethon plays a major role in funding the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research so that doctors such as founding director Fiona Stanley have the resources to carry out vital research. Regardless of why bogans donate (and yes, I understand you’re mocking why/how they donate, rather than the cause they are donating to) I just think it’s poor form to ridicule any part of the process.
going one step further after the bogan calls to make a very generous pledge of $5 to help, cause its tha tops fing ta do “forget” to ever actually pay up.
[…] Jetstar, it considers donating money. Being unfamiliar with charities, and not being aware of any telethon or charity concert providing a convenient phone number via which to pledge to celebrities, it […]
[…] released book (featuring Richard on the cover), we have variously accused Wilkins of hijacking telethons, hijacking red carpet specials, being outflanked by Max Markson as the ideal celebrity conduit for […]
[…] released book (featuring Richard on the cover), we have variously accused Wilkins of hijacking telethons, hijacking red carpet specials, being outflanked by Max Markson as the ideal celebrity conduit for […]
So if u white you can’t have a Maori background these days LMAO my grandfather was Maori my mother is half Maori and half English my father is Irish, I am white and was very close to my grandfather (Maori) when he died I decided to put his story on my arm in his and may family’s tribal markings, but I should be shot cause I’m white and it can’t mean anything to me Find out a persons story before judge.