The bogan likes strong arms. It also likes people who win sporting contests, particularly if they possess an accompanying heroic tale of beating life’s cruel odds. For the bogan believes it too has beaten the odds, despite having enjoyed a comfortable suburban upbringing and having gone on to achieve little of note. While Lance Armstrong is indeed an exceptional athlete with lance-like pistons capable of propelling a bicycle across France, this is not why the bogan likes him. Having achieved this after battling testicular cancer in an inspiring deathbed-to-global-sporting-dominance story is also not why the bogan likes Lance Armstrong.
In fact, the bogan doesn’t even like cycling – as a sport, or a mode of transportation. The bogan believes recreational cyclers are a menace – it heard a shock jock use this phrase on the radio – and believes cyclists wearing multi-coloured lycra look like “fags,” despite the fact that its own t-shirt is considerably more garish in design, and just as tight fitting. Should the bogan see a cyclist riding legally on a road, it will lean on the horn and tailgate the cyclist before dangerously swerving out across two lanes and slowing down to point its yellow wristband-clad arm at the offending velocipede. The bogan will then scream “buy a fucking car….ya fag.”
So if the bogan doesn’t like cycling, and Lance Armstrong is first and foremost a cyclist, what is it about Lance Armstrong that the bogan actually likes? Firstly, Lance Armstrong is a celebrity. He has dated a couple of famous celebrities the bogan doesn’t like, and he once went biking with George Bush. Secondly, the bogan has form when it comes to wristbands which proclaim affiliation with a higher ideal. The bogan is also fond of wristbands which purport to have magical properties, no matter how preposterous the manufacturer’s claims may be. It is possible that the bogan believes that by simply purchasing an array of brightly coloured yellow products etched with the life affirming term “Livestrong”, it can have access to the same raw athleticism, skill and bottomless energy reserves as the hard-training and obsessively determined physiological freaks who make up the sporting elite. But like purchasing gimmicky hologram jewellery, the gullible bogan will succeed only in tapping into its money reserves, or that of its credit provider, as it maintains its position in the thick part of the peloton of life.
The bogan also believes that wearing a “Livestrong” wristband, sock or specially branded jockstrap gives it carte blanche to make gonad jokes. This is because the bogan is a moron, and lives in a state of endless adolescence where jokes about testicles, no matter how cancerous, are always funny. The bogan will tell anyone who is offended by its crude jokes that it’s not being serious, and people should get a sense of humour. Because it likes Lance Armstrong. And his freshly-shaven, pulsating thighs.