Things Bogans Like

In 2004, Schapelle Corby was a blue eyed, moderately attractive Gold Coast TAFE student. A 20-something girl with a remixed name, dodgy family, and a tendency to go to Bali for holidays. An exemplary new bogan. Things went badly wrong for her when she was convicted by Indonesian authorities for smuggling 4.2kg of cannabis into Bali. Bogans back in Australia were outraged, and Today Tonight/ACA realised that a major meal ticket had arrived. The other thing that arrived was a white Mercedes with an oversized front grill and a high pitched screech emanating from its throat.

The bogan is a fiercely tribal creature, neatly tucking its selective disregard for truth into the pseudo-noble Australiana slogan of “standing by your mates”. This egocentric “us versus them” mentality permits the bogan to violate the laws of other jurisdictions whenever and however it wants, declaring foreign countries “un-Australian” whenever problems occur.

At these times, the Australian Government is supposed to spring into diplomatic overdrive to extricate the sullen bogan from the consequences of its willfully ignorant alleged actions. An opportunistic celebrity lawyer will work pro bono to coach the bogan on crying, temporarily converting to Islam, or other methods with a chance of perverting justice. The fortunate bogan eventually comes home to a hero’s welcome and a lucrative “tell all” ACA interview, having not learned a single thing (aside from the crying). All of this overrides the simple fact that the bogan in question in all likelihood traveled to a foreign country with draconian anti-drug laws while importing or taking illicit drugs.

The bogan regularly gains self-esteem from loudly declaring a stance on topics that it knows little about, and the idea of a healthy bogan female of reproductive age being imprisoned on a drug-related charge in an Islamic country represented the convergence of a number of its fears. It demanded that the Australian Government “do something” to bring Schapelle home.

The fact that her father and two of her half-brothers all had prior drug convictions was deemed by the bogan to be unrelated to Schapelle’s certain innocence, along with piles of other information. It just knew. Meanwhile, Schapelle’s sister Mercedes used her new fame to pop up and net $50,000 for stripping down for bogan bible Ralph magazine, airbrushed and spray tanned to within an inch of her life. This allowed the bogan readers to remark that “I’d take that Mercedes for a spin”, to the laughter of their similarly braindead mates.

While there are thousands of people imprisoned on drug-smuggling charges around the world, and hundreds of medical and social problems that cost the lives of Australians every year, the bogan saw no inconsistency in ignoring them all, save for Schapelle. It proudly participated in newspaper and television polls to “confirm” Schapelle’s innocence, vehemently maintaining to this day that a great injustice has been done.