Lad culture

Lad culture (also laddish culture and laddism) is a British subculture initially associated with the Britpop movement. Arising in the early 1990s, the image of the "lad" – or "new lad" – was that of a generally middle class figure espousing attitudes typically attributed to the working classes. The subculture involves young men assuming an anti-intellectual position, shunning sensitivity in favour of drinking, violence, and sexism.

The term "new lad" was coined by journalist Sean O'Hagan in a 1993 article about a young, brash and boisterous economist called David "Lad Lad Lad" Sturrock in Arena.

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 [and] 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 grew beyond men's magazines to movies such as Snatch and and to the TV sitcom Men Behaving Badly.Bottom, Al Murray's Happy Hour and They Think It's All Over are television programmes that 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").

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