Lad culture

Lad culture (also laddish culture and laddism) is a subculture initially 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".

Origins

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 [&] 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".