KEY POINTS:
They like their beer "Red, mate", tune the Torana at weekends and consider American Chopper the cultural equivalent of Brideshead Revisited. Yep, it's the bogans.
And if you live in any suburb that could be considered westerly, believe head hair exists merely to keep one's shoulders covered, and
reckon the two types of electrical current were named after a rock 'n' roll band, then you could be one, too.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. The outrageous success of Outrageous Fortune (9.30pm, TV3, Tuesdays) is a clear indication that being bogan could be the new (gutter) black.
The series that put "out West" on the map cleaned up at the Air New Zealand Screen Awards, claiming six prizes including - for the second year running - best drama. But how do you account for such popularity.
"Bogan" has always been such a derogatory term, and the show's West family are hardly the Waitakere City Waltons.
"There's a lot more people talking about West Auckland," says the show's creator, James Griffin. "There is something special about the west side of Auckland - it's a melting pot."
Griffin says his own upbringing in a certain North Island town left him "slightly Hawkes Bay bogan".
He can remember Friday nights spent "cruising around the ring road ... and coming up to Auckland to go to the grand prix", not to mention "petrolheads and Led Zeppelin". And he used a lot of that experience in realising the Wests. "You are always touching on the things you know."
For the latest word on boganism and where it's at, best go to the man who will, literally, write the book.
Waikato student Dave Snell, researching his PhD thesis - The Everyday Life of Bogans: Identity and Community Among Heavy Metal Fans - says the term bogan is not the derogatory phrase it used to be.
In fact, the 27-year-old considers it a term of endearment. "There's a significant proportion of people in New Zealand who are bogan, and who relate to what happens on the show."
The Wests like a barbie, and bogans embrace old-fashioned values, which often find expression in backyard barbecues, he says.
And if you think Snell, being a student, lacks bogan credentials, he was going to a battle of the bands in Hamilton last night and to the opening of a heavy metal bar, Sabbath, tonight.
Though there are regional variations - Waikato bogans are less into cars than their West Auckland counterparts, apparently - being a bogan is "a state of mind sort of thing", says Snell. But being a bogan, like being a member of the West family, means being a "non-conformist, not taking things at face value, liking the simple things in life".
"A large part of it [Outrageous Fortune] is that people can relate to it."
And Griffin would appear to agree.
Outrageous Fortune's popularity lies in the fact its characters reflect the hopes and dreams of all of us, despite their "strangely skewed morals".
"Cheryl just wants to be the best mother in the world. That's pretty universal. We all just want to be happy."
Bogan vocab
boganette: a female bogan.
bogan-chic: The wearing of traditionally bogan fashions by middle-class children, typically tight stone-washed jeans, heavy metal T-shirts and neo-mullet haircuts.
boganitis: A disease, the symptoms of which include increased swearing, a fondness for canned beer, a lack of shaving and the wearing of singlets.
boganville: (in New Zealand) Upper Hutt.
boganvillia: a town or city completely overrun by bogans.
Boganson: member of a large bogan family with designs on bettering their place in society.
bogan dust: methamphetamine
Source: Urban Dictionary
