roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Bubblecar said:

I asked the bingbot whether Australia had mods and rockers. It said yes, especially in Melbourne, but also sent me to a paper about “sharpies”.

“ABSTRACTThe sharpies were a uniquely Australian youth culture that lastedfrom the early 1960s into the 1980s and were a significantcontinuation of the trajectory of Australian, male-dominated,working-class, consumption-based, rowdy youth-culturaltraditions, which include the bodgies and widgies of the 1950sand the larrikins of the 1860s to 1918. Sharpies are under-discussed in social narratives and academic texts. This articlefocuses on the life cycle of the original generation of sharpies. Inaddition to exploring the origins of sharpie culture, I explore whyit provided an outlet for its bored suburban, working-classyouths, present explanations for behavioural attitudes and offersome insight into its attraction. I also explore how the firstgeneration of this youth culture came to its natural end, how itwas picked up again by the next generation and why. In learningabout the sharpies’ activities and behaviours, from the egregiousto the mundane, we open ourselves to learning something notjust about suburban, working-class Australian youths but aboutall young people who take part in group-based youth cultures.ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 9 January 2024Accepted 1 January 2025Sharpies were a uniquely Australian, (largely) working-class, postwar youth culture thatlasted from the early 1960s until the mid-1980s. Sharpie culture was most popular andlong lasting in Victoria, though sharpies could be found (to lesser degrees) in otherstates and cities, particularly Sydney. Melbourne-based sharpies are the primary focusof this research. From 1972 to 1973, sharpie culture reached its peak, becoming themost popular youth culture in Victoria.1 Melbourne-based sharpie culture evolvedthrough a succession of four notably different generations: 1964–1970, 1970–1972,1972–1976 and 1976–1980s, before finally dying away by 1984.2 Sharpies belong to thetrajectory of Australian rowdy youth- and street-culture traditions that include suchpostwar groups as the bodgies and widgies of the 1950s and rockers of the early 1960s,© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on whichthis article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.CONTACT Paul “Nazz” Oldham Nazz.Oldham@unisa.edu.au1Tadgh Taylor, Top Fellas (Surefire, 2004), 85.2Taylor, Top Fellas.JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN STUDIES2025, VOL. 49, NO. 1, 76–90https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2025.2449710”

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/14443058.2025.2449710?needAccess=true

and the skinheads.

and the Nazis. They would beat you up if you weren’t careful. National Action was a particular problem at that time. (1980s)