Lad culture

Lad culture (also the new lad, laddism) was a media-driven, principally British and Irish subculture of the 1990s and the early 2000s. The term lad culture continues to be used today to refer to collective, boorish or misogynistic behaviour by young heterosexual men, particularly university students.^[1]

In the lad culture of the 1990s and 2000s, 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 involved heterosexual young men assuming an anti-intellectual position, shunning cultural pursuits and sensitivity in favour of drinking, sport, sex and sexism. Lad culture was diverse and popular, involving literature, magazines, film, music and television, with ironic humour being a defining trope. Principally understood at the time as a male backlash against feminism and the pro-feminist "new man", the discourse around the new lad represented some of the earliest mass public discussion of how heterosexual masculinity is constructed.^[2]

Lad culture as a mainstream cultural phenomenon peaked around the turn of the millennium^[3] and can be seen as going into decline as the market for lad mags collapsed in the early 2000s, driven by the rise of Internet.^[4] Nonetheless, the stereotype of the lad continued to be exploited in advertising and marketing as late as the mid-2010s.^[5]

Though the term "lad culture" was predominantly used in Britain and Ireland, it was part of a global cultural trend in the developed English speaking world. The title of a 2007 book by the gender studies academic David Nylund about USA Sports Radio, "Beer, Babes and Balls" mirrors the three stereotypical interests of the "lad."^[6]

The American term Bro culture is clearly closely related, though originated around two decades later than the term lad culture and therefore needs to be understood against a different cultural context.^[7]