Firstly, to clear up any
confusion, this writeup is not about people who live in towns. The term 'Townie' in
British slang refers to a member of a particularly strange and
antisocial subculture that seems to be
exclusive to the
UK. Many terms are used in different areas of the country for essentially the same thing: kevs, waynes, trevs,
pikeys*,
scallies, steeks, chavs, spides, neds. They're
scum basically, parasites who contribute nothing to
society and spend their idle days (a gift from the
taxpayer) spoiling the world slightly for
decent people.
What are they?
Townies are a kind of antagonistic underclass that have opted out from the mainstream as a result of peer pressure, bad parenting, deprivation and educational failure. They have developed their own 'fashion' (to stretch the term to a precarious breaking point), mode of speech and value system. The type of person who fits the 'townie' monicker is certainly white trash, but there is more to it than that. Not every person hovering around the poverty line is automatically a townie. I have a number of friends who have, due to their upbringing, picked up a few trace elements of townie culture (a baseball cap here, a colloquial speech pattern there, and in bad cases even a bit of tatty jewellry) but are still far away from the true depths.
It takes a certain kind of amoral personality to strive towards towniedom, with the point of no return usually coming when they are officially kicked out of school. (Possibly this then leads to an initiation rite involving sniffing glue, burning a bus shelter, and then impregnating a makeup-caked underage girl in the back of an XR3i.) Basically, townies are those, mainly from disenfranchised backgrounds, who have actively rejected any chance of bettering themselves, because they're weak and stupid. (Note that they're not weak and stupid because they're poor, they're weak and stupid because they think that remaining at the absolute base of society is an easy ride.)
The townie look
Townies of all ages generally dress in an extremely budget-restricted imitation of black youth fashion. The staple garments are grubby brandname sportswear, shapeless hoodies, trainers and baseball caps. A townie will happily spend their family allowance on overpriced fashion items (e.g. multiple pairs of Adidas trainers for a two-year-old, and no, I am not making this up). Both men and women wear outsized gold-plated jewellery. All townie women scrape all of their ratty hair back on their bulbous skulls, with the exception of a heavily hairsprayed fringe. Pikey men have similar 'do not trust this person' haircuts, utilising clippers and a lot of hairgel.
The townie speak
There are many efforts online to catalogue the townie 'patois'. The words vary between areas and age groups (most conversation anyway being restricted to expletives, "shaaafe" to display approval, and "hippie" to describe anyone wearing normal clothes), but the delivery remains the same. A strangulated, drawling voice with a thick regional accent, used to demonstrate that the townie "don't taaahk posh, likes" to his 'friends'. (Eventually, townies seemingly forget how to talk properly at all- I have seen a particularly scabby specimen try to purchase rail tickets with questions such as "aaaaugh, whensa fockin train gow?".)
The townie think
The townie mentality is geared towards perpetuating the fantasy that they are victimised (ironic, as they are generally more of a blight to society than a victim). They see nothing morally wrong with petty crime, and have standards of behaviour so far below human societal norms that they might be more accurately documented as a kind of nylon-clad troupe of chimpanzees. Townies have all inherited virulent xenophobia, homophobia and inverse snobbery from their similarly uneducated parents, which is then perpetuated by their only reading matter (well, for those that can actually read), tabloid newspapers such as The Sun. The majority of townies do no work and rely on benefit fraud and crime to survive. The few that have (menial) jobs can generally not afford to support their extended clans of illegitimate rat-children (all of whom smoke and steal from the age of eight), at least not while also paying for basic staples such as digital television and sovereign rings.
Gits, to a man
I am as liberal as the next man, but I hate townies with a passion. They are the worst and most cowardly form of vandals, because they've chosen to vandalise themselves, their children, and society at large. Not to mention an awful lot of bus shelters.
*'Pikey' is used in the Shane Guy Ritchie movie Snatch to describe Gypsies, and this is what the term was originally meant, however in modern London slang 'Pikey' generally just means 'Townie' as described above, although there is the risk of misinterpretation as a racial slur. It is also sometimes used as an adjective to describe something cheap, nasty or disgusting.