Talk:Greaser (subculture)

Ethnic backgrounds

If you're going to remove the word white in front of the word ethnic, then logic follows that/60s USA. I'm not sure what's so controversial about pointing out that fact. Spylab 13:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The Fonz

What? No mention of the most famous greaser of all - Arthur Fonzarelli!!! 69.122.122.147 (talk) 20:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)AR

Picture?

No picture of greasers in stock? Or are they all extinct? - Redmess 21:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

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The alternate name in Estonian is definitely not "Lõngus"!

"Lõngus" is something else... just a boney loser or something like that...

Oh, heck no, they're not extinct. There are like 5 of them at my school and there were about ten last year but some of them must have graduated.

Mannerisms section

I have deleted the mannerisms section because it was all uncited opinion (aka original research) and false claims. It included the names of two random non-notable people and some nonsense about them starting a trend of eating honey-roasted peanuts and "beating up sqares". Those two names were inserted into a few Wikipedia articles as some kind of joke.Spylab 13:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

1959 C addy?

Why would I want to drive my Grandma's car? It seems to me a Greaser is more into Hot Rods! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.156.93.42 (talk) 07:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Greaser because of their hair?

I thought greasers got there name because they were always working on their cars and covered in grease. People had been using pomade in their hair long before the 1950's. The street gangs came later! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.156.93.42 (talk) 08:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Confusing Intro

Please review this: Greasers are a group of kids with problems working-class youth-based subculture, it still doesn't make sense to me

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by MXER (talk • contribs) 21:29, 19 June 2008 (UTC) 

Article serious problems

The term "greasers" prior to 1969 referred to Italians and was derogatory. It was not used in this articles sense until 1969, and only then it was an "invented history". The invention was so popular throughout the 70s and 80s that it has now entered popular culture as if it actually existed. It did not. See this article for more info:

• "Sha Na Na and the Invention of the Fifties", Columbia University

This whole article needs to be rewritten, I wouldn't know where to begin. 71.191.40.106 (talk) 05:04, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

that is not true. Italians were referred to as "greaseballs", not "greasers". The history is not invented, and I challenge you to prove otherwise. There are many pictures, articles, etc. on the greaser culture in teh U.S. all over the net. 76.223.250.233 (talk) 22:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

More sources

I actually came here after reading a Metafilter article a couple days ago discussing the aforementioned Columbia article. Metafilter might not meet RS, but theres a lot of ideas expressed we can make use of in refocusing the article ( would we give them a tip of the pen then to avoid plagiarism? ), and at any rate they posted a bunch of links that we can use as RS.

Remember the Fifties? For a certain generation, who could forget those golden innocent days as depicted in shows like Happy Days, Grease and the band Sha Na Na. But it turns out that vision of the 50's is mostly fantasy and never existed, largely invented by a group of Columbia U students around 1969.

http://www.metafilter.com/75374/The-Fifties-an-invention-of-Sha-Na-Na-Scottish-Highlanders-Rondald-Reagan http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/sep_oct08/features1

Also our article could merge in the earlier definitions of "greaser" as a derogatory term for Italian or Mexican youths, depending on which coast you were on. It's not unreasonable to assume the pop-culture, vaguely ethnic "greaser" of the 1970s was a takeoff on the real-life ethnic "greaser" of the 1950s.

And the 1940s book Street Corner Society documents the use of "greaser" among Italians to refer to more recently arrived/less assimilated Italians.

Yes, in response to someone saying "ethnic" was too general in one of the top posts, "ethnic" is often used in the US to refer to white people of other than Anglo descent, whether Italian, Spanish, or Persian. Squidfryerchef (talk) 04:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

DOO WOP

In the American urban northeast (eg. New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Baltimore), so-called "greasers" (who were actually better known as "cornerboys") were very much into doo wop music; few cornerboys would've been able to recognize the sound of rockabilly.

Why is there know mention of doo wop music in this article or the use of the name "cornerboy?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.21.144 (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I am coming to doubt

that army boots were typical greaser foot ware so intend to remove it barring a photo or a reasonable reference or a compelling retort. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 00:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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Original Research

This article is an almost completely unsourced WP:OR train wreck. It has been tagged for years without improvement and people just keep adding more unsourced claims. It has been on my watch list for a while and I am getting very close to the point where I am going to just start reverting every single addition of material that lacks an RS citation. Given the dearth of references and the amount of time it has been tagged, I don't think anyone could reasonably object if it were stubbed. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:14, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: I'll support a motion for some WP:TNT stubbing. This article needs a total rewrite, and if I were to do it, I would remove all of this Good Faith OR crap. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:54, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Good job. I'm on an extended wikibreak right now so I'm not on much. Sorry i did not get back to you sooner. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:53, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 23 November 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move at this time — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:44, 4 December 2019 (UTC) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:44, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

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• Greaser (subculture) → Greaser
• Greaser → Greaser (disambiguation)

– The primary topic for "greaser". Significantly more pageviews than the other similarly named topic _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 20:24, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Clearly not the primary topic (it's a derivative), even if the most widely used today. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:27, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

• per WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY: Being the original source of the name is also not determinative. Boston, Massachusetts is the primary topic for Boston, not the English town from which it took its name. Colin M (talk) 20:20, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• A greaser is a man or device that puts grease on things. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:00, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, if Wikipedia was a dictionary. It's not, and even if the greaser profession had an article, it doesn't seem like it would be at all close to the primary topic._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 09:17, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• Addendum: actually, it does. It's similar in views to Greaser (derogatory). Link to view comparison_{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 10:40, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:RECENTISM. I'd support the change if the majority of examples at Google Books was the outsiders' subculture, but from the 1800s through the 1950s, it's overwhelmingly an epithet for Latinos or Italians. During that period the dominant WASP culture wasn't shy about throwing around such language, and happily used it in print or the titles of popular works. Even post-1950, it's not entirely clear to me that the newer sense is more widely used. We're going to see the ethnic slur sense suppressed and rarely used in respectable media in recent decades, but that doesn't mean it isn't a prominent and widespread ethnic slur. Only that it doesn't turn up easily in text searchers. You'd find the same issue with any taboo word. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:58, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• How is the greaser subculture recent? It was in its heyday around 70 years ago! It certainly doesn't qualify as "recent events"._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 18:23, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what you mean by heyday. In 1950, greasers existed. They didn't begin to receive significant widespread media attention until a one or two decades later. The OED has 'greaser' used in print to refer to Mexicans as early as 1848. l71 > 70. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:34, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• What I meant to say was, recentism ONLY applies to recent events - like the last few years. Whether it's 1950, 1960 or 1970, it's not a recent event, and thus cannot fall under "recent bias". The comparative age of two topics is not really a factor that is ever used to determine a primary topic outside of something being extremely recent._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 22:39, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• Only? ONLY? Are you sure? Did you actually go read Wikipedia:Recentism to make sure it really says that? It actually says "Recentism is a phenomenon on Wikipedia where an article has an inflated or imbalanced focus on recent events. It is writing without an aim toward a long-term, historical view." It doesn't say "only" anything, and it doesn't define recent as "the last few years". It could be the last few decades, or the last few centuries, depending on the context. Here, in this context, barely 50 years, or 70 if you stretch it, is less than 170. The long term view is that the older usage is at least as significant as the newer one. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:29, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

• Okay, I admit that "only" was stretching it. However, the WP:10YEARTEST is telling as an example of what can reasonably be considered recent. I don't think the two are far enough apart in time to call one especially recent over the other._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 00:41, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• A reader 10 years from now will see that the ethnic sense will have been in use for 180 years, and the rebel rocker sense only 80. Not sure I see how that helps. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:58, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support per nom. This page gets about a 90% share of the views (if we include Greaser (derogatory) and Oiler (occupation)), which puts it comfortably in the zone of primary-wrt-usage. I'm not seeing any convincing arguments that the other usages significantly exceed this one in terms of long-term significance. As Zxcvbnm points out, this topic is hardly some recent fad that we can expect to fade from relevance in a few years. Colin M (talk) 20:26, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. No primary topic. I'd think of the occupation first. Maybe because I'm not American, but Wikipedia doesn't focus on North America. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:49, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Subculture topic receives 10x more hits than any article mentioned here, and receives substantially more hits than those articles combined receive. Wug·a·po·des​ 06:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Perception of greasers committing sexual violence => "Titilation in working-class females"?

I find it hard to countenance the idea that women enjoy being raped. This seems like a bizarre and arguably misogynistic assertion to make. That being said, this could be an incorrect word being used. - Skynorth/Starfrost^{my talk page} 18:17, 4 February 2022 (UTC)