You’ll find them prowling in packs at skate parks. Shopping centres. Train stations.
They are easily identified by their rough-hewn dialect, volatile social practices, questionable haircuts and eccentric wardrobe that jumbles fake designer accessories with name brand sportswear.
Their uniform is Gucci hats, striped Nautica polo shirts buttoned to the top, Nike TNs, Adidas shorts and bumbags slung over their shoulders.
They are eshays. Modern day bogans dressed like tennis players.
It’s an urban youth subculture seemingly infused with drugs, graffiti and petty theft and a trend that has gripped a section of the youth of Perth.
A Fremantle business owner nearly lost her son at the age of 14 to the vortex of this subculture, a culture she said is filled with “lost kids”.
She issued her son with a harsh ultimatum, to change everything that very day or move out and end up on the streets.
“I moved to Freo as a single mum after living in a small country town,” she said.
“I allowed our new home to be an open house which became very quickly overrun with these “lost kids” who took over my world.
“I didn’t have control.
“I wanted my boy to be happy and have friends but what I saw unfold was horrifying and although I don’t think my kid had started engaging in violent behaviour he was certainly beginning to look menacing and his attitude to life was appalling.
“That’s when I drew the line.”
The mother said her son, now 17, had turned over a new leaf.
“He was lost, he just needed direction, a firm boundary and a parent to step up, not fear him and take control,” she said.
“He changed that day, dropped the attitude, changed his clothes, reconnected with his creative mates and is now a well-known house party DJ.”
Brutally bashed for a pair of shoes
Violent robberies of sports shoes are seemingly an increasing problem here in Australia.
One of the most serious in recent years was on February 13, 2020, when a group of Perth high school students bashed Matthew Henson, 20, before stealing his shoes and bag.
Mr Henson received life-threatening injuries and was in the intensive care unit at Royal Perth Hospital before being transferred to the State Rehabilitation Centre.
He was a part of the eshay subculture.
During the court case it was revealed the bashing happened after one of the teens saw Mr Henson on a bus and suspected he was responsible for stealing the shoes of one of his friends months earlier.
The Fremantle mother said she had friends and their children who had also been attacked in senseless acts of violence.
“Most recently a kind and gentle boy was harassed for his chain and shoes by a group of teenagers,” she said.
“When he refused they attacked him.
“Another friend’s son was attacked on the beach by 10 boys who jumped out from the bushes as he was going up the path.
“My own boys have been harassed and attacked at the skate park, a place where they should be able to peacefully and safely skate.
“You can see it being marketed on Instagram and being used as a promotional tool.”
ECU media and culture studies lecturer James Hall
“It is terrifying and there are so many more stories.
“Something needs to be done, these selfish, cruel acts of senseless violence has to be stopped.”
Edith Cowan University media and culture studies lecturer James Hall said the eshay subculture was primarily inhabited by young males from areas of lower socio-economic wealth and working-class suburbs.
“It’s generally considered to have emerged from the suburbs of western Sydney in the mid-2000s, though more locally we can see parallels and intersections with the rinser subculture,” he said.
“These are often youth groups who are excluded from or can’t identify with traditional, mainstream representations and expectations of youth.
“The importance of style is significant when we talk about subcultures.
“Bodgies, widgies, punks, goths, rinsers, we very closely associate these groups with a particular aesthetic, almost a uniform.
“Rinsers adopted aspects of 90s baggy, rave culture style with bucket caps and street wear while eshays are closely linked with specific styles of fashion, particular items of clothing and in some cases specific brands.”
Mr Hall said the eshay style has become recognisably mainstream.
“You can see it being marketed on Instagram and being used as a promotional tool.”
Should parents be concerned?
Clinical psychologist Donna Stambulich said it was normal for teens to seek identity and belonging within a group.
“It’s a way for teenagers to take the important psychological and developmental step in separating from their family,” she said.
“However with eshays, because of the typical lower socio-economic background that they often come from it’s a type of extension of what has been role modelled at home.
“While it can be nice to feel like you belong to a community, especially one that’s shared similar struggles, the eshay culture is tightly entwined with gangs and violence.
“More often than not eshays rely upon Centrelink and crime to fund their lifestyles including problematic drug use.”
She said with their distinct look including mullets, rats tails or dodgy bowl haircuts it could be very hard for them to present well in a job interview.
“This leaves them little chance to break the cycle that they find themselves in,” she said.
“It also highlights the notion that the best predictor of how we are going to turn out is directly related to who we spend time with, then it’s fair to say that the individual’s outcomes of belonging to this particular subculture are not going to be great.”
Ms Stambulich said while most eshays were harmless and more “talk than walk” it could lead some down a path of self-destruction and incarceration.
The Fremantle mother has seen this firsthand.
“A friend of my son’s who had continued to hang out with a mob of eshays was caught one night harassing a boy for his shoes,” she said.
“When the poor kid turned around he faced a terrifying group of kids who then took him down with violence.
“This sent chills through our family. His mother was beside herself and the young boy was looking at time in juvie.
“He is well and truly one of the “lost kids” as he has enormous identity and confidence issues and doesn’t know where else he belongs.”
She said juvenile detention was not the answer for these kids.
“The teenage years are a very challenging and vulnerable age of identity crisis and wanting to be accepted – it’s an easy time to fall in with the wrong crowd,” she said.
Mr Hall said the threat posed by eshays was often overstated.
“When these subcultures emerge from youth groups in lower socio-economic areas they are generally represented as a threat to middle-class safety and values,” he said.
“In my field we generally discuss this as a moral panic, the idea that this group is a real threat to everyday life and values when it really isn’t.
“It was violent video games and heavy metal music back in my day, but we saw the same arguments being made by conservatives around same-sex marriage.
“With youth subcultures the association with petty crime is always over-emphasised.
“Generally you can see that there isn’t a correlation with these groups and their criminal behaviour and crime statistics.”
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