How to spot a Sheffield lad

It’s all banter, right!

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We are all too familiar with lad culture at university. The lad is easily identifiable whether it be at Roar, the queue to Corp or Pop Tarts, he is quite unmistakable. But how and why has lad culture been so ingrained into university life?

It’s September and Jack’s parents have just dropped him off at university. He’s sitting in his room neatly organised by mummy wondering what to do with his new found freedom. Now is the perfect opportunity to get on Tinder, I mean he might as well explore the gals in his new city early, right? And anyway, it’s not like his girlfriend will mind or find out for that matter.

Jack is an avid sports man and he can’t wait to meet other like-minded lads and proceed to get rowdy on a Roar Wednesday. He’s heard big things about socials, and after his first summer holiday earlier this year to Shagaluf with the boys from home, he feels prepared for what lies ahead.

Freshers’ Week has been and gone and Jack’s into his second week of university now. He feels quite settled in and he’s got his first Roar social tonight. He’s ready for this. After building up his tolerance again from a heavy Freshers’, he feels this is where he can truly assert his masculinity and show the big boys how much of a man he really is.

It’s halfway into the night and Jack, doing his best to impress, slams down his seventh pint in record time to the bellows of “down it, fresher” and staggers back off to the dance floor. He’s a little shaky on the moves especially as he’s ended up next to the Dance Soc girls, but with two VKs in hand he’s having the time of his life.

It’s clear the reason lad culture is everywhere at university is because women love lads. If anything is to assert dominance, there is nothing quite like their chanting. No one really knows what they are chanting but relating this to the animal kingdom, it resembles the ‘love-mating’ call. When the girls hear it, they know they love it.

What’s next you ask? Ass-slapping, of course. I’m sure every female would agree, there is nothing more a girl loves than being slapped on the bum by a hammered lad. It actually makes most want to scream “take me home now, daddy!”, but obviously a lad can’t leave his lads behind, so instead, he claims “it was just banter” and as girls, we take the compliment and continue to drool over these fine specimen.

Ultimately, whether it’s Roar, Corp or Pop Tarts, there is no escape from the lads and lad culture at university seems to retain a very narrow form of hyper masculinity. At least the rest of us can relax knowing that despite mild sexual harassment, sexist jokes and whatever else we may encounter, it was all just banter.