Featured Image Credit: Instagram/Eshaygram.
Topics: Australia
Jayden Collins
If you enjoy wearing Nike sneakers, designer brand sportswear or wearing a mullet hairstyle, then the eshays of Sydney aren’t too happy with you.
The subculture of Pig-Latin speaking, shoe stealing eshays from Sydney’s western suburbs have called out those from the north shore and eastern suburbs who have emulated their look for social media likes.
These gangs have been donning the infamous eshay look for years now; however, the fashion has since been adopted by many of Australia’s youth.
And the OG and real eshays have sent out a warning to those trying to copy their lifestyle.
Marshall Brown, a self-admitted eshay, told the Daily Mail: “These rich kids need to pull their head in. It's all bung. Buy clothes to look good - don't try to be a f***ing eshay. It's not fun.”
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He criticised the lifestyle, saying that many of the people he knows are now locked up in Cobham juvenile detention centre, where he was once incarcerated.
Brown admitted that much of the violence permeated across eshay culture is a direct result of rivalry between different areas of Sydney’s west.
He continued: “A lot of it is all over the stupid postcodes. The postcodes war between suburbs is real, and some suburbs take it as a f***ing big thing.
“But it's not worth it. It's wrecking people's lives.”
Based on his own experiences within the culture, he wasn’t too happy with those trying to look dangerous by wearing and acting the same.
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In 2021, the Daily Telegraph wrote an article warning parents on the signs to look out for to understand whether their child was an eshay.
The warning appeared to be more directed toward those upper-middle-class ‘rich-kids’ attempting to emulate the eshay style.
Dr Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor of Criminology at Bond University said: “Like any subculture, there are influencers on social media.
“It’s monkey see, monkey do.”
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Too bad if you simply like wearing Nike TN’s as well.
Pubs across the country have enforced a dress code that would ban such a shoe from being permitted in their establishment.
The Marsden Brewhouse in Sydney faced backlash after a sign at the hotel refused entry anyone that was wearing TNs or the almost as infamous Air Maxes.
The Bank in Sydney’s Newtown has also denied entry to patrons wearing the shoe.