STOA Newsletter #112
Welcome to another issue of the Shit Towns of Australia newsletter. This week: we update the Sydney slang map, review the Inner West, and wrap up the week’s shittiest shit town happenings in the power rankings.
If you have mates who are keen to vote in our polls (coming soon) or stay up-to-date with all our content, get them to subscribe at this link: shittownsofaustralia.substack.com/subscribe
Sydney Slang Map: Update
A new version of the slang map of Sydney created by Topher Agar, featuring a new look, a new inset of the central city, and a bunch of your suggested updates.
Available as a poster or print from our merch store here.
Other maps in this series: Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Tasmania, Illawarra, Central Coast, Sunshine Coast, New Zealand.
Shit Town: Inner West
Infested by well-heeled hipsters inexplicably fixated on drinking trendy coffee outside scummy cafes with crumbling cladding, gorging on expensive brunch at graffiti-coated eateries and buying daggy clothes from mouldy vintage stores, Sydney’s Inner West is a loathsome region where carefully curated Third-World squalor masquerades as culture. The Inner West could equally be described as a shit version of London’s East End or a war-torn ISIS enclave if terrorists had fedoras and flesh tunnels.
Less chardonnay socialists and more craft beer Bolsheviks, the residents of the Inner West are obsessed with the obscure—obscure cuisine, obscure facial hair and obscure sexual manoeuvres that they learned from their last Pornhub binge. If you wake up next to a young lady sporting a handlebar moustache chafed red raw from performing a ‘Reverse Tasmanian Devil’, then chances are you’re in Newtown.
The standard-issue uniform of an Inner Westie includes some purely cosmetic eyewear, an ironic tattoo of a childhood cartoon character and a dodgy mo that looks like it belongs on a rock spider rather than a barista. Popular activities include complaining about white privilege while letting your parents pay your rent, claiming to be a ‘male feminist’ while maxing out your credit card on OnlyFans subscriptions, and foisting petitions to ban microagressions against little people on unsuspecting middle-class types.
Inevitably, the hipsters of Marrickville and Newtown will continue living lives of bourgeois excess until they settle down, move to a suburb full of people who do actual jobs, and have kids with old-fashioned names that sound like people who died while exploring the Congo.
From our book Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip, available in stores and online.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Townsville, QLD — Homeless man set on fire by homeless woman after asking her for sexual favour; woman stabbed in ear during street brawl; cops seek horny thieves who used stolen credit card to buy sex toys, flavoured lube and dick pills
Shepparton, VIC — Feral woman attacks elderly man in Kmart
Dalby, QLD — Thugs shoot tradie while stealing his truck before running over motorcyclist during police chase
Glen Waverley, VIC — Gronk arrested after turning up to court in stolen car full of guns, drugs and cash
Maroochydore, QLD — Security guard goes into cardiac arrest after being headbutted in shopping centre
Gold Coast, QLD — Cops pelted with bricks and rocks by pack of masked hoons; gronk allegedly punches Woolies manager after being busted trying to steal box of Shapes
Queenstown, TAS — Drongo appears in court after smashing window and coffee table during threesome
Newcastle, NSW — Drunk driver crashes into parked cop car
Launceston, TAS — Screeching woman arrested after allegedly smashing windows of 15+ shops with hammer
Port Pirie, SA — Still shit
Stop. I can only get so hard.