Gaser (Serbia and the Western Balkans)

Gaser 🇷🇸
Location: Serbia and the Western Balkans
Definition: Young adults with a luxurious and void lifestyle
Keywords: Serbia – Europe – Balkans – Yugoslavia – Youth – Lifestyle – Music
Author: Barbara Frey and Dragana Mrvoš
Affiliation: Faculty of Business, Economics and Management, University of Regensburg and School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida

By Barbara Frey and Dragana Mrvoš, Faculty of Business, Economics and Management, University of Regensburg and School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, University of South Florida

Gaser is an expression used in reference to a teenager or a young adult, a member of the street subculture that emerged in Serbia, and later in the other countries of former Yugoslavia, in the early 2010s. The root of the word gaser is the noun gas (gas), and its use stems from the expression ide gas, which has a dual meaning: to start a party, as well as to flex (to brag). In the wider context, ide gas is the youth’s motto that denotes an overall display of luxurious, pretentious, and self-centered lifestyle (Rosić 2020).

The possession of expensive attires has become a critical element of social demarcation for Serbian youth. As an illustration, peers often rely on a smartphone application to examine each other's attires to determine whether it is the original brand or a fake (Jovanović 2019). Only branded gifts are desirable and sought after by students as they are perceived to convey social prestige (Jovanović 2019). Consequently, a divide between those who do not have the money for expensive wardrobes (fušeri) and those who can afford extravagant items (gaseri) creates the risk of social exclusion, peer violence, psychological and sometimes physical abuse of the materially vulnerable (ibid.).

Through exclusion, abuse, and violence of low-income and socially vulnerable families, gaseri influence social structures but also reflect the existing levels of social inequality in Serbia (Jorgensen and Phillips 2002: 61). For example, the richest 20 per cent have ‘a nearly 10 times higher equivalent income than the poorest 20 per cent’ (SIPRU 2018). Along with a high degree of inequality, the share of people whose disposable income is below the relative poverty standard is 21.7 per cent (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia 2020).

Alongside social inequality and subjugation of the materially deprived, gaser’s subculture focuses on nihilism and hedonism, as exemplified in the trep folk, or Balkan trep music that they listen to. As a novel music genre, trep folk blends trap hop with folk music melodies and instruments, characteristic of Balkan folk music. More importantly, themes explored in this music describe the Balkan youth’s everyday struggle to get rich while aspiring to party, have fun, and enjoy drugs (Kaluža 2018: 23).

In this regard, gaseri identify with the lyrics of Bondisimo’s song ‘Gas na Max’: ‘Ništa me ne zanima flexujem danima’ (I am flexing for days not interested in doing anything). Similarly, they relate to the lyrics of another popular trap performer Mimi Mercedez singing ‘I da nisam čula reč /ako ne donosi keš’ (I do not want to hear a word if you do not bring cash). Among the most popular Balkan trap performers, Jala Brat, Buba Corelli, and Rasta, and have more than 100 million views on YouTube, while singing almost exclusively about promiscuous women, golden watches, jewelry, and macho men.

The lyrics of the most popular trep folk performers do not appeal to national sentiment, but to a communal Balkan feeling consisting in longing for better living circumstances (Dumnić Vilotijević 2020: 7; 10). Trep folk artists are popular among young people in the entire ex-Yugoslav area, including Slovenia and North Macedonia, and their artistic themes are based on ‘values’ of global materialism and consumerism, rather than on national or ethnic sentiments (Dragojlo 2019).

Although the lack of nationalist rhetoric in the trep folk music is a glimmer of hope in the otherwise economically wrecked region, burdened with divided history of national identities (Kaluža 2021: 163-164), gaseri promote an identity centered around wealth, rebelling against school, knowledge, empathy, hard work, and commitment (Bugarin 2021). Because ‘nothing is safe, or permanent’, gaseri are prone to emotional distress leading to depression, anxiety, alcoholism, or drug addiction (ibid.).

Subcultures comparable to gaser exist beyond the ex-Yugoslav cultural space, albeit with comparable differences: gazari in Bulgaria (BGJargon 2022), cocalar in Romania (Costescu 2013: 262), eshay in Australia (Lill 2014; de Lacey 2020), gopnik in Russia (Gracheva et al. 2018), and chav in the UK (Martin 2009).

References

BGJargon 2022. ‘гъзар’, 3 January, https://www.bgjargon.com/word/meaning/%D0%B3%D1%8A%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%80

Bondisimo. ‘GASnaMAX’. YouTube. 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H2ODxMMTlo Bugarin, A. 2021. ‘Gaseri – Neautentična omladinska potkultura', Voice, Jun 23, https://voice.org.rs/gaseri-neautenticna-omladinska-potkultura/

Costescu, E. 2013. ‘Brave New Virtual Worlds - A Socio-Historical Approach’, Research and Science Today, 5(1): 256-266

de Lacey, A. 2020. ‘‘Wot do u call it? Doofdoof’: Articulations of glocality in Australian grime music’, Global Hip Hop Studies, 1(1): 115-141

Dragojlo S. 2019. ‘Trep cajke: kapitalistički realizam’, Bilten: regionalni portal, 6 January, https://www.bilten.org/?p=28232#

Dumnić Vilotijević, M. 2020. ‘The Balkans of the Balkans: The Meaning of Autobalkanism in Regional Popular Music’, Arts 9(2): 70,https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9020070

Gracheva, A. S., Ivanina, E. O., Markov, Y., and Gorbunova, E. 2018. ‘Search for familiar and dangerous: not seeing gopnik in the crowd’, Higher School of Economics Research Paper No. WP BRP 96/PSY/2018, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3269227

Jovanović, B. 2019. ‘Diskriminacija među mladima: Ili si fušer ili si gaser’, Novosti, October 17,https://www.novosti.rs/vesti/lifestyle.303.html:824154-Diskriminacija-medju-mladima-Ili-si-fuser-ili-si-gaser

Jørgensen, M. and Phillips, L. 2002. Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London: SAGE

Kaluža, J. 2018. ‘Reality of Trap: Trap music and its emancipatory potential’, IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication & Film, 5(1): 23-42

Kaluža, J. 2021. ‘Importer, authentifier, revendre. La trap music dans les Balkans’, in: Heuguet, G. & Menu, E. 2021. Trap: Rap, drogue, argent, survie. Paris: Audimat Éditions: 157-175

Kuzmanović, D., Lajković, B., Grujić, S. and Medenica, G. 2016. Digitalno nasilje – prevencija i reagovanje. Belgrade: Cicero, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308553636_Digitalno_nasilje_-_prevencija_i_reagovanje

Lill, A. 2014. ‘From local to global: The evolution of musical play in secondary schools’, International Journal of Play, 3(3): 251-266

Martin G. 2009. ‘Subculture, style, chavs and consumer capitalism: Towards a critical cultural criminology of youth’, Crime, Media, Culture. 5(2): 123-145

Mimi Mercedez (Feat. Rimski)’. ‘Samo Keš’. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI2Mo26kw4U

Papović, J., and Pejović, A. 2016. ‘Revival without Nostalgia: The ‘Dizel’ Movement, Serbian 1990s Cultural Trauma and Globalised Youth Cultures’, in: Schwartz, M. & Winkel, H. 2016. Eastern European Youth Cultures in a Global Context. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan UK: 81-93

Rosić, B. 2020. ‘Ko su “gaseri”: Simboli uličnih demonstracija od Džoa Bageriste do neke nove dece’, Nedeljnik, 28 December, https://www.nedeljnik.rs/ko-su-gaseri-simboli-ulicnih-demonstracija-od-dzoa-bageriste-do-neke-nove-dece/

Senjak, A. 2019. ‘Srbi drmaju hrvatskim YouTubeom, a razlozi su očiti’, Index, 22 December, https://www.index.hr/magazin/clanak/srbi-drmaju-hrvatskim-youtubeom-a-razlozi-su-ociti/2077537.aspx

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia 2020. Poverty and Social Inequality, https://www.stat.gov.rs/en-us/vesti/20211015-siromastvo-i-socijalna-nejednakost-2020/?s=0102

The Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia (SIPRU) 2018. Inequality, http://socijalnoukljucivanje.gov.rs/en/social-inclusion-in-rs/poverty-statistics/inequality/