Married At First Sight Australia: What does word bogan mean as fans fume that Lauren Hall keeps saying word

When MAFS Aus season 12 wife Lauren doesn’t like something - or someone - she calls it or them bogan or boganic.

She first used the word to describe fellow bride Jamie Marinos back at the hens night. She said: “Jamie. I mean, she's lovely, but, like, in the real world, we wouldn't be friends”.

She certainly didn’t hold back on her opinions, going on: “She's too loud. And spilling drinks. We need to get her a new manicure. Jamie needs to get her nails fixed. She's just a bit boganic. It should be in the dictionary, but basically it's just a word to describe someone who's a bogan. It's like, if you're a derro, you're like, you're a derelict. You're a bogan. You're, like, boganic.”

As the series has progressed, she has used the word more and more. For example, she referred to the second dinner party she attended with on-screen husband Clint Rice as “boganic”.

Viewers have been unimpressed with her repeated use of the word, taking to X to express their frustations. “Is ‘bogan’ the only insult in Lauren’s vocabulary??” one person asked. Another said: “Can you send me $1 for everytime you've showed lauren saying 'bogan/boganic'”, accompanied by a meme of someone with a huge amount of cash. Another fan joked that they had started a game called ‘bogan bingo’.

But, what does bogan actually mean? It’s an Australian and New Zealander slang term and it’s not usually a very kind one. It is “an insulting word for a person whose way of dressing, speaking and heaving is thought to show their lack of education and social class”, according to The Cambridge Dictionary.

An Oxford Language Dictionary definition states a bogan is “an uncouth or unsophisticated person regarded as being of low social status”.

However, it’s not always used in a completely derogatory way. The term bogan has sometimes been used favourably, usually by a person who is describing themselves, to indicate pride in not conforming to social norms.

Now, we can’t be 100% certain because we haven’t spoken to Lauren, but it doesn’t sound like she meant it in a complimentary way . . .

It’s not the first time the term bogan has been used in popular culture. In the 2016 film Suicide Squad, DC Comics villain -the Australian Captain Boomerang - is show as having a bogan-like personality. Australian ska-punk band Area-7 achieved one of their biggest hits with the song Nobody Likes A Bogan back in 2002.