Eshays: Kyle Sandilands’ warning about the despised teen sub-culture

They may look like harmless wannabe gangsters, but eshays can be dangerous.

At least that’s according to radio host Kyle Sandilands, who warned listeners on Friday that the despised teenage sub-culture is more than just a passing fad.

‘They are not to be messed around with these eshays,’ the 49-year-old said on The Kyle and Jackie O Show.

He added that the average eshay ‘looks like a 10-year-old boy’ – but looks can be deceiving. 

‘You can be getting smacked on in the train by one of these,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to be careful.’

An eshay is Australian slang for a lad who purchases ‘fresh gear’ in an attempt to achieve a ‘gangster’ appearance.

Favoured labels for the fashionable eshay include Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Lacoste, paired with Nautica, Adidas, Under Armour and Ellesse.

Some eshays scramble words and put ‘ay’ on the end in a form of pig Latin. For example, ‘eetswa’ means ‘sweet’ and ‘chill’ becomes ‘illchay’.

Eshays are said to have spread from Sydney’s inner-city graffiti scene in the 1980s through Housing Commission estates and out into the suburbs.

Parents on Sydney’s Northern Beaches have recently expressed concerns about anti-social behaviour of teens they describe as dressing like eshays.

The term eshay is similar to the UK phrase ‘chav’ and can be interchangeable with ‘lad’, which in turn sometimes becomes ‘adlay’.

‘Eshay’ may have started as ‘eshay adlay’ – pig Latin for ‘he’s lad’ – or it could be related to ‘sesh’, which means a prolonged period of drug consumption.