The BoBo Boys

Every night between 11PM and 3AM, an alarm rings within a nondescript urban warehouse. Strobing green and red lights catch the phosphorescent stripes of Adidas tracksuits. LED sneakers ignite the dusty floors like aggrieved fireflies. Spiked hair dusted with highlights fade into wraparound sunglasses to create a singular aesthetic sensibility.  Like a horned-up salmon run, this pack of Los Angeles teenagers bursts out of the warehouse and disperses into the night leaving crushed Prime cans and a thin film of dip spit in their wake. 

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These are the BoBo Boys. 

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The movement emerged on the popular new JoyBot virtual reality platform last year. What began as a gaming collective with a troll ethos hearkening back to the early days of Twitter has since spilled into the streets, IRL. The decentralized collective has embraced petty crime and a collective, pugnacious attitude. Their B.B. guns shatter streetlights; unattended parking lots become gridlocked by slashed tires; loud hyperpop blares in the early morning on quiet cul-de-sacs. Those who resist are harassed tenfold. 

 

The BoBo Boys’ modus operandi are as diverse as their outfits are uniform. BoBo Boy aesthetic–variously described as “anti-fashion,” “aggressively, toxically masculine,” and, charitably, “surprisingly post-postmodern,”–has complicated the discussion of these malcontent boys as their influence has caught on like wildfire. These aesthetic markers have only made it more difficult to differentiate those who join the movement to engage in petty criminality and those who simply find it amusing.

 

The movement has flummoxed good-standing civilians and terrified parents, creating a heated breeze of discourse that has inevitably fanned the flames of their popularity. BoBo Boy exploits are meme-y, their goals are unclear, and their destructive habits are best classified as a nuisance. In short, the BoBo Boys are seizing a moment.

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***

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I recently embedded myself within a trio of BoBo Boys to gain a firsthand understanding of this phenomenon. Doing this was not easy. I sought to get into their good graces much as one would a stray dog. My street in the L.A. neighborhood of Echo Park had been targeted by BoBo Boy “Booger Bitches”–a term I later learned referred to tweens attempting to join their ranks–who urinated on, and killed, every flower on the street. Being approximately eleven to thirteen in age and not yet having “earned their Adidas stripes,” they were chaperoned by an older brother. This BoBo Boy was named Trent. 

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I first approached Trent with a bag of tiny burgers around 2AM and requested to interview him. He objected, flipped me off, and broke my kitchen window (though I’m unconvinced he knew it was mine; any window would have sufficed to make his point). I persisted. The next time I approached Trent, he accepted the burger bag and revealed his name. Nothing else was said as he gobbled two burgers then rounded up the young men under his care. The third time he was expecting me, evidenced by the presence of his friend Spike. He claimed Spike liked to talk, but henceforth Trent would never speak a word to me again. This has proven true, though I now look back on our exchanges of tiny burger bags and curt nods as a rich discourse filled with subtlety. 

 

Trent was sixteen, squat, and thorough in all tasks. Spike was different. His movement can only be defined as slinky and his BoBo Boy uniform was always crisply ironed. It was clear from our first conversation that Spike had a caring mother at home, a hunch that I believe to be true for many BoBo Boys. My first request of Spike was to describe the purpose of the BoBo Boys in his own words. His response: “To fuck with rich, geriatric fucks.” 

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His use of the word geriatric was as prolific as it was imprecise. The term described a host of things he found objectionable with no bearing on older people nor healthcare. A “geriatric garden gnome” gave Spike a look he didn’t quite like, so he broke it. A girl at school had written “some geriatric poem” in English class so he had taken syrup from the cafeteria breakfast and coated her desk in it. In recounting his deeds, Spike claimed to be a sort of savant within the BoBo Boy community given the creativity and diversity of his mayhem. 

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We proceeded to follow the Booger Bitches. Trent took his time, methodically snapping rear view mirrors off each parked car we passed, while Spike and I walked ahead. I learned that specific night held a special mission, which is why Spike accompanied Trent. They were to target the correctly (and ironically) ascribed “geriatric colonial house” at the top of the hill. They planned to position a Booger Bitch at each exterior window with instructions to smoosh their faces against the glass. Trent and Spike would then ring the doorbell over and over again until the owner awakened to the haunting visages of a gang of tweens watching the family sleep. 

I suggested that this particular aggression could elicit a quite severe punishment to which I was dismissed as a “geriatric cuck.”

 

Admittedly uncomfortable, I followed the BoBo Boys as they approached the house and hid myself behind a nearby car. Just as Spike had detailed, the Booger Bitches fanned out around the home, one to each window, while Trent and Spike approached the door affixed with a Ring camera. Spike smirked directly into the camera as Trent began to ring the doorbell at precisely two second iterations. After several anxious beats of silence, a scream emanated from the house and lights flipped on. 

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The Booger Bitches peeled off, running away to a predetermined rendezvous as a wave of light approached the front door. Trent and Spike waited until the last possible moment to spin and run before the door was yanked open, revealing an anxious (geriatric) man. He held a gun, trembling with fear. But the BoBo Boys had escaped. 

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It was several nights before I next saw them. This time I was awakened in the early AM hours by Trent, Spike, and a newcomer. They gave me an offer to join them at their headquarters if I agreed to be blindfolded. Apparently, the local leader wished to speak to the press and I had received special approval. This was the first I’d learned of any kind of organizational hierarchy, so I anxiously threw on a Dodgers sweatshirt and followed the trio. 

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We piled into Trent's vehicle. Spike played 100 Gecs at full volume from the passenger seat. I sat next to Bart, a boy who could not have stood much taller than five foot one. He incessantly opened and closed a penknife, worrying me that both Trent and Spike may be armed as well. I politely asked Bart what he intended to do with the penknife to which he responded, “This isn’t for cutting geriatric motherfuckers like you. My passion’s just slashing tires, Dodger.” I asked nothing more. I suspected the penknife could make exceptions if properly challenged, so I settled in for the ride. 

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***

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The derivation of the name “BoBo Boys” is decidedly more academic than the current climate might suggest. David Brooks–a neoliberal, political pundit–introduced the French term “BoBo” to English audiences in the nineties. The portmanteau of “bourgeois-bohemian” softly critiqued the world-straddling ethics of upper-class yuppies “performing” a bohemian lifestyle while continuing to thrive and possess ambitions within their aristocratic class. The glib term pointed out the shortcomings of a champagne socialist aesthetic more concerned with assuaging class guilt than actual progress, reaffirming and repackaging their elite backgrounds to fit a more “proper” moral view along the way.

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This term migrated across decades and continents in the way all culture moves nowadays: a meme. A Maoist collective from Indiana adopted the pseudonym of "BoBo Hunters" while "training" for class revolution in a very popular, yet controversial first-person shooter JoyBot game which has since been removed from the platform. After much hand-wringing (and a critical David Brooks essay), it came to light that these "terrifying Radical Left Maoists" were actually a group of seven thirteen year-olds.

 

The outrage proved fertile ground for the counter-backlash within a different subset of recalcitrant L.A. teens. Organized petty crime was already trending upward before this incident, but the term provided the burgeoning transgressive movement with an organizing principle. Their adopted term, BoBo Boys, ironically connected an affluenza they both embodied and vehemently rejected.

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A few were arrested early on. None had much to say about the movement, but all proved to be from upper class backgrounds. The fact that rich teenagers were committing crimes is neither particularly noteworthy nor new, but it was the manner with which they did it that quickly captured a rapt audience. An infamous early step in the movement found them egging local reporters in the middle of live newscasts. As coverage of their exploits increased, the condescension and disapproval emboldened them and inspired mayhem in other cities. The BoBo Boys coagulated into a cogent movement of aesthetics, actions, and attitudes. 

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***

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We arrived at the aforementioned warehouse. Spike opened the car door and Bart shoved me out. One of them took my arm and led me up a ramp still blindfolded. The sounds of nearby, heavy machinery told me we were in an industrial district likely east of downtown LA. As we entered the warehouse, the sounds melded into the cacophony of teenage boys. Yelling, cursing, shoving, clanging, and shrieking washed over me as we winded through the urban corridors. Soon we were in the middle of it like a ship unmoored in a tempest. Trent pulled off my blindfold and shoved me for good measure. Spinning 360-degrees, I finally understood the totality of what the BoBo Boys movement had become. 

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Hundreds of identically dressed teenagers foamed at the mouth for meme-able chaos. Packed into the dense warehouse, they swayed as if a single entity. A few BoBo Boys swung like monkeys from a scaffolding walkway raised above our heads. The energy swelled as a stomping refrain concentrated their focus. Soon each BoBo Boy had found the rhythmic stomp, and sporadic McConaughey-esque “caw-caws!” filled the dead space between. A door opened onto a corner scaffolding and out walked a woman. 

 

This fact should be considered quite notable. For all of the BoBo Boys appearances across the country, not once has a woman been cited in their midst. Certainly, BoBo Girls may exist, but the vast majority of the “organization” live out a chauvinistic masculinity unreceptive, if not outright hostile, to women. The woman standing before the BoBo Boys referred to herself as Swan. Her name directly reflected her physical appearance: chalk white skin, impossibly skinny with an abnormally long neck, and skin stretched tight across her cheekbones. Approaching her mid forties and abiding BoBo Boy aesthetic, her presence was anachronistic in every way yet somehow it gripped their attention. 

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I’d anticipated an aggro evening, one that might even get physical. Thankfully, the worst thing I’d so far experienced was Trent taking my phone. Assuming that would happen, I’d hastily taped a wire and recorder to my chest in preparation. Cops the BoBo Boys are not. I began to record.

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“Welcome BoBos to another night of rebellion. Something stinks out there. I smell it as I walk through their neighborhoods and wander their towns. Sniffing.”

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Swan dramatically smelled the air around her. She was met with oinks, farts, and other crude noises.

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“What is it that rots so foul? I will tell you. It is fear, my children. This scent lingers on your peers, their parents, your parents, I’m certain. But test me. Go, smell them when you arrive home and see the truth for yourselves. For their belief is misplaced. It is themselves that they fear. Their little lives slinking away, their heads buried. They receive no light so they do not grow. What do we do to things that do not grow?”

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“UPROOT THEM!” Shouted the BoBo Boys in unison. 

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“That is right,” Swan continued, “We break society so it can begin anew! We shake them until they see the truth that order is a facade. We turn our noses up to their society because it is fabricated! Our actions are as meaningless as their lives. Let them see it in the mirror that we hold up through our actions. Who are we?”

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“THE BOBO BOYS!”

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“What do we do?”

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The responses were less unified but amounted to variations of “fuck shit up."

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“Go forth, my BoBos.” With that statement, an alarm blared. The lights flashed and the sea of BoBo Boys broke into a crashing wave. Before I could be swept into their current, Trent grabbed my arm. He shook his head and pulled me upstream toward a ladder hanging from the scaffolding. He pointed up to where Swan stood, watching. I climbed the ladder and approached their leader, glancing back to see the warehouse quickly emptied. Swan led me through an indiscrete door that opened into a bare-bones office occupied by two folding chairs and discarded boxes filled with XXL Adidas pants. We sat. 

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“I’d like you to turn off your recording device,” Swan began. 

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***

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As such, our conversation was committed to memory. I wish I could describe this meeting as momentous, but in truth I found Swan to be a frustrating figurehead. She set the table for our conversation: “The BoBo Boys are ready to seize the narrative.” More precisely, she believed that the movement had reached a critical mass of secrecy. Swan’s method of communication was freeform and grandiose. She jumped between sweeping statements of humanity’s purpose to the minutiae of BoBo Boy aesthetics.

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From her speech, I’d assumed she was a secretive Oz-like figure making her public entrance, but our conversation undermined my hypothesis. She alluded to having followed the early stages of BoBo Boy panic closely, aspiring to instigate general, unspecified change by “seizing the moment.” She later contradicted that assertion by claiming the BoBo Boys sprung from her mind as Athena did Zeus. Her tendency to use figurative language left me murky to the actual origins of the BoBo Boys, her role in their creation even murkier. Regardless, she was eager to position herself as the reason for the early success of the LA cohort of BoBo Boys and claim credit for the movement’s playbook that followed.  

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In considering this phenomenon and pursuing answers around it, I’ve generally been most drawn to the uniforms. For uniforms they are, Swan confirmed. If a crusader (another term of Swan’s) were not wearing the track suit, light up shoes, and sunglasses then a BoBo Boy he is not. Their aesthetic is the organizing principle that directs the chaos. It’s the affectation that makes the BoBo Boys most seductive. The look itself has a retro-futurist quality. It echoes early aughts fashion yet there's a simplicity that feels wholly new.

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There’s the practicality, first of all. BoBo Boys often have to run or perform athletic feats to accomplish their mischief. Second, their sharp masculine edge is dulled by childish shoes and Boy Band haircuts. These contradictory elements possess a youthful authenticity typically appropriated by the GQs and fashion designers of the world. Only this time it was too hot for them to touch, too problematic to enable. Recently, Adidas Originals was rumored to be dipping their toes into the culture by releasing a BoBo Boys-specific line, but a wave of angered responses sent the company scrambling to squash said rumors. For these very reasons, the aesthetic has continuously and sustainably elevated.  

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Swan was cagey in considering my thesis, preferring to frame the aesthetic as a divine inspiration. She was clearly thrilled that the BoBo Boys aesthetic had gained traction. She hoped their message of undirected resistance would spread and rip apart liberal, bourgeois society from the inside. Our time was running short, made clear by a BoBo Boy who continuously popped his head into the doorway as if he were Swan’s assistant, but I latched onto that statement still seeking a unifying theory to the BoBo Boys’ purpose. Swan smiled pedantically and shook her head. I committed her response to memory: 

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“People like cultural forces to have a cause and effect, but that’s rarely the case. Humanity is irrational and the BoBo Boys are the latest manifestation of a reactive force. We have existed since the beginning of time, and will live on far longer than either of us.”

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Swan then stood and her assistant returned to escort me out. I paused at the door to ask one more question.

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“What comes after?”

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She had no answer. 

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***

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Spike and Bart had departed, but Trent was waiting for me. I blindfolded myself and he set my phone in my lap. We drove in silence, giving me time to immediately reflect on this meeting. I’d considered this access to be fortuitous, an opportunity to get the inside track on the year’s biggest story, but I couldn’t shake a feeling of disappointment. 

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I thought back to the room's stomping energy and felt that she could have said anything, and they would have cheered. She was co-opting the movement in a fruitless effort to grant herself political power and notoriety. She had no real understanding of the true vigor underpinning the movement. They didn't give a shit about the bourgeoisie or high-minded ideas of political action.

The BoBo Boys are a social force with no simple explanation or purpose; they’re a collection of identities that signify nothing absolute except membership into a tribe that doesn't give a fuck. 

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In the months since this correspondence, the BoBo Boys have only grown in fame. They’ve gone global, including a recent controversy that saw police kill two teens in Germany. There have been calls to regulate JoyBots and aggressively prosecute known members. Some have even sought to declare them a terrorist organization. But this all fails to recognize the core truth of a group avoiding political affiliation or centralized purpose. Each unit, each member, has defined what it means to be a BoBo Boy independently. Diverse motivations lead to divergent expressions. One of the few commonalities amongst this movement is a disinterest in being confined by definition or ideology. 

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The Internet enabled the sharing of information and ideas at lightspeed and weird shit followed. This has been true for a long time. The BoBo Boys are emblematic of these latest shifts, authentically manifesting internet culture into a physical environment. No matter how vile or frustrating their actions, their youth and destruction are a response to the corrosive elements of modern society. The purity of their rage has clearly resonated with young men across the world. Adults must now seek to understand why. 

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I recently gave a guest lecture at UCLA . The class was filled with bright students who were polite in their questions and hopeful in their thinking. After spending months considering the BoBo Boys, I’d almost become fearful of teenagers and young adults. I found myself assuming all to be harboring secret resentments, just waiting for the opportunity to crack my phone or unload a water balloon filled with piss. These students were a reminder that nothing is ever as cut-and-dry as we in the media ascribe.

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I asked the class about what they thought of the BoBo Boys and received responses that varied from denunciation to avid approval. One student admitted that her younger brother was a BoBo Boy. She acknowledged that he’s an idiot, but asserted the apolitical nature of his actions. She said he joined because he liked the tracksuits and their parents disapproved. It was as simple as that.  

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After the class, a freshman boy wearing a baggy sweatshirt and Birkenstocks waited for everyone to leave before approaching me. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He pulled a wrapped package out of his bag and handed it to me. He watched as I unwrapped an Adidas tracksuit. Bewildered, I took a closer look at him, putting together how I knew him…

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“I got this for you, you geriatric fuck.”

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He smirked and slinked away without another word.