I definitely think "hobo" has made a sort of comeback as a glib synonym for "homeless person." I think part of it is that it's so archaic sounding it's kind of funny, and allows a certain distance from the modern day (actual homeless people you see on the street are depressing and heart-rending, whereas old-timey hobos are funny and nostalgia-inducing).

As a side note, I've been told (though I this may be an attempt to impose strict regularity on less regular linguistic practice) that during the Depression there were multiple terms for what we might call homeless people:

*A hobo was someone who travelled from town to town but attempted to find work in the places where he was temporarily staying.
*A tramp travelled from town to town but didn't attempt to find work, but instead asked for handouts or tried to steal.
*A bum was someone who didn't look for work and also didn't travel.

I'm not sure how (if at all) these terms map onto the modern-day homeless population. I think it's probably harder for the homeless to find irregular work today of the sorts that Depression-era hobos sought out because employment is much more tightly regulated, and it's difficult to get a job without an address, phone number, bank account, etc. Day labor paid in cash is probably dominated by immigrant communities (documented and undocumented) with some degree of specialized skills.

At iCarly we LOVE hobos.

Yikes.

Those wacky hobos, they're so cute and mismatched.

The cynic in me wants to ask, "Yeah, you love them so much, how much money did your party raise for programs that benefit homeless people?"

Dressing up in mismatched clothing, though, is a fun way to play with identity when you're a teen. In high school, my friends and I had a "Nerd party" where we found the most hideous outfits to prance around in while playing stupid party games and dancing in a strobe light (there is VHS evidence of this). I don't know if this was as bad as a hobo party, though, because we considered ourselves nerds to begin with. The costumes were an exaggerated version of our daily identity, which was kind of a screw-you to the social expectation that you should suppress your nerdiness in order to be popular.

When I was a kid, "hobo" or bum was the Halloween costume you wore when you couldn't think of something more creative; everyone has some clothes that don't match or that are worn out. If you were really making a (minor) effort you'd make a bundle and tie it to a stick.

"If hobos actually looked like this, Freddie would start volunteering more at soup kitchens."

Wow.

Woooooooooooooow.

30+ years ago we also dressed as hobos (or gypsies) for Halloween. I don't think it was so much that we lacked creativity as you could bundle up against the cold (and possible snow) and still look like you were wearing a costume. But I don't remember ever thinking about homelessness when dressing as a hobo. In fact I don't think homeless people were discussed or even allowed to stay in my comfortably middle to upper-middle class town. I do remember having an idea that hobos and gypsies were people who traveled widely and didn't have responsibilities like cleaning their rooms - something that certainly appealed to my pre-teen self!

Having said all that, I agree with Zula -- yikes!

Agreed, Zulu, agreed.

You know what I find most disturbing about the 'Kids React' videos. Everytime I go to watch one, I read the comments that Youtube posters have written. And everytime I do that there is a comment on the first page about the 14 year old girl Lia and her attractiveness. Reading through them and visiting the profiles shows that the majority of people calling her "hot", "Pretty", "Sexy", "she's getting cuter and cuter" are men 20+. The comment I see most often is "she'll be hot when she gets older" or "only 4 years until she's 18." Which in my opinion is a simple way of saying, "I find her attractive, but I can't say I'd have sex with her until she is legal." This poor girl is already objectified and sexualised. She's young enough to qualify as a child in these videos, yet old enough that the world is already presenting her as a sex object. That sickens me. We should be protecting our girls, especially at such a fragile age.

I know this is off topic but this is an issue that I think seriously needs to be presented.

Story time:
I wrote a short skit for a TV class in college that I called "Da Hobo Showdown." It was a game show style, with the prize being a house and a job. It tried my best to be funny but also to exhibit what the homeless have to deal with everyday. I had a cat lady, a gutter punk, and a Russian (that was played by a Hispanic student) for diversities sake. At the end of the skit, a character type of guy from Extreme Home Makeover busts in and crashes the party.

I wanted the mock reality TV with that script, and to this day I can't tell if I did or not.

I use hobo to describe "homeless people" because "homeless people" just sounds really really depressing,. But I'm not going to call them "bums" because that is just sounds mean.

In my personal experience, the term "hobo" has been used for someone who chooses to be homeless (like the "tramps" and "traveling kids" mentioned in Lilliana's previous post), where "homeless" referred to persons who were without a place to live due to circumstances beyond their control. The one self-described hobo I know chooses to live staying "off the grid" by taking handouts, working odd jobs for cash, and bartering (I remember one time he worked for a farm and was paid in eggplants). Although technically homeless, I don't think the term hobo refers to the majority of homeless persons, who are usually in need of assistance and/or mentally ill.

Others have said this but i think it bears repeating. Hobo is not necessarily synonymous with what is typically brought to mind when we think homeless. Hobos, tramps (i.e. Charlie Chaplin character), and vagabonds have been seen at times as symbols of the US thirst for freedom and living by one's own rules. This is not quite the same as someone who has lost their home because of mental illness, or financial trouble.

It appears as well that these icarly folks are using hobo in a similar way that Red Skeleton used to. Not as a way to necessarily trivialize the real trouble of individuals who are homeless. Perhaps this is a situation in which the lens of the viewer (the bloggers involved) is not the same as the lense of the characters and the icarly folks are certainly not in the same league with the news people who are looking for real homeless individuals to exploit. any implication of such is bad faith.

Secondly in the video, 3 children out of 9 use the word hobo. Only 2 of them appear to use the word organically without prompting and the 3rd (one of the two girls together) appears to be responding to a question. 3 times out of 9 kids and multiple video cuts while fitting the term "repeated" seems a little bit of a stretch for what Josh appears to be implying. I have to wonder a little behind the motives.

Today I was thinking about this very topic. I live in Atlanta and work in the downtown area, and often deal with many different kinds of homeless people on a daily basis. We have what seems like tons of homeless programs, shelters, and free food. But I still see children living under bridges, and it's been a worse winter here than I've ever seen.

As for iCarly, this almost like a trend trickle-down effect. What others have called vagabonds has been popular for years in some youth subcultures (inner city 'Bohemians', hippies, and punks), though it's not only younger people. There are are several people who, definitely, choose to be homeless or highly impoverished to live a more free or noble life, even if it begins out of necessity sometimes. Several of my friends have done it at one time or another, and I once was prepared to start living that way if my student loans weren't approved.

Today I saw a group of three young men, two young women, and three dogs that were travelling as vagabonds today. The oldest was probably 28, the youngest 19 or 20. They were all attractive people, and were asking for money, which they were clearly saying was "to buy beer." There were also two guitars.

Most importantly let's not forget that adults write and direct the lines and parts these children play.

This reminds me of the 1951 "social courtesy" educational film in which a surly teen learns how to behave at his friend's "hard times" party. The fact that they are all dressed as "hobos" and enjoy a scenery of tin cans, rubbish, etc, takes a back seat to their social graces with one another as comfortable, middle class young people several decades past the depression. It's interesting that they feel so comfortable making light of "hard times" with such a relatively recent cultural memory of economic disaster:

Oops here is the link:
Social Courtesy: Coronet Instructional Films

My kids started to use the term "hobo" because of the Kitt Kittredge movie. The little kids were all scared of "hobos" and I noticed them playing some kind of game at the park that involved running from them. this was before my kids saw the movie but after some of their friends did. I just noticed it cropping up again and my (teen) son told me it had something to do with iCarly but I didn't know what until I saw this post (I thought it was somehow referencing the depression, playing off the Kitt Kittredge movie.

Guess I know what we're talking about over the dinner table tomorrow!

Fake PBS mini documentary on hobos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1JIa5r5nkE

Sadly, it is hilarious.... lol

I think it is worth recognising that the hobo archetype in entertainment has a long tradition including Vaudeville, Charlie Chaplin etc. It is hardly a "new" thing.

Boxcars aren't the only rideable cars. They are closed more often these days but are still often left open for long distances and are still considered the best ride. There are thousands of people who still ride freights all across the country, many do this full-time. A hobo is a person who travels and works odd-jobs wherever he goes. A tramp is more likely to just panhandle for change, but is still a traveller. A bum, homebum, homeguard, etc. just stays in one place and doesn't work.

I saw a pack of little plastic toys at a dollar store that was labeled "hobos." The little figures were all clowns with face-paint and big red noses. I don't know a think about clowns; Is "hobo" a certain traditional clown get-up?

I do think it is interesting that everyone seems to defend the use of the word Hobo by showing that they are an actual group of people related to choosing to ride the rails. That is all fine and dandy but the real problem here is the kids equating people who are homeless and on the street (be it because of drug addictions, mental problems, financial problems, etc.) with this lovable character in history.

I don't think the men and women who are struggling to find something to eat and a place to stay see their life as part of a fanciful story of bandanas on sticks and life riding the rails.

Using the term hobo to describe people who are down on their luck and homeelss is incorrect.

the key we need to be focsing on is homeless does not equal hobo. Using "fun" terms to distance us from the depressing reality in our cities is not healthy for any society.

I recall that when "homeless" started being the accepted term (15-20 years ago?), it was felt that it was a value-neutral term that was a vast improvement over terms like "bag lady" or "derelict." I also remember that at the time, a few people remarked that while it might be neutral to start, that sooner or later it would acquire more negative and judgemental baggage.

There's a pretty surprisingly large traveler culture here in America. I've had a number of traveler friends over the years (I'm an amateur folk musician in Portland, so I probably get more exposure to the culture than most people). Some call themselves hobos, though most seem to attach that to riding the rails, which isn't really much harder than it used to be. It was always dirty and dangerous, now is no different. A lot of kids just call themselves travelers, to denote that it's a choice. And to be sure, there's a heck of a lot of seriously bad drug problems and mental illness among traveling people, it's not just the people you see talking to themselves as they wander around downtown. There's bunches of squats and run-down, overcrowded houses around, where they often live for varying periods of time. There's bunches of different subcultures, like the anarchists, or the hobo graffiti artists, or the travelers (meaning American gypsies and similar who've been on the road for over a generation), carnies, rainbows, but mostly these are just loose descriptors for what's largely a group of ultra-individualists. No guarantee that hippie traveler is a rainbow, but they've probably partied with them a lot if they've been on the road a while. Hitchhiking is still totally viable, though it's a lot easier if there's a young woman with you, it takes like a week to get across the country if you don't take much in the way of detours and other adventures. Hassles with cops are common across the board.

I definitely recommend hanging with rainbows sometime. They've got a real beautiful thing going, a lot of love, a lot of good musicians, people you can feel safe doing drugs around, a childlike atmosphere with a lot of folks. It's crazy sometimes, but how else are you gonna have stories worth telling your grandkids?

It's atavistic more than classist. They're not dressing up like the crackhead at the off-ramp, but the iconography associated with hobo culture. Yes, there's a hobo culture. Got its own set of glyphs, songs (many immortalized by Utah Phillips), and history. It's directly related to the displaced Okies and the hippies (pre-Monterey Pop Festival / burning of the hippy in effigy), as well as the mostly socialist / anarchist aspects of the labor movement; those like Frying Pan Jack, who said that if he cannot control the means of his labor, he shall henceforth cease to work.

I mean, damn. I'm all about class war, constantly fighting oppressive narratives, but this is like activists that don't understand anthropology throwing a hissy-fit when facts about their fetishized little brown-skinned cultures challenge the myths arising from white guilt.

Reminds me of the bum characters on thatguywiththeglasses.com. I love the site and its reviews most of the time, but those characters really make me cringe. Especially Phelous's bum that appeared in just one of his reviews, and unlike the main bum played by Doug Walker and those of other contributors (who just rant crazily about how they love every movie/comic book they see and ask for change), his just drank vodka, puked in a bag, drank some more vodka, and then passed out/died to be poked with a golf club by the "normal" version of Phelous. Yeah.

I can tell you why.

It's the Simpsons, and its short, catchy, and not a stretch away from "homeless".

My 10-year-old uses the term "hobo" to refer to homeless people, and I find it very disturbing. We've had many conversations where I explain that "hobo" is a term from the 30's and to use it today trivializes the plight of homeless people, and he responds that everyone (meaning everyone in the fifth grade) doesn't mean it that way. I'll be interested to see how his usage and understanding of the term develops as he grows.

My daughter learned about hobos the Kit American Girl books. There it was appropriate because the books explained the impact of the Depression on America. She's never used hobo in conversation, but if she did, I'd correct her.

For the people who are arguing that iCarly's term "hobo" isn't referring to modern-day homeless people, please check out this blog post from the iCarly.com site.

It's entitled, "Crazy Things About Hollywood the Hobo," and lists 10 facts about a modern-day homeless man the kids supposedly encountered outside their hotel. Hilarious facts like, "Hollywood doesn't understand why knives, forks or chopsticks were invented. He says, 'Hands do the job of eatin' stuff just as good.'"

http://www.icarly.com/iBlogs/entry240.html

Yikes.

Really you guys are making such a big deal out of nothing! People make fun of everything. ICarly is senseless humor. Have you ever watched Drake and Josh or Victorious? If your answer is "no" or "no but I've watched one short part of Icarly" you know nothing about it. Senseless humor is just that: meaningless and stupid. They aren't making fun of hobos. In reality, the show makes fun of anything and everything in stupid ways. This particular show has better potential to show the society what is wrong with it than this meaningless assault on the show for having a "hobo party." This show makes fun of the celebrities that are perverted and disgusting while showing that things should be more modest than they are. SOmetimes the show crosses the line but at least its not teaching your children to go out and get banged!