The kids had been geed up before their first trip to Bicheno. In 1974, my parents bought the Silver Sands Hotel Motel in the tiny Tassie fishing village. I grew up fanging around on my Honda 50, gorging on wild blackberries, daring my brother to go closer to the blow hole during a big sea, mastering how to hold live crayfish.
Fabulous childhood. Memories were regularly drip fed to my children. We talked a lot about going to this dazzling wonderland and the hits and memory places I’d show them.
Finally, the day came when we rolled into Bicheno. When I took my kids to my childhood digs, they quickly declared it “craptastic”. Here’s my old bedroom window, here’s the rock shaped like a whale, here’s my school, here’s the lookout.
Here’s where I stacked the minibike and it rolled on me. Here’s the fishing harbour, here’s the beach. I was glowing with memories and pride.
“Isn’t it incredible?” From them, crickets. One eventually spoke up. “Mum, there’s nothing here.
What did you do all day? It’s so craptastic.” Since forever, craptastic has been a recurring concept in our family. Its meaning is a bit fluid.
It can be something one person sees as crap, another as fantastic. Or as the Collins Dictionary defines it, “something fantastically awful.” Entertainment Weekly had a florid stab at exploring “craptasty” in 2020, saying it “assumes an ironic, hipsterish acceptance of blithe bad taste and bad production values, as if standards are for snobs and squares”.
Loading Anyway, you get the picture. And you’ll get why our family WhatsApp group blew up after Raygun’s bravura Olympics performance. Craptastic to the max was the verdict.
Because some of us thought the breaking routine “had to be a high-level troll,” others thought it was hilarious and a work of art reminiscent of a Kath Day Knight lambada. Then Raygun’s moves went viral and debates about bigger issues at play kicked off. But at our house, the whole brouhaha sparked a discussion about what else is craptastic.
Before we start, remember your trash could be my treasure, which is the whole point of craptastic. For me, it’s Top Gun movies and markets which sell salt lamps, patchwork baby gear, candles and dog treats. Definitely Australia’s mania for big things, your Big Trout, Big Oyster, Big Bundy Bottle.
So awesome and so crap. Raygun in Paris. Credit: DeFodi Images via Getty Images Luna Park is craptastic.
My beloved Melbourne Royal Show is too, redolent as it is with memories of KISS and Violet Crumble showbags in the ’80s and now those twirly sliced spuds on sticks and dogs being sprayed with Taft. The Logies, on this weekend as luck would have it, are supremely craptastic. Nobody remembers they still exist, nobody watches, nobody gives a rat’s who wins.
But there’s always a loose-cannon star or inappropriate segment or antics from nightclub kick ons which is the fantastic factor that elevates them. The Brownlow Medal red carpet was craptastic until stylists hijacked it. In New South Wales, the Dally M count is still craptastic because the league WAGs are undaunted by the spectre of bad taste and spend $250 on a Pretty Little Thing number which they bedazzle for extra razzle.
Loading Reality TV was craptastic until contestants started going on it only to become influencers. Especially the sub-genre starring rock stars on the hunt. Your Flava Flav’s Flavor of Love and Bret Michaels’ Rock of Love , which was so deeply wrong I’ll be cancelled for mentioning it.
All I need say is everyone was tanked all the time and one woman sung a rap she’d written for Bret on the back of a genital herpes instruction sheet. I could not look away. Bottomless brunches for mums are craptastic for my mate Mia.
For my daughter Sadie, it’s the races. My friend Sam cranked out a terrific list: “Seeing Chloe at Young and Jackson, karaoke, Love Actually , the Leyland P76, Northcote Plaza, the Cheesecake Shop, Crocs and the KFC Two Piece Combo, especially when you get a breast and rib.” Yes! That’s what I’m talking about.
Over to you. Is there a difference between craptastic and just crap? What’s on your list? Not Bicheno, according to Broadsheet, which just named it one of two must-visit Tassie towns. Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.
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