Australia is a wondrous land of exotic animals, gold medal speed skaters, and news anchors who hilariously lose their sh*t while interviewing Grumpy Cat. But it’s also the setting of the CRIMINAL SCOURGE of hooning, for which the Queensland Police Service set up a dedicated hoon hotline to report acts of unrepentant hooning. (If someone doesn’t name a band “Hoon Hotline” what are we even doing as a species?)
The hotline’s been around for years, but Twitter’s just caught wind of it and collectively asked, “What the hell is hooning?” To summarize, it’s driving like a maniac doing donuts, burnouts, and so forth. The typical hoonhound (not a word but it should be) is an adolescent male, but hooning is reportedly growing in popularity with women, like that cheeky Sheila pictured above. Not everyone has an objection to hooning. Developing car handling skills in erratic driving situations is just good practice for when Australians have to flee from giant f*ckall spiders.
The current hooning hullabaloo started with this tweet about the hoon hotline, 13HOON.
https://twitter.com/mlle_elle/status/861776902792462336
Some were initially confused:
TWO YEARS I've been in Australia and I have no clue what a "dedicated hoon hotline" could possibly be https://t.co/go8hDEGsVj
— Claire Phipps (@Claire_Phipps) May 9, 2017
But others came along shortly afterward to explain:
https://twitter.com/TheDoctorBill/status/861834183966158848
https://twitter.com/roqchams/status/861781686131998721
Which only left some even more confused.
I knew what hooning was but after I read this I had to look it up because they repeated the word so many times it lost meaning.
— ▄ ▄▄██ █▄ █ ██▄█ ▄ ██▄ ▄▄█ ▄▄▄ ▄ (@VECTORCITIES) May 9, 2017
And the jokes soon followed:
https://twitter.com/marrowing/status/861779837538623489
https://twitter.com/JamColley/status/861788282203414528
https://twitter.com/roqchams/status/861786806181691392
I don't give a damn what the law says, I will never stop jet ski hooning
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) May 9, 2017
https://twitter.com/ajusshi/status/861831628611616768
https://twitter.com/ajusshi/status/861832504264736769
Fair dinkum to whoever lost their car to the crusher over hoon tickets.
And it seems everyone can agree hooning is a rich cultural tradition, for which one usually expects a “courtesy notice” or novelty photo rather than strict prosecution.
https://twitter.com/LACHLAN_ONLINE/status/861826155002740736
Hooning is not a crime pic.twitter.com/HULsE66mUJ
— Tristan Allison (@TristanChance98) April 24, 2017
Hooning is dope tho, for real.
— aspiring contest winner (@TheSarahCoates) May 9, 2017
https://twitter.com/jrhennessy/status/861782414112116736
But some were already over so it.
https://twitter.com/haircut_hippie/status/861782676826726400
https://twitter.com/DirectingTitan/status/861787165881233409
People will look back on 2017 as the year hooning got its comeuppance
— Claire Phipps (@Claire_Phipps) May 9, 2017
Let’s hope not.
(Via Pedestrian TV and Twitter)