Watch: Dublin 'spicers' hilariously explained in gas video sketch

• Author: Brian Dillon
• Published date: 08 November 2021
• Publication title: DublinLive (Ireland)

Back in the days of mullets, Bebo and lads wearing chinos and Rihanna t-shirts from Penneys, the word spicer was used to describe a typical Dublin lad who was, to put it simply, quite insufferable, but all too common.

Urban Dictionary describes this peculiar sect of 2000s Dublin youth as "a fella from Dublin, known as having Dublin style, has the mullet, wears keds, puts bobbins on his jeans, usually shops in top shop, has one ear pierced, and is usually trying to have hair known as hairbag."

If you needed more clarity on what a spicer actually is, Frankie McNamara, or as he is better known, Meditation for the Anxious Mind, perfectly sums it up.

In the latest entry to his gas Ancient Mysteries Explained series, he describes spicers as "a prominent Irish species in the era of the late 2000s, often found in areas of leisure such as Lucan, Raheny, Swords and sometimes Malahide."

Continuing his in depth exploration of what it means to have been a spicer back in the day, Frankie says: "The Gaelteacht was a spice factory. Parents would drop their kids off only to pick up a spicer three weeks later, with shutter shades on, eyebrows off and a newfound obsession with The Black Eyed Peas.

"The communication tool of the spicer was the hair straightener. They say the smell of burnt spicer hair is enough to invoke traumatic brain injuries in anyone who remembers how it felt to storm out of your parents' house...