Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a hedonist.

1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 105: The term ‘joller’ is believed to have originated from the Afrikaans word ‘jol’, meaning a festive party. People who attended such parties were accordingly referred to as ‘jollers’, but the word has degenerated in meaning and now signifies any person who ‘celebrates’ any and every occasion by fighting, swearing, drinking, and smoking dagga.
1978		Sun. Times (Jo’burg) 8 Oct. Mag. 16: His pal, Stevie, is [...] a ‘joller’ with a tremendous sense of fun whose attitude to life is one of careless abandon [DSAE].
1989		B. Simon ‘Score Me the Ages’ Born in the RSA (1997) 137: Hey you learning hey – tonight I’m not a joller, tonight I’m a professor.
1998		Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 15 May 🌐Rockefellers and Da Joint are popular among indian and coloured jollers.
2002		G. Evans Dancing Shoes is Dead 116: A fair sprinkling of [...] environmentalists, actors and musicians and goodtime jollers.

2. one who frequents ‘unsavoury’ bars, dance-halls and similar places of low-life entertainment.

1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 103: He has personally visited the haunts of the ‘jollers’, [i.e. opium smokers] as they are called.
1977		C. Hope Ducktails in Gray Theatre Two (1981) 36: You heard of my boetie, Paulie –? And ou Abba and those jollers? [Ibid.] 46: All the biggest brekers in Pretoria. Battling the students. All round the Square – jollers against vrekkers. [...] Vreks. ’s what I call them ... students and clerks and fancy-pants, la-di-das and cops and toecap sandals, khaki shorts and short back and sides ... they’re always against the jollers.

3. one who attends a party, concert or social gathering.

1986		in Style May 108: As we leave, fellow-joller Cheryl [...] claimed that some jock had put some thing in her palm as she passed a table [DSAE].
1990		Top Forty July 12: A lot of expectant jollers were upset that Johannes Kerkorrel had taken his ‘gereformeerde blues’ off to Europe just before the concert [DSAE].

4. (also jorler) a player of a game.

1988

in Talk Sept. 5: Enter number 2. First team jorler, renegade and real hot property [DSAE].