I recently read an article by a similar title composed by
Blake Jones named
Being A Car Enthusiast in 2015. While I see where Blake was
going, I was waiting for the portion of the article where he tells me to get
off of his lawn or for him to call the police when I accidentally hit a
baseball through his window.
The point being; the car scene is the same thing it’s been
since…I don’t know, ever? Everyone freaks out when new styling trends hit the
scene, the medium of the media changes, or realize that all of a sudden you can
find out what people actually think about something.
Do you find “stance” stupid? Does “negative camber” bring
you internal feelings of fury? Does the idea of over fenders leave you in a
lurch? If this is you, then you probably had a midlife crisis when your best
friend traded in his bucket hat and Reebok Pumps for a 59Fifty flatbill and a
pair of Air Force Ones.
Just because the style of today's builds have changed doesn’t
mean that the look everyone likes today is garbage. Look into the late 80’s through
00’s builds. They feature neon underglow, ridiculously huge bodykits, blinding
chrome wheels, etc. Today, these are modifications that most people would more likely
associate these modifications as tacky, out of style or ricer.
The car scene, just like everything else you encounter
changes style over time and there’s no stopping the change train. Look at the
way businesses operate, the strategy of professional sports teams, mainstream art,
or modern fashion. They all change with the times so why can’t the car scene?
It’s only inevitable. Aren’t we entitled to make our own mid 2010’s soon-to-be
tacky car art?
There will always be horsepower heads, interior/VIP nuts and
decked out show builders but the styles of the aesthetics are always shifting. That’s just life and you have to learn
to accept that.
Now to the part where we worry about the takeover of
technology. The internet is just today’s digital magazine with less editorial control.
Now more then ever you can seek what you specifically want to see and I don’t
see what’s wrong with that. Isn’t more freedom to choose better? Isn’t that
what free markets are all about, having choices?
For instance, I personally have always been an import hatchback
fan but never enjoyed Mopar, which is why I only attend import shows. Why
should I have to buy a magazine that has 2 Mopars, 1 Firebird, and 1 hatchback
in it because that is whats in the newest monthly issue of “XYZ Car Magazine”?
Doesn’t it seem much more effective to go to 1 or 2 hatchback focused websites,
a hatchback forum and follow hatchback pages on social media to get my fix? Why
should I walk 3 miles through the snow, uphill, at five in the morning just
because that’s how it was back in your day? If that’s how you like it, that’s
your right but 2015 is about options and I’m not reading my car scene
literature on stone tablets so you can better relate to it.
When you complain about internet negativity, I get it. I’ve
seen people have their builds shunned and leave the scene from it.
The reality is those comments are truth. Those are those peoples actual
opinions for the most part (minus the trolls). Imagine that, people actually
telling you their real opinion.
In a time when parents of my generation instituted the
“everyone gets a trophy” standard and people love to complain about trust
issues, someone actually is offering something you have been searching for your
whole life. Honesty. You don’t have to like the response to your build online,
but at least you can hang your hat on the idea that people are telling you how
they see it.
Whether you can accept the internet’s truthful opinion is
your own personal issue. If you're building your car based on what the
internet tells you, your probably building your car based on what your friends
tell you, which means you weren’t actually building your own car in the first
place. You were just taking a bunch of different people’s ideas and running
with it to gain acceptance. That’s the truth.
So the next time you want to complain about the smell of my
exhaust, the sound of my engine and the uselessness of my excessive negative
camber when I pull my car out of the garage to go on a cruise, maybe you should
just close your window, pull down the shade and sit back down in your armchair
of yesteryear.
-Skylar Felder
@Skeezydollaz
