Since we’ve already established that Facebook killed the democratic process by facilitating the spread of unprecedented volumes of fake news throughout this year’s election cycle, it’s only fair to ask what else the social media giant is rapidly destroying. While far from scientific and though it might be a stretch, I think one of its victims may be the culture of car customization. So stay with me as I walk you through my logic and be sure to let me know what, besides critical thought, Facebook is also burninating.
Cars Before Facebook
As much of a struggle it may be for someone who probably saw this post shared on Facebook or Twitter or found it through a semi-related Google search, cast your mind back to the pre-internet age, or at least pre-social media. Back when you used to get in trouble for staying on the phone talking with friends until way past your bedtime. When “Netflix and Chill” wasn’t a thing, but meeting up at the mall was, and had to be orchestrated days in advance so everyone could get the message. When group chats meant looking at people, not pixels.
Even if you lived somewhere walkable, or with great public transportation, cars were your ticket to freedom. Especially for those of us growing up in large cities underserved with public transportation, cars facilitated your social networking, ferrying you to and from hangouts before Google tried to co-opt the name for its chat service. Sure, thoughts and opinions could be shared over the phone, but only individually, like an old-school snapchat, but without the pictures or filters or frequent male genitalia.
Want to share an article from Newsweek? Drive it over to your friend’s house. Want to share photos of your vacation to Colorado? Drive them over to your parents’ house. Want to share a funny cat video? Well you’re shit out of luck because there are no funny cat videos yet. Your car connected you with friends and relatives in a meaningful way that nothing else could at the time.
More than just freedom, your car provided you a canvas for nearly unlimited personalization. Just like the original MySpace, your car was your own and you could make it as tacky and garish as you felt necessary, regardless of taste or respect for others’ eardrums (thank god for the death of auto-play music on websites, I feel like that isn’t celebrated enough). When your profile picture is just however you look that day, your car provides an opportunity for you to express who you are through a more consistent medium that everyone gets to see every day when you’re on the way to get your hair cut or trying to sneak back home after curfew.
And what you did to your car said a lot about you. The most image-conscious would slap on Type-R badges, go-fast graphics, fender vents, side skirts and fake hood scoops while leaving the 2.2L 4-cylinder in their Chevy Cavalier bone stock. The wannabe professionals would add strut tower bars, stiff lowering springs, sticky tires and chunky sway bars to their MR-2s to shave a few seconds of their SCCA times in a few weeks. And then we adrenaline junkies would pay out the nose to add every conceivable power bolt-on to our anaemic economy coupes to see a huge spike on the old butt dyno. There were many more genres than just these three and enthusiasts who dabbled in several or all of them, but no two cars were ever exactly the same, and neither were their owners.
During the early internet boom, regional and national car forums provided a venue for enthusiasts to trade information and share their own unique rides, and many of these sites still provide an invaluable resource for people who wrench on their own cars. At the time, however, the forums’ social function was basically to organize meetups and incite flame wars and pissing contests about whose car was superior without the actual threat of having to prove it in person.
In any case, cars were social currency. Not having one was like not being on Facebook; sure, you exist, but you’re missing out on some meaningful interactions and lack a venue for expressing your individuality to the world through a public medium.
Cars After Facebook
Okay, maybe it's not this bad.
Things are obviously very different just 13 years on. A ratty t-shirt in the bottom of my closet is the only remnant of my local internet car forum and the same kids who used to hang out at the food court in the mall are now hanging out at home, staring at a tiny screen. Social media has been a true revolution in social connectivity. I would never have been able to drive over and visit my exchange student brother in Munich, but I can follow him on Instagram and text him about the Champions League on WhatsApp. It has brought friends, cultures and individuals with mutual interests together in a way cars never could have, and there’s a reason so many billions of people visit these sites every day.
But by breaking down barriers, social media usurps cars’ social currency, minimizing their importance in connecting individuals and acting as an expression of one’s interests and personality. Sharing photos, stories, videos or even live events no longer require you to hop in the car. What used to require a turn of a key now just needs a swipe to unlock, and we’re digitally transported to a world of boundless content. In cars, we’re mostly just transporting ourselves to a world of boundless road rage and shitty drivers.
It’s started to feel like everyone has moved on from cars, not only as a method of social networking, but as a medium of self-expression as well. The image-conscious no longer adorn their cars with various plastic aerodynamic “enhancements” because they’re too busy perfecting the selfie, taking a photo of their fancy dish at a chic restaurant or complaining about how busy they are. The wannabe professionals are refreshing the info on their LinkedIn profile for the third time this week because they thought of a new buzzword that they’re hoping will take off (hint: Synergistics will not). The adrenaline junkies are now strapping on GoPros and hoverboarding along the edge of skyscrapers, causing the collective clenching of buttholes across the entire internet.
The streets, our driveway and parking lots are no longer the primary venue for public displays of individuality. What we used to accomplish with money, wrenches and bondo now takes fewer than 140 characters and has the potential to reach millions more people. And as the push to automate and standardize cars continues, vehicles will become even less important, garnering less attention and, consequently, less customization.
If you need a more media-centric look at how the culture has changed, just look to the silver screen. The Fast and the Furious came out in 2001 but you couldn’t trade Brian and Dom’s banter about how “Nobody likes the tuna here, asshole” on Facebook until 2004, and that was only if you were a college student. I still recall the Sonic parking lot after the movie, where the local gearheads congregated to discuss the merits of the film, which was the first real mainstream acknowledgement that car customization was “a thing.” A review of that film is an entirely different subject, but it’s interesting to look at the genesis of the franchise from a sort of buddy action flick focusing on a tight-knit group of (admittedly criminal) car enthusiasts to a blockbuster action series focusing on major conflicts where the cars still factor in, but the customization culture and individuality has taken a back seat.
The Verdict
All this said, it’s not just social media. Urbanization, ride sharing, live/work spaces and Amazon Prime have all reduced the need for vehicles and the role of the car in providing individual freedom has been marginalized. When you don’t have a car, obviously you can’t customize it, and you probably give less than zero shits about those who do.
There will always be those of us who gain personal satisfaction out of making our cars our own, but they are the true gearheads, who would have done it regardless of its social currency. Perhaps what we’re seeing is not the death of car customization, but the death of the casual car enthusiast – the people for whom a car was a necessary commodity, but never a treasured possession. What we’re left with will be the real “car people,” who find joy in driving and working on cars, and whose hearts start racing when they see their own vehicle in the garage. The people who customize for themselves, rather than for public consumption.
Maybe this will mean less aftermarket support, decreased opportunity to modify factory cars and the death of sites like this. Maybe it’ll mean getting the riff raff out, less profiling by police, less attention in the media and fewer movies with terrible dialogue trying to appeal to an increasingly niche market. Just like social media itself, there will be both good and bad, and we’ll have to make the best of it.
Authored by
Devlin Riggs