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or "The backlash of debadging a car…"
Warning, my personal OPINION!
This is a cultural phenomena... our culture, and its current incarnation is pretty bizarre from a social psych standpoint.
This is a performance bulletin board, and in so much performance in my mind is tantamount to racing and under- or out- performing other vehicles, regardless of make model, creed, color.
What has collectively been deemed the "rice-boy" is irrelevant to race or car model... its in my mind a conceited bluff and culturally... mass conformism. As WASAAB regarded, "lying"... but more so its a challenge, but one does tend to generalize about the character of someone who would "bluff" in such a way.
What my problem is, is that this is not a customs market, in the purest individualistic sense of the word... it is mass consumerism; the mixture of incredibly affordable cars and a market that is trying to influence a "hip" alternative to the influx of such a bloated market... I respect them for wishing to change or stand out, but excess of poorly constructed, cheap, "stylish", neon accented and bass-heavy "upgrades" is an interesting way to define identity.
The culture is like some sort of anti-corporate albeit very conformist attention-yearning individuals... very much a corollary of youth. When your individualism is sold in a deception, mass produced, and constantly having to change to one up the guy you just saw on the street, I am sorry.
- I apologize for the rant, but the celica (?) commercial was just on, the one with the amusing "it looks fast" commercials. Not only are these "custom" advents of huge wings and go fast looks available in every mall kiosk, street corner, and auto parts store, but factory direct from Toyota now.
I don't blame them, they, and all the sticker makers, plastic molders, knock off masters, and spring cutters see a viable market... selling them "authenticity on the cheap" to be “cool”
Its not my taste, and I could not imagine the camaraderie amongst owners to be as close-knit as I feel this board, and all of us niche saab upgraders are(albeit the #!/usr/bin/perl sticker I have was a lot cheaper than my engine, upgrades, and personal time). I was driving home from diner and a dodge stratus, with a large rear wing loosely bolted on, a Japanese character of some sort on the tinted windows, and off center checkered racing stripe was exiting along with me… I’m not going to gloat about a white knuckle race… it was a high school kid and his girlfriend, and he kept staring and gesturing at me and revving his engine… and this is becoming more and more common. There is performance, finding the next store or website and buying the next coolest stick-on only to see that many others have already beat them to it (insert old navy, anything you see on mtv, Lenny simpsons figurines). The demand will remain as long as retailers continue to supply this "image".
So every time I see, accelerate quicker, or get beaten by such a conglomeration, I smile at the “cool” car for the mass cloned automaton with an identity crisis within.
, Fri, 22 Jun 2001 13:25:14, Fri, 22 Jun 2001 22:32:30, Fri, 22 Jun 2001 22:30:11, Sat, 23 Jun 2001 13:43:25
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