"Drew" (midnightdori)
06/22/2015 at 23:24 • Filed to: None
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"Drew" (midnightdori)
06/22/2015 at 23:24 • Filed to: None | 3
| 8 |
YouTube has a ton of awesome content. I’m going to try to review a few channels for y’all every week or so because, well, because.
Look, I #consume a lot of #media, and at some point of watching that much #digitalcontent, you’ve got to start answering some difficult questions about what you’re doing with your life. However, if you say that you’re watching it to “review” it, well then, this life-draining hobby that prevents you from actually driving or fixing the vacuum leak that has haunted your Miata for the last 6 months suddenly becomes socially acceptable. So here it goes.
Anyway, if you’re only getting linked over to YouTube, I’d highly recommend you drop by the site itself and make yourself a few subscriptions. And I’m over here working hard to make you’re picking the right ones. Odds are you’ve seen these linked. Good for you.
Regular Car Reviews:
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
If you can, I want you to imagine a world very similar to ours - identical in every form and fashion, both physically and culturally - with one small exception: there is zero automotive media. No Car & Driver in the waiting room, no Top Gear, no Top Gear’s zombie ghost that’s coming next, no Doug DeMuro being the automotive journalist equivalent of Tom Green. This magical world experiences all the same automotive wonderment and banality that both you and I do through all the years.
That world is Pennsylvania.
I can completely understand both Mr. Regular and The Roman have created a polarizing show that I would imagine a significant percentage of car fans probably consider a swing and a miss. Folks out watching those supercar sighting videos and Twitch feeds of GTA V probably don’t meet the age or cultural exposure requirements that a couple of dark, twisted, and well-read English literature master’s degree holders have set forth with some amateur GoPro cinematography and a little help from the Jalopnik editors. And, yeah, if you’re new to the channel and don’t have a high-tolerance for the motion-sickness induced by switching from high to low brow comedy in burst-fire succession, then this isn’t going to be something high on your list.
But the writing - oh the writing - is absolutely like nothing else in the automotive world, period, bar none. It is as though someone has given two dedicated and deeply talented car enthusiasts who have been completely deprived of automotive content their entire lives a channel on YouTube and told them to do something they thought was a “car review”, a phrase entirely alien to these native Pennsylvanians. They’ve found this bizarre and delightful manner of placing even the most taupe of the automotive world in a context both from a cultural and historical standpoint to the point where the chaff of your daily commute will stand out.
The majority of all car reviews today dedicate themselves to the pretty pictures and reciting press releases verbatim with bits of hyperbole mixed in because they grew up torrenting Top Gear from the old FinalGear.com late on Sunday nights because that’s all automotive journalism in video has ever been. Mr. Regular and The Roman have flipped that model and created a series of videos that focus on the car from the perspective of owners and enthusiasts - not from a third party advertising and PR firm that haunts the field today. They find value in honest cars and imperfections. They pick up on idiosyncrasies that develop after a hundred thousand miles, not after a quick jaunt around the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula in an all-expenses-paid press event.
Being able to identify the Catera as “Cadillac’s Chris Gaines album” or the Dodge Nitro as “an entry-level SUV for entry-level masculinity” is what separates these guys from the rest of their peers. The all-access, “we’re really, *really* new to this whole journalism thing” exposure to their fans (despite retaining anonymity) is just icing on the cake. This channel pushes the current boundary of superficial automotive reviews into a new place. In a post-Clarkson era, the land of sublime cinematography and quips to reinforce nationalistic stereotypes about cars looks vulnerable to something a bit more thoughtful - even if that’s not your thing. Go ahead and take a look. It’s a new world.
Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
> Drew
06/22/2015 at 23:34 |
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RCR has to be one of the best channels on YouTube. Proof that you don't need millions of subscribers to produce entertaining content.
Wobbles the Mind
> Drew
06/22/2015 at 23:39 |
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Personal favorites are the 95 Miata and E30 reviews. I can remember how genuinely excited I was with the Lotus video dropping around Christmas. Those were the days
jawn
> Drew
06/22/2015 at 23:52 |
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The AE86 episode is one of my favorites.
Hot Takes Salesman
> Drew
06/23/2015 at 00:21 |
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I went to the New York Auto Show with my dad and found the difference between two car guys. My dad asked me,”Where are Mclarens made?” And I asked the Mclaren spokesman/display guy/whateverthehell, “Where is the Mclaren Technology Centre?”
Fun fact- he told us that the MTC is right outside of London. Dammit, we were just there last year on vacation
x87172
> Drew
06/23/2015 at 00:40 |
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No! Damn it, the last thing I need are more ways to spend my time on the Internet!
The only 2 car-related channels I regularly watch are RCR and Petrolicious, and I’ve already killed far too many hours and GBs of data that way.
Anyway, great post. Loved re-watching the NSX video.
Anon
> x87172
06/23/2015 at 01:48 |
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What about roadkill?
Tapas
> Drew
06/23/2015 at 10:30 |
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Damn...good luck on exploring an unexplored niche there - reviewing car review channels.
Here’s one of my favorites:
http://sniffpetrol.com/2015/01/30/new…
Once you have an established blog, I will review review blog/channels that review car review blog/channels like yours. Eventually, I will get invited to the 24th season of Top Gear or on the sequel to inception (or is it?!?!??) or both!
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x87172
> Anon
06/23/2015 at 12:12 |
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Yeah, but I don’t watch it religiously like the other 2.