The revival of my old Boxsters and watches post over the course of the past few days has proven to be remarkably robust. It’s had more than a basketball arena’s worth of new readers this week and it’s been discussed around the world on a variety of automotive and watch forums. Some people agree with the style of it, some people agree with the content, some people agree with neither, and then we have the drooling moron above, whose hatred of the piece has caused him to inadvertently embody one of the biggest problems with modern online discussions.
RAJEN says that the article is
* poorly written
* hyperbolic
* totally inaccurate
He also states that at some point I was probably “fisted” by a Russian wearing a Big Bang watch. Allow me to address the last point first. I live in Ohio. We don’t really have Russians with expensive watches here. While it’s true that I was in Las Vegas lately, and enjoyed a “panorama suite” at Vdara about which I cannot say enough positive things, I didn’t pull a Denzel-in-Training-Day with any Russians, watch-wearers or not. Furthermore, while I am aware that many sex-positive people of both genders enjoy a solid hand up the ol’ batty, I am not that adventurous. My idea of “getting kinky” is leaving a nightlight on in the next room.
With that settled, perhaps to no one’s satisfaction, let’s take a look at RAJEN’s other assertions. Is my article poorly written? You know, it might be. It was a first draft done in a hurry, not an Updike book in its final revision. I make no claims for the excellence of the article. How about hyperbolic? I think the paragraph which is most susceptible to that criticism would be this:
Modern Porsches, just like the Hublot Big Bangs and their ilk, are ephemeral. Fleeting. Fake. Faux. Luxury. Junk. The pleasure of purchase is all you get. After that it’s a full-tilt rush to buy the next thing. Their Eloi owners won’t think about the Morlocks who own, maintain, race, and enjoy old Porsches. We don’t exist to them. They are simply chasing the next brightest thing. An unfixable watch, worn to a meaningless meeting and left in a disposable “luxury” car. We know it’s luxury because they tell us so, with every press release, with every five-star hotel used for the first drive, with every Chinese-sewn-junk branded polo shirt left on the hotel bed.
I’m willing to take half a point on that, you know, but I feel compelled to point out that by modern blogging standards it’s a masterpiece of understatement. Over at TTAC, we just published a piece by Doug DeMuro entitled “This Is the Most Annoying Button in the History of Time”. The button in question, the most annoying button in the history of time:
* controls fresh air venting
* is actually a knurled wheel
Yet this article was just as popular over the course of a single day as my labored investigation into the meaning of disposable luxury. If you use Mr. DeMuro’s article as a standard for popular hyperbole, you have to admit that what I wrote doesn’t register on the scale. Yet I’d suggest that “hyperbolic” is not something you can measure directly; it has no precise meaning. I cannot prove a lack of hyperbole in anything besides a straight technical or mathematical document. So, as previously noted, half a point. If RAJEN had stopped there, I think he’d be on relatively solid ground.
However, he did not stop there. What about his third claim: that what I wrote was totally inaccurate? There are two central assertions of the article:
* the procedure for adding power steering fluid to a Boxster
* the assertion that the Hublot Big Bang uses the same mechanical innards as a $500 Hamilton Jazzmaster
So here’s a video of the Boxster procedure. Note that the Boxster in the video does not have the Bose subwoofer system and thus skips five of my listed steps. However, you cannot argue that what I wrote was not accurate and factually correct. My procedure, as described, precisely matches what you see in the video.
How about my assertion about the Hublot and the Jazzmaster? Here’s one of many Jazzmaster models with the ETA 2892, at a retail price of $553, more than two years after the publication of my article. Now here’s an interview with Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of Hublot, where he states that
Hublot will continue to use both the ETA 2892 and 7750 movements for a long time to come (whether made by ETA themselves or by Hublot remains to be seen) as they provide an affordable and efficient base for the company.
There’s no wiggle room there. The Hamilton Jazzmaster has the ETA 2892. It can be had for $500 (in 2012 dollars). The Hublot Big Bang has the ETA 2892. It will continue to have it.
As you can tell from the fact that I’ve devoted eight hundred words’ worth of my own unpaid time to this subject, I’m pissed off by RAJEN’s comment. Not so much because it’s targeted at me — there are far worse things said about me on the Internet every day of the week — but because it was sloppy and stupid. He was on solid ground when he said the article was poorly written; that’s a matter of opinion. He was on solid ground when he said it was hyperbolic, because that’s also a matter of opinion. The problem was that he wasn’t satisfied in saying those two things. He had to go ahead and libel me. I mean that in the literal sense that I could bring a suit again him for libel. He alleged that what I wrote was factually inaccurate, an allegation that I have just demonstrated is false and defamatory.
This is usually where the Lawyers Of The Internet come into play — I will sue you for saying that my band sucked balls at its coffeehouse show last week! — but let’s stay in reality here. I’m not going to sue RAJEN for libel because that would be ridiculous. His assertion was refuted within the thread by other posters and he ended up walking it back, for the most part, in a follow-up comment. His statement is roughly equal to me stating on this blog that Lewis Hamilton spends his weekends orally servicing goats in the Hebrides. I have little to no ability to harm Mr. Hamilton’s business prospects or public reputation so therefore such a post would be entirely harmless. As is RAJEN’s assertion.
The problem, such as it is, has to do with the the way unintelligent people communicate on the Internet. As previously discussed, it’s extremely binary. Things are 0 (bad) or 1 (good), period, point blank. It’s Sucks And Rocks writ large. And if you think something sucks, you’re allowed to say anything and everything that means “sucks”. So while our friend may have appeared to write that my article was
* poorly written
* hyperbolic
* totally inaccurate
what was going on his mind was that the article:
* sucks
* sucks
* sucks
and he just chose three different ways of saying it. Sure, it’s equivalent to calling Kim Kardashian
* ugly
* trashy
* a white man from Indiana born in 1913
but that’s the future of criticism. We will aggressively compress the signal, lower the resolution, simplify the meaning, until we reach the level of Idiocracy. Which, if you haven’t been told yet, is a terrible, racist film. Not that there’s any proof that Idiocracy is racist — but racist just means “bad” nowadays, you know,
Let’s be honest, I think it’s more likely that Nico, rather than Lewis, is doing that.
Also, I found myself sucked into that damn BMW dial article this morning after seeing it linked from Facebook. I should quite Facebook just for that reason.
Maternal basement dwellers…
I’m not sure what’s the best way to deal with commenters that are obviously on the wrong side of the Bell Curve. We can’t really just ban them all, but they are usually unable to contribute much of value even if they were inclined to make the attempt.
Probably best to post an article like Doug’s and hope they keep each other busy there.
Don’t go to any Gawker websites then. But the “writers” are just as bad though.
ugh. all the time I feel sorry for the Jalopnik crew (and to a lesser extent, Gizmodo) that they have to be part of the Gawker shitpile.
Orlove and Torchinsky are nice guys but the money would have to be very serious for me to consider working there.
I think you’re a little to intellectual to write for them. It’s 100% a compliment.
Will, thanks for the kind words.
Torchinsky and I have similar interests and we’ve written about the same topics. We’ve exchanged emails a bunch of times but only recently met face to face for the first time at the Chicago show this year when he noticed my name tag and greeted me. I thought he was in his 20s, because he has a young child, but he’s actually the oldest guy on their staff, about Jack’s age.
In another comment to this post I mentioned P.J. O’Rourke after someone else brought up Dave Barry. I think that Torchinsky understands when to be serious and when to be a class clown. He can also draw and do graphic stuff, which is a nice skill to have as a writer.
I do like some of the stuff Torch posts late at night. sometimes you want to ask exactly what he’s been drinking.
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I think my favorite part about expensive watches and much like Porsche is the repair bills; many customers of luxury watches always have sticker shock when they get dollar amounts. Much like Porsche, they’re expensive to maintain and not really worth it.
Side note: Franck Muller has a watch that has 32 complications (most for a watch) and a movement that supposedly moves every 200 years. Not sure if it works, but that’s a suckers proposal if I’ve ever seen one.
Side note 2: Many luxury watches (including Jaeger, Corum, Piaget) have parts made in China, then assembled in Switzerland so Porsche isn’t that bad, yet.
I give DeMuro credit.
The guy drives around in Hummers/Ferraris/Range Rovers/CTS-Vs, didn’t know that the G20 wasn’t a Sentra, crushes cars low-income people drive for fun, rips on tons of different owner groups, and generally comes off like an elitist dicksmack. Still, he somehow manages to play a lovable goofball role and when he writes anything the readers at the places he gets published lap it up.
The last thing he wrote on TTAC was so forced I’m surprised that Jezebel and Slate didn’t feel the need to write an article condemning it but it still got like 300 comments.
Whatever he’s doing it seems to be successful.
I honestly have no idea why people read him. However, I’m glad he’s back at TTAC because the traffic he provides gives Derek room to put useful articles up.
I feel this sentiment. And for a guy who’s just a writer, not sure how he affords all these cars.
It’s obvious there’s a market and an audience for Doug’s work. People read his stuff and he has a knack for eliciting comments. If you own a retail store, you don’t have to personally love all the products on your shelves to recognize that you can make money selling them to people who do. The same is true with publishing. DDM gets the clicks. It’s not to my personal taste, but if you’re in the publishing biz you can’t ignore what people like.
There’s a place for humor in writing about cars, P.J. O’Rourke has done it well. Dave Barry is mentioned below, the thing that he and O’Rourke get is that you can use humor to discuss important topics, so there’s often something of substance in their writing. Doug needs to learn that you don’t have to be funny all of the time and that changing things up so it doesn’t always have the rhythm and patter of a stand up routine isn’t a bad thing.
Still, you can’t dispute his success.
A while ago there was an article on cracked.com about how to get published. Not that I have any interest in being a writer but it is always interesting to me to see the inner workings of an industry. One of the suggestions was that if you wanted to get published anywere, be it the New Yorker, or, well, cracked, you should read the stuff they publish. In general a publication has a style, not just a style manual. Doug’s style always seemed very unsuited to TTAC. It doesn’t even fit with Jalopnik very well. It seems more like a throwback to an 80s era dead-tree mag that I wouldn’t read or like the terrible unfunny things that John Davis would say.
his style is very reminiscent of Dave Barry.
I think the difference was that Dave Barry was forthright about making his stories up.
It’s impossible for me to get through a DDM article. The format is the same every paragraph:
(untrue humblebrag) + (misunderstanding something) + (hyperbolic statement #1) + (hyperbolic statement #2) + (some bizarre extension of #1 or #2)
no he wasn’t. He clearly stated multiple times “I am not making this up.”
😉
I don’t really see the appeal of most of his writing either, but you can’t deny he has a genuine talent for connecting with his readers. It’s fluff, but even serious news magazines include lighter stuff as part of the mix and obviously some people really enjoy his writing.
I may come off sounding like a whiny little beeyotch, but I should point out that mid-engined cars are always somewhat difficult to service. It was true 25 years ago when I owned a Fiat X1/9, and it’s still true today regarding my Boxster. Moreover, my 2000 Boxster S has required exactly zero added P/S fluid in the 5 years and 20k miles of my ownership. A bigger gripe is that accessing the engine’s air filter is just as much work as the p/s fluid top-up! You could argue that the relative difficulty of service screens out those who are not sharp or methodical enough to maintain the car. I suppose that the serviceability limitations are the price paid for the clever packaging of the Z-fold convertible top stack over the engine access panel.
Porsche solved that problem by moving the engine from midship to the rear of the car, where it belongs.
Yeah, putting the top on top of the engine made the Boxster a lot bigger inside than the 914 but it does mean that every single procedure starts with removing the top connectors.
I don’t see why those top connectors aren’t as durable as, say, the rear bonnet latch on a 911, because you’re going to use them just as often.
?? You own a car you like so little that in 5 years it only racks up 20,000 miles ? .
Time to sell that thing and get one you enjoy driving .
Jack , keep up he good works .
-Nate
Yeah, I should drive the Boxster more. There are a couple of annoying things wrong with it which I would correct if I wasn’t spending my fix-it time on the Chumpcar neon. The Boxster isn’t my only car, though. I’ve had a basically free company car for most of that time period, working for Chrysler, then Land Rover and now Subaru.
In fairness to your orginal TTAC article, hasn’t TTAC become more popular in the last few years? In 2012 there would have been less readers and commenters, no?
I enjoyed your Porsche story from a couple days ago. I’m suprised no one (at least when I last checked) made the leap from that story to your luxury watch one. Its an interesting comparison. What makes something valuable? It it were only quality, function, durability (and the cost to produce) diamonds and old P-cars would be worthless!
Value is determined only when trade takes place so it’s impossible to say what an item’s value is until it changes hands and even then it only applies to that particular buyer. Since humans ascribe value to many things beyond objective quality, function and durability, for example, style, those objective metrics aren’t all that goes into purchase prices. A hand-sewn suit will never have seams as straight as my computerized embroidery machine can make, but some people value the human touch.
Some people are drawn to excellence: Brilliant people, exceptional things, high concept art, music and literature. And the vast majority of people in this world are not. Their consumption of goods, ideas, and culture are mass-produced grist for the mill of our throw-away society.
So when the former discusses or describes brilliance, and those thoughts fall upon the ears or eyes of the latter, there is disconnect. Distrust. Envy. And eventually, dismissal.
How can the uninitiated join the conversation of what constitutes a fine timepiece if they’ve never been exposed to one? Studied it? Admired it? Compared it to others? Done a cost analysis?
What would the person who hasn’t changed the oil in his 10-year-old Corolla in two years have to say about commentary regarding the complexity of Porsche maintenance?
Where do you begin to have a meaningful discussion about musical instruments hand-made by master luthiers versus those stamped out in China with the person who couldn’t tell you the difference between the string nut and a pick-up?
When referencing literature, great authors, musicians and artists in a piece that is read by an unread, Miranda Lambert consuming majority, how long does it take for the disconnect between author and reader to happen?
The uninitiated, uneducated can only respond with what they know in these instances: suck, suck, suck. (I need to tear this down because I do not understand it.)
Which is why a low-brow piece criticizing a button in a premium automobile is met with the crowds cheering huzzah, and a high-concept piece considering what constitutes real value and quality in the vein of Robert Pirsig receives ignorant obscenities.
So when the trolls flame with suck, suck, suck, you know you’re doing it right. And you’re doing it right.
Where do you begin to have a meaningful discussion about musical instruments hand-made by master luthiers versus those stamped out in China with the person who couldn’t tell you the difference between the string nut and a pick-up?
Talking strictly about playability as a musical instrument, a CNC router doesn’t care if it’s Guangzhou or Fullerton as long as the operator knows when to press the big red button and the technician knows how to adjust it when the big red button is pressed. Then it’s question of how well the guitar is assembled, what the quality of the hardware and components is, and perhaps most importantly, how well it’s set up. I showed John Dajos, a professional luthier who has a shop in suburban Detroit, a First Act guitar that I bought off of Craigslist for $35 and asked him if I had him do a standard $40 setup plus another $100 worth of his labor on the neck and frets if most professional guitar players could tell, blindfolded, that it was a Walmart guitar and he said no.
BTW, concerning guitars stamped out in China, I actually have a small collection of Switch Vibracell guitars, which were indeed molded out of polyurethane foam in China. The first thing that Jack said to me when he played one was if I wanted to sell it and he did eventually buy my Switch Stealth Oscar.
Now, if we’re talking about beautiful pieces of human craftmanship, particularly those made from wood, well that’s a different topic.
Rajen is undermining his own point, by suggesting that the Big Bang is the preferred horological instrument of moderately successful, sexually deviant Russians. I have no doubt that it is an aspirational watch for a tribal tatted, M3 driving mid-level Russian Mobster, as well as the European footballer, or very late to the party, the Australian Cricket Captain, who is the ambassador and wearer of perhaps the ugliest BB variant of all, the:-
http://www.hublot.com/en/originals/michael-clarke
Last month whilst in the security screening line up at the airport, a mid fifties, sloppily presented man in a Chinese corporate giveaway polo shirt was acting the big short taking off his Big Bang and exaggeratedly waving it around to go through the X-ray scanner. I made a snigger about how I have never had a watch set a scanner off, but after all I would never wear a Big Bang. My comment was misconstrued as interest or jealousy. I had to clarify with the wearer ” I always wondered if anyone in Australia was stupid enough to buy one of those things, you have made my morning by confirming that there is”.
“Rajen” is obviously an ignorant douche bag.
If I wrote as many widely published articles as you, Jack, I would drive myself insane if I didn’t have a hard & fast rule to not bother paying attention nor responding to idiots such as him; there are so many such people in the world that it sucks the energy, life & spirit out of one’s productive soul to try to do so.
Learn to treat such rubbish with the absence of any attention whatsoever it so dearly warrants.