Are there really so few car enthusiasts on this site? This sub seems to have such little traffic. What gives?
Coming from Reddit, there were multiple car-related subs and they all saw some fairly heavy traffic with lots of posts and comments. Heck, even some of the model-specific ones seem to get more interaction than this sub does. What’s the deal?
Well Lemmy is still mostly populated by left leaning tech enthusiasts and for people like this, cars are just a tool or even something that should be banned at all cost.
If I had more time and money I’d be into it more too. The real problem is reddit is more popular. I remember when something with hit 1k up votes and I was blown away. Now it’s significantly more. Lemmy is kinda like that right now.
Overlap between Republicans and c/fuckcars might be minimal, but overlap between car enthusiasts and c/fuckcars is surprisingly large. It turns out that a bunch of folks who love the machines and the driving and the car culture are, in fact, capable of understanding that those experiences can get diminished when you force a bunch of normies to do it and clog up the roads.
Besides, in my case at least, the fact that I can use my bicycle to get around town means that all my cars can be project cars, instead of having to own something boring and reliable.
I love my summer car, working on it, driving it down back roads, taking it to autocross and lapping days, but if I never have to drive in stop & go traffic when I’m running late ever again, I’d never complain.
Bit harsh your opinion touched a nerve apparently to get downvoted. I think you expressed yourself politely and sincerely and you may also be right. Reddit had years to cultivate subs by and for people who are not terminally online, and those are the people who will be slowest to adopt complicated fediverse tech.
i’ll be honest, you’re not wrong. cars are fucking lame. My dad was a mechanic, but over the years I discovered that I REALLY hate cars. Buying a car carries all the thrill and excitement of buying a used refrigerator. I do not understand the appeal or why people fetishize them like they do. they’re too expensive, they make our cities suck, and the people that want the “cool car” are always the worst kind of douchebag. I just don’t get it I guess.
Generally the excitement comes from the anticipation of having a thing that you really want. Since I only buy cars out of necessity, and I don’t enjoy driving or owning them, It get’s really hard to look forward to it with anything other than dread. If I didn’t have to drive places occasionally I’d roll that thing into a lake and let the fish make their homes inside.
Very good observation. I think it’s really true to some extent as early adopters of Lemmy are seemingly interested Linux, programming, memes and activities.
Automobile enthusiasts are just arriving from Reddit. I was into tanks, rare planes and things like that, for which there just isn’t any community right now.
Same, it seems that A LOT of peeps are still on r/cars nowadays. I feel like most active posters haven’t made the switch to Lemmy yet for various reasons.
It could take a while to develop, on Mastodon it took about 2-3 years before folk started tooting about cars (now there is quite a lot of traffic). Also this sub seems quite US-centric, us Europeans see all your big trucks and muscle cars and think nobody will be interested in the superminis most folk drive round here, and a lot of people keep their cars stock as mods are expensive due to extra insurance costs!
I drive a modest VW Polo 6C myself (this is like 90% of a Golf, just slightly smaller) and am quite into detailing, I’d post up more pics but it keeps pissing down here in England at the moment (whilst rest of Europe is roasted by sun so there are often hosepipe bans!)
I tried figuring out what exactly Mastodon was once and quickly lost interest when I couldn’t find a simple answer. Regardless, you’d be surprised what we are into. Just because larger vehicles tend to be popular here, that doesn’t mean lots of folks don’t like smaller cars too. I like both. I got an old '64 Buick and considered many of times to buy a small Japanese Kei truck (can’t get much smaller than that), but when you lookat what they cost, and parts availability, you can honestly do a lot better with a larger domestic truck for hauling stuff.
Sometimes it’s simply because we don’t have them here that makes people into them. Parts and the knowledge-base to keep them running is sometimes tough.
Please post your superminis! I love seeing kei cars around town when I do. I saw a Toyota HiAce last week and started gushing over it to my wife.
It’s true many Americans prefer larger cars, but some of us out here have a genuine appreciation for smaller cars. My '97 Prelude makes my 9th gen FB Civic feel like a truck after I’ve been driving it for a minute.
This problem isn’t exclusive to just c/cars, r/cars (on Reddit) have always been very American-centric since forever. Looks like things won’t be changing here unfortunately.
I’ve always just used car specific forums for car stuff. Though I gotta say the newer my cars get the shittier the forums are. Like damn man you put a K&N filter in it? That’s some CrAzY mods bro
Can always start a flame war about oil that’ll get some clicks
I think Facebook killed forums. With rare exception, they’re all a ghost town. I’m excited about the idea of the fediverse, and the threadiverse specifically, bringing back forums. I think we should work toward that goal.
Though I gotta say the newer my cars get the shittier the forums are.
My theory is that the older a car gets, the percentage of owners who are enthusiasts increases. Some new cars get bought by enthusiasts, but a lot get bought by folks who want something new/fast/high-tech/whatever, but don’t actually care that much and are happy to use it until it’s no longer the new hotness and then get rid of it. In contrast, folks who own old cars (and join forums about them) are doing so because they really like that particular car for whatever reason.
Personally I find automotive news to be more interesting than any one specific model. Upcoming releases, especially ones within the realm of possibility for mere mortals, or industry trends and sales figures are just the kind of stuff I get interested in.
I love cars, especially the old restored ones, or reading about people tinkering and troubleshooting. But I subscribe to fuckcars because I fucken hate literal vans being used in my city and clogging up the streets designed for less and smaller traffic. Those Chelsea tractors, as they call them in the UK can fuck right off. Fine em, tax em, whatever you need to do, sabotage their tyres, whatever. Fuck em.
I see cars as tools. I’m a fuckcars person because I believe cities should not be built to appease roads and cars. Though I do find old cars cool and fascinating, I just want good people-friendly infrastructure in the world.
Believe it or not, some of us “fuck cars” people are also car enthusiasts.
It’s kind of like how there are a bunch of people who like riding horses, but probably wouldn’t want them to be everybody’s primary mode of transportation.
c/cars might be tiny in comparison to r/cars but imo post quality here is a lot better, and Lemmy in general seems to attract tech users more than car guys from what I’ve seen.
It’s also a good thing that on this platform, there’s no teenagers commenting stuff like “are you a Honda salesman 😭😭😭” or “are you 40 💀” just because you buy a practical family car instead of that WRX STI.
Post about your car. Or the cars your interested in. Or upcoming models. Or ask questions. Anything really. One question can start a whole stream of conversations if there are enough people around.
I honestly didn’t know there was a car community on here. I’m not necessarily sure what to share in a general car community though. A lot of the car specific discussion for my car happens on forums. Idk, I’m down to try out the community here too
It’s worse if you wrench or make cars like me. Not a deep complaint, I know why younger people jack metal less often (money, PERSISTENT SPACE, access to skills, complexity of modern cars etc) but result is, little construction and fabrication.
Sadly most of what still goes on is in boomer bigot forums, one of which id been a contributor to for 20 years, have a fuckton of docs manuals how tos parts lists etc, basically froze me out when I put on all my websites “black lives matter as much as anyone’s” and “racism is white people’s responsibility”.
Lol, I’m an out gay man and that does not exactly make me popular but I survived based on being an old timer there but the BLM thing was the final straw.
Oh man sort I ranted at y’all, won’t do that again, but it’s nice to tell someone!
I respect your opinion but I disagree with your statement “racism is white peoples responsibility”.
I’m telling you this because I hope it’ll show others that we can have different opinions and still respect each other. That’s what reddit was missing.
Thank you. (and by that phrase I mean responsible for dealing with the mess we have now; and specifically not guilty for creating it im the first place. And because were talking about only slogans, handwaving how racism unfolds today.)
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