HT: Car 22
I miss forums.
I miss deciding—FOR MYSELF—what I would like to see.
I miss multi-page, threaded discussions diving deep into those things.
You click a thread about 6th generation Mitsubishi Galant intake manifold variants and, a dozen pages later, you’re talking thermodynamics and physics as and—holy shit—why didn’t anyone tell you math could be this freaking interesting?
I miss getting to know other people—even if only as crude screen names.
The problem with forums is they’re traditionally too specific—which is ironic, considering how much of the web seems to be self-selecting into ultra-niche echo chambers.
Speaking from an automotive perspective, I think we’re all finding ourselves interested in more than just platform specific tech or location specific ideas. Just because we’re gearheads doesn’t mean we ONLY want to talk about cars—at least, not specific makes and models, anyway.
A 23-year Mitsubishi enthusiast, I love my Montero—but I have pretty much ZERO interest in rock crawling. And yet, day-in, day-out, what kind of Montero stuff do I see in my stream?
Rookie maneuvers all day, everyday. What size tires fit? Should I buy this obviously neglected POS for $500? What cheap, knockoff parts can I thoughtlessly throw at this routine maintenance issue without actually addressing the root cause?
Ugh. Do not care. At all.
And who’s asking? Used to be I recognized the names in my Facebook feed as people from this forum or that. Nowadays, not so much. The names and faces ebb and flow, with many seemingly only connecting because, once upon a time, I said something clever in one of those disposable Facebook discussions and now we’re connected or something.
We don’t need another Montero forum. We don’t need another rally forum.
But I say we need a forum. We need a place where people like us can talk about things across the spectrum of our interests. We need a place where gearheads can organize all the different topics that matter to us—and get to know others who share those interests.
Let’s talk cars. Let’s talk tech. Let’s talk business and finance and hedging our bets so we’re better able to weather the ups and downs of life coming our way. Let’s build a place where we can get back to our roots of exploring ideas that matter, learning new, interesting things, and building high performance machines and lives…
Like we used to do on forums.
It’s a crazy idea. I know. But we’re doing it.
This month, too.
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