One year ago, I wrote an article about a different kind of New Year's Resolutions, meant not for automakers, but for vehicle owners. Now, I am not going to repeat myself here, but I have seen something different that I think needs to be addressed. Someone has already faced the situation and called out some of these practices, but I think we can go even further.
I am thinking about New Year's Resolutions for car enthusiasts on the Internet. It does not matter if you own a vehicle or not, or how old you are. If you are reading this on the first or second day of 2023, you are definitely a car enthusiast. If I could, I would like to shake your hand for this, out of respect for having the same passion as me and my colleagues here.
In many cases, we happen to follow the same content creators online, especially those who are focused on vehicles. We are not only talking about the old Top Gear team, which is currently The Grand Tour trio, but also about other online personalities, usually YouTubers, who make videos about cars. As you may be aware, there is no school that turns people into professional YouTubers. Most of them are not engineers or mechanics, either.
In other words, all the people that you see on YouTube making videos have not gone to a special film school and obtained a degree in filming, editing, or both. You probably have figured this out by now, but few YouTubers have gone to film school. Just a handful have a conventional background in the field of cinema or journalism, for that matter. To be fair, it is not a must to do so before starting a channel on the popular social media outlet.
Instead, most YouTubers are trying out different concepts, and experimenting with various things. Since many of them are not journalists either, they will have a different kind of storytelling style than what you are accustomed to from reading conventional media. And that is perfectly fine, because we like variety.
Despite this, most are doing their best to make the best possible videos that they can. And making a video on YouTube is not as easy as simply pressing the record button on a camera.
Sure, you can do that as well, but it will not be as nice as you have seen in most YouTube videos. In case you have any doubt, as many people do, try filming yourself while talking about your vehicle while standing next to it. You will notice that it is not as easy as Jeremy Clarkson makes it look.
Despite the difficulty of the task, many people still think that they can play sports better than professional athletes on the field or drive better than professional racing drivers, or even be better strategists than experienced team managers, football managers, and so on.
Making important decisions on the fly, in the heat of the moment, is more difficult than it seems, and it is only human of people to make mistakes while making those decisions.
Some people will naturally make better decisions than others, while some will learn to make better decisions in time. A less fortunate group will never learn how to make quick decisions that are also correct. Those rarely win racing events, and if they do, just a few become champions of their sport that year.
Since we have covered both YouTubers, athletes, professional race car drivers, and TV personalities, you will quickly understand that attempting to drive a car on the Nürburgring while talking about what you are doing, trying to make jokes from time to time, and explaining technical differences at the same time is a complicated thing to do. Yet, there are a few YouTubers out there doing just that, and some are great at their jobs, while others are doing a decent job, nonetheless.
The problem, as Misha Charoudin noted in one of his recent videos, is that people will have opinions on what he drove, how he drove, and so on, just from watching the video. Some of those people are going to comment on the video, and those comments are not always nice or correct, for that matter.
The issue here is that most people have personal preferences, and some will express them in the comments section as absolute truth, while others will just say something mean just because they can. After all, it is the YouTube comments section, it is free to comment, and some people might agree with you, even if you are not correct.
It can go both ways, so you may be right, but other people will contradict you regardless, which is the case where a commenter gets to experience the struggles faced by someone putting their heart into a video on YouTube, and then getting “grilled” for driving too fast, too slow, or too somehow in rapport to a commenter's belief of how they should have done things.
As many have noted already, you cannot please everyone, and attempting to do so will end in never finishing anything because you cannot make everyone happy.
Instead, as a content creator who works with vehicles, your job is to state the facts as they are, explain the specs and the technical characteristics, and then put everything into context for the people at home.
It does not go as planned every time, and mistakes appear even when you are striving to eliminate errors. Sadly, this results in people spewing venom in the comments section as if the vehicle were designed and built by them, and the reviewer had just insulted them and their family.
It does not have to be that way, and all you must do is ask yourself if you are genuinely adding to the conversation while writing that comment or if you are just blowing off steam on someone who just published a video of something that is not exactly as you imagined. Are you that sure that you could have done better? What qualifies you to make such statements?
Fortunately, we are allowed to disagree on the internet, but doing so in a non-toxic manner is vital to the future of the car community, at least in its online sector.
If we cannot stop being angry behind the wheel (although we should), at least try not to infuriate others just to feel clever for a couple of moments on social media.
If the trend continues, it will only lead to a more toxic online environment, and there will be fewer people willing to make videos about the things we all like. So if there is something that you are willing to change, this costs nothing to do and has benefits for others, not just for yourself.
In many cases, we happen to follow the same content creators online, especially those who are focused on vehicles. We are not only talking about the old Top Gear team, which is currently The Grand Tour trio, but also about other online personalities, usually YouTubers, who make videos about cars. As you may be aware, there is no school that turns people into professional YouTubers. Most of them are not engineers or mechanics, either.
In other words, all the people that you see on YouTube making videos have not gone to a special film school and obtained a degree in filming, editing, or both. You probably have figured this out by now, but few YouTubers have gone to film school. Just a handful have a conventional background in the field of cinema or journalism, for that matter. To be fair, it is not a must to do so before starting a channel on the popular social media outlet.
Instead, most YouTubers are trying out different concepts, and experimenting with various things. Since many of them are not journalists either, they will have a different kind of storytelling style than what you are accustomed to from reading conventional media. And that is perfectly fine, because we like variety.
Sure, you can do that as well, but it will not be as nice as you have seen in most YouTube videos. In case you have any doubt, as many people do, try filming yourself while talking about your vehicle while standing next to it. You will notice that it is not as easy as Jeremy Clarkson makes it look.
Despite the difficulty of the task, many people still think that they can play sports better than professional athletes on the field or drive better than professional racing drivers, or even be better strategists than experienced team managers, football managers, and so on.
Making important decisions on the fly, in the heat of the moment, is more difficult than it seems, and it is only human of people to make mistakes while making those decisions.
Since we have covered both YouTubers, athletes, professional race car drivers, and TV personalities, you will quickly understand that attempting to drive a car on the Nürburgring while talking about what you are doing, trying to make jokes from time to time, and explaining technical differences at the same time is a complicated thing to do. Yet, there are a few YouTubers out there doing just that, and some are great at their jobs, while others are doing a decent job, nonetheless.
The problem, as Misha Charoudin noted in one of his recent videos, is that people will have opinions on what he drove, how he drove, and so on, just from watching the video. Some of those people are going to comment on the video, and those comments are not always nice or correct, for that matter.
The issue here is that most people have personal preferences, and some will express them in the comments section as absolute truth, while others will just say something mean just because they can. After all, it is the YouTube comments section, it is free to comment, and some people might agree with you, even if you are not correct.
As many have noted already, you cannot please everyone, and attempting to do so will end in never finishing anything because you cannot make everyone happy.
Instead, as a content creator who works with vehicles, your job is to state the facts as they are, explain the specs and the technical characteristics, and then put everything into context for the people at home.
It does not go as planned every time, and mistakes appear even when you are striving to eliminate errors. Sadly, this results in people spewing venom in the comments section as if the vehicle were designed and built by them, and the reviewer had just insulted them and their family.
Fortunately, we are allowed to disagree on the internet, but doing so in a non-toxic manner is vital to the future of the car community, at least in its online sector.
If we cannot stop being angry behind the wheel (although we should), at least try not to infuriate others just to feel clever for a couple of moments on social media.
If the trend continues, it will only lead to a more toxic online environment, and there will be fewer people willing to make videos about the things we all like. So if there is something that you are willing to change, this costs nothing to do and has benefits for others, not just for yourself.