One Giant Metaphor
Tim Iacono over at The Mess That Greenspan Made did that rarest of things for bloggers, he actually reported a story! And what a story. He heard a rumor that his local Hummer dealer was in a panic. With year-to-year sales down about 50%, his lot was being overrun with inventory. This was scaring away customers, so he found a nearby industrial park where he could store the oversized vehicles. Thus was born the great photo metaphor of the state of 21st century America:
As Tim puts it, "Overweight, Overpriced, Inefficient, and Unloved".
P.S. Welcome Sullivanistas. Twice in one week, yikes! Feel free to stay and browse.
P.P.S. Check out this lovely site with snapshots of people giving the single digit salute to the ultimate poseur vehicle. I'd encourage everyone to submit their own.
P.P.P.S. My documentary about gay guys who play roughneck sports will be out before Xmas. Check out the pre-release web site here.
As Tim puts it, "Overweight, Overpriced, Inefficient, and Unloved".
P.S. Welcome Sullivanistas. Twice in one week, yikes! Feel free to stay and browse.
P.P.S. Check out this lovely site with snapshots of people giving the single digit salute to the ultimate poseur vehicle. I'd encourage everyone to submit their own.
P.P.P.S. My documentary about gay guys who play roughneck sports will be out before Xmas. Check out the pre-release web site here.
posted by leftcoastbreakdown.com at 4:18 PM
19 Comments:
I find ________________ to be a symbol of how bad America is! Pass it on!
I hope he bankrupts!
I think those useless hunks of metal would make a great reef somewhere!
Send them to Iraq. I hear our soldiers have to search garbage dumps for scrap metal. There's a lot of scrap metal on these hummers
Now if we could just convince people that the small, fuel-efficient car makes for a better social-status message about who you are than the hulking machismo of the Hummer...
Hate to tell you, guys, but on the strength of the smaller H3, Hummer sales were UP 129% in October.
People still want Hummers big time, they're just adjusting to conditions by buying smaller ones.
Source: www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/us_light_duty_v.html - 31k - Nov 4, 2005 -
EPIC
Trends come and go. It was inevitable. I wouldn't read too much into it.
I came here via Andrew Sullivan's link, hung around, and like it more and more that I'm here. BTW, what can I pick one of those hummers up for? I think they're a scourge, but I know a guy that bought a used Cray supercomputer on EBay and used it for a coffe table in his living room - hopefully we can do the same with hummers soon.
Bad SUV's. Ooooh they create so much evil. Send them to Babah Streisand. I heard she likes to drive around in SUV's and motor homes just to go to her appointments. You environmentalists are frauds. What makes you think you are any better.
The only thing missing is a 100, "I support our troops" magnetic ribbons to plaster on the bumper of each one.
Via Reuters:
Declines were similar at GM with October sales of models like the massive Hummer H2 SUV slipping 52 percent while the brawny Cadillac Escalade EXT fell 59 percent.
Maybe by expanding thier line from essentially one vehicle to two (they only sell a few hundred H1s every year) sales in the Hummer division are up. But they gots problems, man. Overall sales for GM and Ford are down a quarter, almost entirely due to the massive drop in full-size trucks and S.U.V.'s.
As for Barba Steisand, I live in L.A. and I have personally seen with my own eyes that bitch driving a Prius. Not that I care. I own a Dodge Ram. But I take the train to work and probably drive the thing abot 3 thousand miles a year, which gives it an environmental footprint smaller then the average commuter in a Civic. It's not hypocricy to want the vehicle you might need (and I do occasionally need a large truck) to get better fuel economy. I wish my Dodge got 100 mpg. But because it doesn't, that doesn't mean it's hypocrisy to find it silly, juvenile, and ironic that people spend seriously large bills on a Chevy pickup poorly made over into a pseudo-military piece of junk, itself meant to evoke a vehicle, the HMMWV, despised in it's current use for the number of American soldiers whose lives it's lousy engineering has cost. If I was a vet who had to roll in one of those death traps over in Iraq, I'd be flipping the bird at every poseur I saw behind the wheel.
I grew up in a conservative family, where displays of ostentatious wealth and macho posturing were considered un-Christian. Never has one vehicle so embodied whats wrong with this nation. Someday, the Hummer may be held aloft as the vehicle that killed the American automobile industry.
Oh, and the giant tax cuts you get for buying one? Obscene doesn't quite capture it.
throw the hummers down the well
so my country can be free
we must grab them by their horns
and well have a big party
Besides the obvious problem that the French would loathe giant American gas-guzzling cars for the fact that gas costs about twice as much there as it does here and especially for the symbolism of them... roads tend to be small in France. You probably could not take a Hummer on half the streets in French towns and cities. You certainly could not park it. Seems sort of symbolic right there.
Yeah. Click this thumbnail to see the bumper sticker I caught on one the other day at a bank.
Sorry. Let's try that again.
http://static.flickr.com/21/24716312_af7dd49522_m.jpg
Here in Pittsburgh we see a lot of this version of silly, feel good, bumper patriotism: Hummer/SUV sporting a 'W 04' sticker, a 'God Bless America' ribbon, a 'Support the Troops' ribbon, and (and I kid you not) and a 'Go Steelers' ribbon. Morons.
Over here in the mid-Atlantic states (as in many parts of the country), people use as many BTUs heating their houses as driving. Anyone for a Fuck Your McMansion album?
I really enjoy hummers actually. They are unique and powerful and I want a Hummer Limo one day, now that would be p.i.m.p.
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