Latest / Never Post / Posting From the American Car [Archive Pull]

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Posting From the American Car [Archive Pull] · Never Post

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Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
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podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
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Rugnetta. And in this archive poll episode, we revisit episode
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seven of Never Post from April 2024 in my segment, the American
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car, about how the automobile became one of the default
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filming locations for short form vertical video. Question I pose
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at the end of the segment, I think, remains mostly open. What
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development is in store for the car as a filming location?
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Will more people engage in more extreme personalization, or will
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we move on from the car as we did, at least in some senses,
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from the bedroom? And if we do move on, what location is next?
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One half answer that I have, at least, is that we have, I think,
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moved on slightly from the car, and the new filming location
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that has replaced it or augmented it is everywhere. I
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think below the technical conveniences of the car's
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privacy as a filming location, it also generally protects
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against something not really discussed in the segment,
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embarrassment. There is or maybe was at this point, a kind of low
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level mortification inherent to filming in public, to being seen
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in your desire to be seen on the sidewalk, in the restaurant, at
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the grocery store, in the gym, and so on.
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As the practice of creating short form vertical video has
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normalized for all sorts of reasons, it has maybe ironically
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become less cringe to film yourself wherever you happen to
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be with technology racing to meet this willingness in things
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like wireless battery powered Bluetooth microphones and camera
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glasses. All this is to say nothing of the age at which one
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desires to make short form video, the age where one can get
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or reasonably needs a car, and the, I think, probably
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increasing gap between those two numbers. So does the moving
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outside of short form video spell the death of the car as a
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filming location? I don't think so. Just this week, I saw a
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newscaster reporting on the cyclosporiasis parasite outbreak
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in The US with a lot full of freshly purchased veggies in the
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passenger seat of her car.
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A few days ago, I'm sitting in my car like I am now. It's 04:30
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in the afternoon. I've arrived early to our daughter's daycare
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for pickup. I have fifteen minutes to kill, the most
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unshapely amount of time. Neither a fleeting ten nor a
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productive twenty.
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Fifteen is the perfect interval to simply lose. So I open
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TikTok. Fried Indian Before long, I'm watching a man in a
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slightly too large lilac dress shirt and matching striped
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necktie. He's in his mid twenties, I'd wager with brown
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hair and a thin beard. It's a food review with all the gusto
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and overstatement one expects from short form social video
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about eating.
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This
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Speaker 2: is the peak of my life right here.
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Mike Rugnetta: He says, of the butter chicken coated naan that
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he's folding into his mouth. He moves on to spoonfuls of rice
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slathered with the same. The curry oozing out of Take our
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whole bean a fountain
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Speaker 2: come to my
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Mike Rugnetta: like you might see on the dessert table of an
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office function, burbling chocolate to be drizzled on
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strawberries pre poked with toothpicks. The appliance is two
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feet tall ish, a gurgling spout on top and two plastic domes
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with a recirculating reservoir below.
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Speaker 2: But you know what? It adds flavor. Maybe next time
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I'll dip
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Mike Rugnetta: He tilts an aluminum container of rice,
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squeezing it under the lowest dome. And I notice he's managed
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to avoid getting any of this on his shirt and tie. Miraculous
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given that this whole scene has played out in the driver's seat
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of his car. I think that cars today are almost the exact
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equivalent of the great gothic cathedrals, Roland Barthes
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writes in the opening line of his 1957 essay, The New Citroen.
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I mean, the supreme creation of an era, he continues.
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Conceived with passion by unknown artists and consumed in
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image, if not in usage, by a whole population which
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appropriates them as a purely magical object. Barth was
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writing about the Citroen DS 19, designed by a sculptor and an
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aeronautical engineer, considered one of the more
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beautiful vehicles ever manufactured and a significant
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milestone in the mechanical development of the automobile in
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the twentieth century. But Barth may as well have been writing
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about Luke Food's car, the one with the butter chicken fountain
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in it, which appears to be an undercover green Kia Soul. The
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car is a magical object in that it is unbelievable even when
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directly beheld. Like a magic trick, endless effort is
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expended in some out of sight place to make the work done in
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public seem as impossible as it is also inevitable.
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A lady cannot be sewn in half and that the image is so well
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known, it practically defines the performance of magic. We
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assent to its contradiction. A pickup truck cannot be angry,
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but yet we've all been in suburban grocery store parking
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lots on a Saturday afternoon staring down these embarrassing
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behemoths. This is what Bart means when he says cars are
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consumed in image and usage. They're machines which serve a
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purpose, but they're also maybe more so symbols which signify
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things about themselves and so then more significantly, about
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the people who drive them.
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The first time I noticed the car was David After Dentist in 2009,
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in which David DeVore junior, having had anesthesia to remove
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an extra tooth, asks his father filming on a flip cam. Is this
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real life?
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Speaker 2: Yeah. This is real life.
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Mike Rugnetta: He's seven years old in the video and buckled
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into the back seat of some stationary vehicle. The large
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rear window frames blown out trees in the afternoon light.
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The black leather of the car looks new. When David screams
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Speaker 2: Stay in your seat.
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Mike Rugnetta: And slumps explaining that he doesn't feel
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tired. I don't feel tired.
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Speaker 2: You don't?
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Mike Rugnetta: No? The deadened sound of the car interior is
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unmistakable and evocative. This video needs the car. David is
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enclosed, protected, in transit, between states. The car is in
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public yet its own kind of private space where his father
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films this first surgery for the benefit of his mother before he
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uploads the video to YouTube for the rest of the family, not
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realizing there's an option to make the video, like the car
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itself, private.
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The intertwining of social media and the automobile makes some
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sense. The web remade a world only recently remade by cars.
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Both are used to navigate infrastructure which is now
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integral to mandatory for in many ways, contemporary life.
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The car was the engine of early travel vlogs. It was the safe
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space of cap wearing, sunglass clad, tough guy conspiracy
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theorists.
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It remains the thrumming heart of van life and alongside the
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bathroom, it's become a default setting for short form vertical
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video.
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Speaker 2: Just you know mean? Because here's the deal. Right?
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Come here. In the great words of little John, what?
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Mike Rugnetta: It's four thirty eight in the afternoon. I
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continue to scroll. And not long after Luke Foods, I arrive at
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Taco Reacts, known mostly for reaction videos. He shows a clip
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of someone else's content before inserting his own commentary.
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Speaker 3: The last time you saw someone with an Audi?
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Speaker 4: Early two thousands, It's been a while.
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Speaker 2: It it it it depends because the neighbors got one
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that he drives every day unless you're talking about the other
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one and then in that case, you're damn right.
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Mike Rugnetta: He's a bearded white guy seated almost always
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in a four door Ford f one fifty pickup. Out of the rear windows
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of his truck, you may see a house across a suburban street,
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a parking lot, a tree line. We often join him for lunch as he
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unwraps fast food packages. The interior roof of the truck
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features a growing number of morale patches. The easiest of
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which to make out is for Montana Knife Co.
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There's also a polar bear and what looks like a fighter jet.
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Taco, known elsewhere as Paul b, for whom Taco is a kind of
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character. Taco looks like a Ford f one fifty owner insofar
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as such a thing has a look. His beard is long, dark, and
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manicured. He wears a structured baseball cap with an elk on it
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and an arrowhead necklace and sometimes reflective sunglasses.
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In the back seat of his truck, you can occasionally see arrows
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with their bright fletching. Scrolling through Taco's videos,
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reacting to a woman holding a snake, reacting to someone
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smashing a camera lens, a man saying he wouldn't allow his
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wife to go to the club, a cat eating a french fry, I find
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myself surprised. Taco seems non confrontationally accepting is
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maybe one way to put it. He looks confused and dismayed at
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the guy saying he won't let his wife go to the club, but he
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remains silent, like he doesn't wanna cause trouble. Elsewhere,
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he quips with classic millennial affliction about D and D and
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Harry Potter.
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Are these the reactions of a Ford f one fifty owner? One with
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a baseball cap and reflective sunglasses? What do I think the
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reactions of a Ford f one fifty owner should be?
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Speaker 2: As a representative of to boop or not to boop, boop
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the fuck out of that thing. Give it all the love in the world.
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Make sure nothing can ever harm it. Ever. Ever.
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Mike Rugnetta: In 2014, writer and programmer Paul Ford wrote
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The American Room, an essay chronicling the background
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environments of YouTube videos. The first time I noticed the
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room, he writes in the opening line of his essay, was in the
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Pneuma Pneuma video of 2004, circulated pre YouTube in which
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a New Jersey man named Gary Brolzma danced in his chair to a
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Moldovan pop song called Dragosta Dinte. Ford notes the
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sameness of the rooms depicted in many YouTube videos. Their
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emptiness, their off white color, their size, large. The
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rooms look the way they do for a few reasons.
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First, he explains, because of standards. Sheet rock is cut in
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certain sizes. Certain house plans are easier to come by,
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which are themselves easier to come by than skilled labor to
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build them. The rooms are empty, he suggests, simply because such
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large rooms are difficult, meaning expensive, to fill with
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art, knickknacks, furniture. Quote, you could judge those
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rooms and say that America has a paucity of visual imagination,
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that we live in a kind of wasteland.
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Or you could draw another conclusion and note that America
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might be a little more broke than it wants to show, end
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quote. And so the empty American room emerges and inside it, the
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viral YouTube star. The American room has lost its primacy in the
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last decade. First, because the frequency of sudden and
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unexpected viral mega hits.
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Speaker 2: The
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Mike Rugnetta: one off video produced ad hoc like Pneumonuma
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and without a manicured background.
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Speaker 4: Hi, guys. So this is my first video blog.
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Mike Rugnetta: Has waned. YouTube is now known for its
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creators.
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Speaker 2: Once again, behind me are a 100 people.
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Mike Rugnetta: Professionals who seek notoriety and influence
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repeatedly on purpose. YouTube videos are no longer posts.
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They're weightier than that and with that weight, they exhibit
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increasingly TV like production, makeup, lighting, sets. On
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television shows, the characters rooms are filled with art,
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knickknacks, ephemera and signifiers, Ford writes.
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Continuing, think of the rooms in the Big Bang Theory, constant
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visual stimulus.
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Always something for the eye to do. YouTube audiences too need
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something for their eyes to do now. If not a full set, at the
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very least, a shelf with some stuff on it. The beige wall just
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doesn't cut it anymore. The American room has fallen from
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favor, thanks also to the ascendancy of the mobile phone
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and a locale even more suited for casual video production.
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The car is a natural setting for social video, less so for
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podcasts. Not only do its qualities obviate the need for
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additional production equipment, you couldn't fit most of it in a
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car anyway. Neither could you fit a bookshelf of Funko Pops,
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your sword collection, or a grid of old LP sleeves. It's a
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filming locale that excuses and addresses the stress of bare
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beige walls of producing constant visual stimulus. The
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American room is stationary, but the American car is action,
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movement, motion.
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Even while parked, it's always in media race going, arriving,
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like David after Dentist between states, and so always already a
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place of excitement and progress before the action even begins.
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It's also no less a personal space. Jean Baudrillard in the
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system of objects called the car an eccentric relative to the
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household. In the new Citroen, Bart notes that car interiors
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were becoming increasingly homely, abandoning the
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mechanoscientific design language suggesting a quote, the
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alchemy of speed for a more domestic feel. Quote, more like
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the working surface of a modern kitchen than the control room of
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a factory.
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The car, Baudrillard writes, makes it possible to be
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simultaneously at home and further away from home. A lot of
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people make videos in their car, but I think principally of the
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videos I see of mostly women screaming.
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Speaker 5: Do you ever just
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Mike Rugnetta: And crying inside of them. Sometimes ironically.
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Sometimes it's hard to tell. Often, hold a large beverage.
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Speaker 5: This is my Starbucks drink today. I don't know if you
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guys have tried this.
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Mike Rugnetta: This is a media type of such specificity. You
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might bulk at the idea that it comprises a genre until you hear
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Evelyn from the Internets ask
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Speaker 5: If you don't have an automobile, where do you scream?
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Like, where do you just let the proverbial chopper sing?
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Because, baby, within these walls, in this Toyota, in my
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Corolla, oh, I don't play. I gets down.
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Mike Rugnetta: A projectile and a domicile is how Baudrillard
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describes the automobile. The car too is an abode, he writes,
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but an exceptional one. A closed realm of intimacy, but one
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released from the constraints that usually apply to the
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intimacy of the home. In some ways, for some people, the car
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is more home than home. My fifteen minutes are nearly up.
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I land on Shannon Blake. One of Blake's videos has been going
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around lately. She's seated in a car with a white cowboy hat on.
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There are fake leaves and moss pinned to the roof of her car. A
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dream catcher hangs over one shoulder and a Nazar over the
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other.
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She wears at least five necklaces of beads, shells,
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feathers. Her hands are covered in rings with rocks and
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crystals. Her wavy platinum hair fans out from under the hat. She
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wears three nose rings, one lip ring, and at least six earrings.
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She raps about taking Ayahuasca and about how the pyramids were
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built for time travel.
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Someone interrupts Rick, ah, this is a stitch. An
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archaeologist enters the frame, noting that since this video has
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become so popular, he sees fit to set a couple things straight.
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The pyramids, for one, were not built by aliens. They are not
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time travel devices. This is one of the reasons Shannon's video
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has been so ubiquitous.
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Endless people lining up to pick apart her new age clap trap. Why
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I wonder have I not seen anyone pick apart her car? Shannon at
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one point lived in her car. She posted pictures of her car, her
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home, which she named Nancy in 2016, a few years after her
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daughter was born. I put links in the show notes if you wanna
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go look.
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People joke that Shannon is the final boss of Burning Man, but
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she may very well be the final boss of short form vertical
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videos shot in a car. Say what you must about her bedazzled co
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opted shamanism obscured by weed smoke. Her frames are amazing.
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Having taken the American car, in this case, a late model white
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Ford Bronco as a filming location to its logical
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endpoint, customizing, communicating with the interior
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of her vehicle as much and possibly more than its exterior.
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The Ford Bronco is gone, transformed by whatever aura
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Shannon is at the center of.
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Her frame feels very purposeful. Not at all like an automobile,
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but like a home. Personal. Lived in. Full.
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I think of Paul Ford. I think of the emptiness of the American
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home. The rooms in the Big Bang theory, constant visual
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stimulus, always something for the eye to do. For Ford and
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Barth, home is marked by less visual complexity, not more.
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Blake no longer lives in her car.
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I've seen videos of her house. It's huge. But her car
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nonetheless feels lived in. Another vehicular visual magic
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trick. Another contradiction to which I ascent.
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I wonder what Shannon presages. The professionalization of
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YouTube spelled the demise of the American room popularly.
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What does the professionalization of TikTok
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spell for the American car? Will we look back on the empty
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automobiles of TikTok? No morale patches.
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No dream catchers. Just screaming women in their cups.
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As quaint artifacts of a simpler time before we realized what
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those spaces could accommodate and what space will arrive to
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address the stressors of not wanting to deck out ones?
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Corolla, or Kia Soul, or Ford Bronco, or Ford f one fifty. I
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look back into my own car.
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I see dog blankets, a child's car seat, an empty cooler that I
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should clean. My timer goes off. My fifteen minutes are up. Lost
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thoroughly. Do you make videos in your car?
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Do any of your favorite creators make videos primarily in their
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cars? Why do you think it makes for such an effective filming
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location and what does it signify? Also, outside the scope
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of this segment, but something I mentioned briefly and I'm still
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curious about, how did the bathroom become another default
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video setting for vertical videos in the last few years?
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Surely, there's something more to it than the presence of a
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mirror and good lighting. Call us at (651) 615-5007.
22:25
Email us at theneverpost@Gmail.com. Drop a
22:29
voice memo in our air table or leave a comment on the website.
22:32
There are links in the show notes, and let us know what you
22:36
think. We may respond to your comment in a future mailbag
22:39
episode. That is the archival episode we have for you today.
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If you'd like to listen to the original upload with news and
22:56
interstitials, you can find a link in the show notes. Never
23:00
Post is primarily listener funded. So if you enjoyed this
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segment, please consider becoming a member at neverpo.st.
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You can gain access to an ad free member feed while helping
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us keep the show going. Never Post's producers are Audrey
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Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious doctor first name
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last name.
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Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is
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Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike
23:26
Rugnetta. Never Post is a production of Charts and Leisure
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and is distributed by Radiotopia.