19 April

Unsurprisingly the majority of comments on this post gushed about how amazing the Oldsmobile is, and how the Tesla has no soul, and how everybody would choose to ride in the old car. That’s kidult culture, rampant nostalgia. If the people who originally rode in the Oldsmobile were alive today and given the choice, they’d have been queued to get into the modern car. Any modern person driving in the Oldsmobile would very quickly get sick of it, with no heating or cooling, no insulation from noise or moisture, crap suspension, handling and tyres, snail-like speeds, almost certain death in collisions, and a range (the funniest bit) much less than the Tesla. It’s a novelty, nostalgia. Bruno Latour once asked why people don’t find an ordinary aluminium drink can more amazing than a hand-carved clog. The can is a wonder, in many dimensions. But nostalgia means we think the old and simple is best. That’s people denying ageing, clinging to times closer to their youth. Even for much newer cars - I don’t miss the cars of the 70s, 80s and 90s one tiny bit. They were crap compared to modern cars. Kidult culture is at war with social progress, it turns technologies into status and identity markers. Tribal totems. People’s actual identity becomes their vehicles, the music they grew up with, the clothes they wore etc. It’s what kids do in a playground, with yo-yos, or sneakers, or haircuts. What I call the Ken and Barbie Set view of technology. Not anything about what it can do, only about it being a marker of your position in a social group. As Marshall McLuhan said, ‘past times are pastimes’.