It seems as if summer is coming to an end. Or at least that’s what Revscene’s Summer Meet sort of represents. Soon, people on the west coast will start tucking their cars away for the winter – and people from the rest of Canada will shake their heads because rain and 5 degrees doesn’t really seem like winter. I’ve only lived in Vancouver for a year, so maybe last “winter” wasn’t any indication of how bad it get… but I don’t foresee the -40 temperatures I was used to on the prairies creeping up on the west coast.
Regardless of the weather, this idea of an offseason is the nature of the car world. Lots of cars go into storage until spring. Some people use this time to freshen up their build or add a few new parts, while others aim for a full rebuild. The car world is filled with a certain sense of familiarity, no matter where you go.
Another thing that is all too familiar with the car world is the sentiment that the grass is always greener on the other side. Without fail, every car community I visit is riddled with complaints from local enthusiasts. Usually it has something to do with how their scene is lame or the lack of proper builds. These complaints usually creep up into nostalgic comments, like when people talk about how great the scene used to be, and how the youth of today don’t get it and are just into it to gain followers on social media.
Nostalgia and hindsight can be very dangerous. People tend to romanticize how they think things used to be. It’s like every generation thinks the next one is fucked, which creates a vicious cycle of everybody thinking everyone is fucked – except for themselves.
The truth that is people who think their local scene is boring think that way because it’s familiar. They also probably take it for granted. Yes, every car scene has mediocre and sub-mediocre cars, but chances are every car scene also has some pretty awesome cars. At least, that’s what we set out to prove when we started DODOlogic all those years ago.
Granted, the internet skews our vision of other car scenes. We visit websites or follow pages that show the cool stuff happening elsewhere. Realistically, we see the top 10% and all the mediocrity is skipped right over. So, when I ask someone what they think of a particular meet and they say “same old,” “meh,” or give me a long answer about too many fake wheels, you know they’re glossing over the top 10-20% of cars that were there.
If you could see your local scene again for the first time, you’d probably be pretty impressed with what you saw. This is what I like about the Revscene meets: twice a year I get to see a large portion of the Vancouver scene gathered in one spot. Weekly meets on a massive scale are fine, but they tend dull your senses and each random parking lot starts to look the same.
A part of me thinks that familiarity is the enemy of any car enthusiast. It’s when we get comfortable with what we have that we get bored and look for greener grass. I suppose that’s why so many car people are constantly looking for new projects or perform an annual re-build/re-design in the offseason. The beauty of that is next season we’ll have a whole new onslaught of cars to look at with fresh eyes at Revscene’s Spring 2016 meet.
Meanwhile in merrrica , the car scene boring as fuck