Editor's Note
Sometimes an individual speaks with such raw clarity that any editorial analysis or commentary would only dilute the message.
While reviewing recent commentary on modern consumer economics, I came across a short video of an anonymous driver laying out the reality of today's car market. Despite the profanity, her point was unvarnished, accurate, and cut straight to the core of what millions of people are experiencing right now.
Instead of writing a standard commentary piece around her video, I transcribed her exact words to let the statement stand on its own. Moving forward, Raw Testimony will serve as a venue to bring unfiltered, street-level commentary directly into print—verbatim, unedited, and without the spin.
Have y'all heard that they're basically Netflixing cars now? My 2006 BMW is starting to look like a luxury car every day. I'm sorry. This motherfucker is engine swapped, everything under the hood swapped, every piece swapped. And trust and believe, in five more years, if I got to engine swap this bitch again, I will be doing that. Cuz what the fuck do I look like paying $8 a month to heat my ass? That keep me this car forever. My kids kids is going to engine swap this bitch. cuz the new model is that we're not going to own shit. We're going to just rent everything from these bastards. Okay. And I refuse. I refuse. I'm keeping this bitch till the wheels fall off. And when the wheels fall off, I'mma glue them bitches on. I don't give a fuck. Not to mention they're patenting nuts and bolts and shit so that you can't even work on your own car. That's some bullshit. Could you imagine? You wake up in the morning, you late for work, you scrambling, you try to turn on your fucking car. Oh shit you ain't pay your subscription. You late to work bitch. What kind of shit is that? They're really trying to phase out these gas cars and they going to have to pry this bitch from my cold dead fucking hands. I hate the Netflixation of everything, honestly. Bring back cable, bring back DVDs, bring back Blu-ray. My car may be very outdated, but it's mine, and ain't nobody going to take that shit from me.
No corporate policy paper or economic analysis sums up the current shift in consumer sentiment better than that. The numbers and the mechanics speak for themselves.