Folks are digging the auto industry marketing report on SUV drivers ( " insecure and vain...concerned with how other people see them rather than with what's practical " among other, even less savory, characteristics ) and are getting their rocks off decrying the drivers. CalPundit says you are what the marketers say you are, but I wonder how much of this sort of blather is cold reading? Most of my friends who drive SUVs "seldom go to church", but most of my friends, no matter what they drive, go to church less often than they'll admit. Most people aren't good drivers, which is readily apparent the moment you get behind the wheel and get out there among them. It's a simple fact that no one else on the road is as aware or as good a driver as you are.
I'd go on for my own amusement, but I have a more interesting question to ask: Who was the first person you knew who bought an SUV? I don't mean your contractor father's pick-up truck or your rural, dirt-road cousin's jeep. I mean the first person you know who chose an SUV as a lifestyle choice. Who was it? How did that purchase make you feel at the time? What sort of asshole was he or she?
Back in 1995, a few jobs ago (this one in, ahem, marketing**), my boss asked me to do a memo on upgrading the office computer system. He wanted to know what our options were and how much they cost. Man, I was excited. I had been lobbying for an upgrade for months (efficiency! everybody on the same operating system! a network!). I knew how much money we'd made over the past year and I knew that we could afford something excellent, something righteous, something to brag about. Oh, was I happy.
I did my research, I focused my arguments, and I presented the memo Friday afternoon. "Good work. I'll read it over the weekend and have my decision by Monday."
Monday morning he pulled up in the biggest beast on the market in those long-gone and halcyon days (I'm sure it would look puny now; I don't remember the make). It was black, the back windows were tinted, it dwarfed every other vehicle in the parking lot. The guy swaggered in, threw the memo down on my desk. "I decided to buy a new car instead."
** That's a little joke there, dear reader. The job was indeed in marketing, and I learned an awful, terrible amount, but I never acquired anywhere near the knowledge base to be able to speak authoritatively about that field. I can, however, pretend that that particular employment gives me certain insights unavailable to most of the unwashed. Except for the fact that I've now spilled the beans on myself.
Posted by Martial