Are there really so few car enthusiasts on this site? This sub seems to have such little traffic. What gives?
Coming from Reddit, there were multiple car-related subs and they all saw some fairly heavy traffic with lots of posts and comments. Heck, even some of the model-specific ones seem to get more interaction than this sub does. What's the deal?
Well Lemmy is still mostly populated by left leaning tech enthusiasts and for people like this, cars are just a tool or even something that should be banned at all cost.
Bit harsh your opinion touched a nerve apparently to get downvoted. I think you expressed yourself politely and sincerely and you may also be right. Reddit had years to cultivate subs by and for people who are not terminally online, and those are the people who will be slowest to adopt complicated fediverse tech.
If I had more time and money I'd be into it more too. The real problem is reddit is more popular. I remember when something with hit 1k up votes and I was blown away. Now it's significantly more. Lemmy is kinda like that right now.
i’ll be honest, you’re not wrong. cars are fucking lame. My dad was a mechanic, but over the years I discovered that I REALLY hate cars. Buying a car carries all the thrill and excitement of buying a used refrigerator. I do not understand the appeal or why people fetishize them like they do. they’re too expensive, they make our cities suck, and the people that want the “cool car” are always the worst kind of douchebag. I just don’t get it I guess.
Agreed. I'm a car guy, have been working on them for decades, owned a shop at one point and worked at a racing component manufacturer for a good bit.
Car enthusiasts come in a lot of stripes and a super broad community may not gain as much focus right away as communities around a single topic, such as weird cars, etc. I'm subscribed to a weird car community here and there's a bunch of cool stuff being posted.
I'd say just keep the faith and keep posting great content and car subs on Lemmy will evolve to a point that attracts plenty of subscribers. I'm personally subscribing to every such community I come across...
You can't just talk about this weird cars sub without mentioning the name of it for others to join.
Also if you know of a classic car one, post that as well. I searched the communities and I think I found one and it had so few posts on it. This is especially sad coming from Reddit where the classic car sub would get at least a couple of posts a day. Even if they were of some random dude posting a picture or two, that's still nice to see.
Haven't linked to another community before so I'll probably get this wrong, but it's here:
https://lemmy.world/c/weirdwheels
Hopefully there's a bot or helpful admin that can reply with the correct way to do this. The link should get you there though.
And don't be shy! Start a community for classic cars yourself and add some build posts or show coverage! I've probably got some content I can toss in there...!
There are magnitudes more users on the "Fuck Cars" community. You guys might wanna watch yourselves. lol
I love cars, especially the old restored ones, or reading about people tinkering and troubleshooting. But I subscribe to fuckcars because I fucken hate literal vans being used in my city and clogging up the streets designed for less and smaller traffic. Those Chelsea tractors, as they call them in the UK can fuck right off. Fine em, tax em, whatever you need to do, sabotage their tyres, whatever. Fuck em.
I see cars as tools. I'm a fuckcars person because I believe cities should not be built to appease roads and cars. Though I do find old cars cool and fascinating, I just want good people-friendly infrastructure in the world.
Believe it or not, some of us "fuck cars" people are also car enthusiasts.
It's kind of like how there are a bunch of people who like riding horses, but probably wouldn't want them to be everybody's primary mode of transportation.
I like cars.. but what do you want me to post about?
I dont like posting pictures of cars nobody can afford and there aint much point in posting a picture of a toyota aygo..
We have all seen a ferrari or whatever.
Posting upcoming 2024 models?
Honestly I like seeing any random daily driver that is well cared for by its owner. Knowing the goods and bads of that car.
Also cars differ from country to country so it's nice seeing what others get
Personally I find automotive news to be more interesting than any one specific model. Upcoming releases, especially ones within the realm of possibility for mere mortals, or industry trends and sales figures are just the kind of stuff I get interested in.
There's also just fewer people in general here.
I've always just used car specific forums for car stuff. Though I gotta say the newer my cars get the shittier the forums are. Like damn man you put a K&N filter in it? That's some CrAzY mods bro
Can always start a flame war about oil that'll get some clicks
I think Facebook killed forums. With rare exception, they're all a ghost town. I'm excited about the idea of the fediverse, and the threadiverse specifically, bringing back forums. I think we should work toward that goal.
Though I gotta say the newer my cars get the shittier the forums are.
My theory is that the older a car gets, the percentage of owners who are enthusiasts increases. Some new cars get bought by enthusiasts, but a lot get bought by folks who want something new/fast/high-tech/whatever, but don't actually care that much and are happy to use it until it's no longer the new hotness and then get rid of it. In contrast, folks who own old cars (and join forums about them) are doing so because they really like that particular car for whatever reason.
It's worse if you wrench or make cars like me. Not a deep complaint, I know why younger people jack metal less often (money, PERSISTENT SPACE, access to skills, complexity of modern cars etc) but result is, little construction and fabrication.
Sadly most of what still goes on is in boomer bigot forums, one of which id been a contributor to for 20 years, have a fuckton of docs manuals how tos parts lists etc, basically froze me out when I put on all my websites "black lives matter as much as anyone's" and "racism is white people's responsibility".
Lol, I'm an out gay man and that does not exactly make me popular but I survived based on being an old timer there but the BLM thing was the final straw.
Oh man sort I ranted at y'all, won't do that again, but it's nice to tell someone!
Here's my main site since I was talking about it:
I respect your opinion but I disagree with your statement "racism is white peoples responsibility".
I'm telling you this because I hope it'll show others that we can have different opinions and still respect each other. That's what reddit was missing.
Thank you. (and by that phrase I mean responsible for dealing with the mess we have now; and specifically not guilty for creating it im the first place. And because were talking about only slogans, handwaving how racism unfolds today.)
Meh, it was a good rant. No worries!
Very good observation. I think it's really true to some extent as early adopters of Lemmy are seemingly interested Linux, programming, memes and activities.
Automobile enthusiasts are just arriving from Reddit. I was into tanks, rare planes and things like that, for which there just isn't any community right now.
And I miss the daily 🍑 joke on my favourite subreddit of an anime. Which is why I still kept my Reddit account and only lurk on reddit.com now.
Bonus +500,000 karma to you if you get what I meant here lol
We are all busy working on our cars :)
I would quite like a project car sub, This one doesn't feel very focused. That's my thought anyway.
EDIT: I just added my 3 project cars, I have literally thousands of pictures of the work, I may try and compile a cross section post of the work I have done on each at some point if people might like that.
Reddit didn’t start with a huge amount of car subreddits, it built over time.
Part of the problem I’m seeing is that people are expecting the new communities here to have an instant following but really things should be posted to a single larger community until it’s big enough to splinter off.
Feels bad man, definitely missing /cars in all this switch.
And the subs for my car. The Subbie community used to be fairly active.
Same for the Miata community. I miss my daily dose of pop up headlights.
Same, it seems that A LOT of peeps are still on r/cars nowadays. I feel like most active posters haven't made the switch to Lemmy yet for various reasons.
I made one post already, i just feel like I’d be spamming if I kept posting with so few other members. Maybe that’s just in my head, because I’m sure i could post some interesting content lol
Nah, prolific not-spam posting of good content would just make me want to follow your account if there is such a thing on Lemmy. Post away!
I've posted a similar thought other places, but coming from reddit--where you are as good as anonymous on all but the most niche subs--it's tough to get back into the mindset of posting to build community. It feels like coming full circle back to the topic-specific forums where you recognized a good 25%-50% of the people commonly posting and you didn't have to worry about your voice getting drowned out by random chatter and bots.
All that to say, I personally think posting semi-relevant or memey material, just for the sake of spurring conversation and getting to know other members is fine and probably a good thing while things are getting rolling.
Checks out, those are definitely some cars
It could take a while to develop, on Mastodon it took about 2-3 years before folk started tooting about cars (now there is quite a lot of traffic). Also this sub seems quite US-centric, us Europeans see all your big trucks and muscle cars and think nobody will be interested in the superminis most folk drive round here, and a lot of people keep their cars stock as mods are expensive due to extra insurance costs!
I drive a modest VW Polo 6C myself (this is like 90% of a Golf, just slightly smaller) and am quite into detailing, I'd post up more pics but it keeps pissing down here in England at the moment (whilst rest of Europe is roasted by sun so there are often hosepipe bans!)
Please post your superminis! I love seeing kei cars around town when I do. I saw a Toyota HiAce last week and started gushing over it to my wife.
It's true many Americans prefer larger cars, but some of us out here have a genuine appreciation for smaller cars. My '97 Prelude makes my 9th gen FB Civic feel like a truck after I've been driving it for a minute.
I tried figuring out what exactly Mastodon was once and quickly lost interest when I couldn't find a simple answer. Regardless, you'd be surprised what we are into. Just because larger vehicles tend to be popular here, that doesn't mean lots of folks don't like smaller cars too. I like both. I got an old '64 Buick and considered many of times to buy a small Japanese Kei truck (can't get much smaller than that), but when you lookat what they cost, and parts availability, you can honestly do a lot better with a larger domestic truck for hauling stuff.
Sometimes it's simply because we don't have them here that makes people into them. Parts and the knowledge-base to keep them running is sometimes tough.
This problem isn't exclusive to just c/cars, r/cars (on Reddit) have always been very American-centric since forever. Looks like things won't be changing here unfortunately.
I am definitely a car fan, I have 0 money to work on cars or build them, and I have almost 0 technical knowledge about them except specific cars. So, with that said I would love to see more but it's hard for me to contribute.
I currently drive an EV and we all know what car enthusiasts feel about EVs... I personally have grown to be fascinated with em
Just wanted to share my enthusiasm about finding out about Super Formula. Currently watching all the races and qualifying of this year and really impressed by the quality of racing and broadcast
Super Formula is great. Check out !indycar@lemmy.world too if you're not already familiar with it. Lots of great racing series out there that don't have an over dramaticised netflix series
For me, a category as broad as this one is unappealing. I love all sorts of cars but rarely what's posted in a car such as this. "Air-cooled VWs", "off-roading" or "vintage and patina" is right up my alley but there's a bunch that's not.
The problem with that is there are even fewer users in those types of groups
Yeah me too, but in these early days your participation will increase ... participation, and with numbers, lonely you will become 2, 3, 10, ...
But if a broad category as "cars" gets little traffic, I can't even imagine how dead a sub that's focused on "pink VW 7 window buses from Wyoming" would get.
I think a lot of us were just lurkers or introverts. The thought of a broad audience can be a bit nerve-racking. I was active in the small WRX subreddit before all this, but never posted to any "main" subs.
That said the community here is indeed very small so once we get over the "ah general community = too many people" feeling there will be more posts. True for myself at least.
The /WRX subreddit had more traffic than the entire car sub gets on Lemmy.
I'm a car guy. Happy to talk to you.
Ummm what do I do?
Post your first car and your favorite memory with it.
Could be hard. I'm old. My first car is an actual photograph. I'd have to find it, shoot a photo and upload. How about a car I just bought
Post about your car. Or the cars your interested in. Or upcoming models. Or ask questions. Anything really. One question can start a whole stream of conversations if there are enough people around.
Copy that. Posted a pic of my car.
c/cars might be tiny in comparison to r/cars but imo post quality here is a lot better, and Lemmy in general seems to attract tech users more than car guys from what I've seen.
It's also a good thing that on this platform, there's no teenagers commenting stuff like "are you a Honda salesman 😭😭😭" or "are you 40 💀" just because you buy a practical family car instead of that WRX STI.
Heh, TRAFFIC. Nice one.
Why did it take so long for someone to get it?
Can't speak for anyone else, but with me the delay was in seeing the post in the first place 😁
I like cars. Here's my humble daily
I used to have a 1.8 litre VW golf petrol turbo. The power to weight ratio of that car was formidable.
Heavy clutch (required).
Sport suspension.
Bucket seats.
All factory.
V6 and V8 cars would be left behind at the lights. Their shame was palpable as my 'girl car' left them in the dust. She was a sleeper.
Roundabouts were my slingshots.
Best driving days of my life.
I truly miss that car. She was amazing.
I have a 4WD now. I may as well be in a wheelchair, pushing through syrup.
S197 Mustang's exterior is timeless, CMV
I really like the look of the 2024s. They look mean af
Nah, boomers are still on the best platforms to talk about car stuff, old school forums.
There's a lot of internet-style weirdos on the site.
I honestly didn’t know there was a car community on here. I’m not necessarily sure what to share in a general car community though. A lot of the car specific discussion for my car happens on forums. Idk, I’m down to try out the community here too
Hi friend, this is me for sure. I love sim racing and rally, but I hate that modern US cities aren't planned for foot and bike travel. I also enjoy the engineering and design skills that go into making a nice car. I just think they are neat!
I think it's the demographic and the lack of mass adoption (car people tend to be part of the latter unless they are nerds). Model specific subs were hit and miss. For example, the Porsche sub was awesome but BMW was toxic af and tiring with everybody shitting on the new designs constantly and not contributing to the discussion much beyond that, so I definitely don't miss it. That said, I think forums like bimmerport and rennlist are going to see an increase in traffic as people leave reddit behind, if Lemmy doesn't end up absorbing the exodus.
I see the anti-car subscriptions getting much more traffic than pro-car subscriptions. It might just be the demographic here is less in to cars and more into city planning.
For sure, though I'll note I know many people who dislike cars as the dominant form of transportation in a society but are also car enthusiasts from the hobbyist perspective (this would also include me).
Yep, this is me too. I absolutely hate car centric city infrastructure... But am also restoring a classic mini. They're a cool piece of engineering, just a shit way to transport lots of people
Sounds like me. I love sport cars, but really think that we should use walking, bikes and public transports as as possible.
In my country, Switzerland, it’s clearly possible for people living in the city to have no car. I live on the countryside so it’s not my case, but people rely way too much on cars.
That doesn't seem very practical. For example, I've owned several cars but no one has ever let me plan a city.
How do you get into city planning anyway? I've got some sweet plans for a rad city made for motorcycles only.
Well, just being the change you want to see. Being vocal about building less car-dependent cities leads to more people being aware a car isn't necessarily critical to daily life which leads to people voting for people who share those same ideas. Sure it won't be tomorrow but as someone who hates driving I'm definitely making an effort to drive as little as possible and voting for that lifestyle.
But to answer op's question, Lemmy's population as a whole is probably very techy/urbany and young. Very conducive to living in a major city where it's possible to live without a car.
Simcity skylines scratches that itch for me lol
Same. I love racing, karts, formula1, I'm playing VR racing games and my first pc games were Need for Speed Carbon and Most Wanted. I like the engineering aspect behind them, the pistons, the clutches. I'm watching people fixing their cars on youtube etc.
I never owned a car, never will.
Way too expensive. I've taken my bike to work for the past four years. Over 20.000 thousand miles. I've only spent £1000. That's £250 a year for work commute.
Porque no los dos? I have loved cars my whole life, have driven and worked on many different cars and am currently in the market for something 20 years old that’s a little too fast, but I still like my cities walkable and wish driving wasn’t the only option in most places here in the US.
Probably true.