Anti Car Car Club Calls It Quits After Failing to Be the One That Ruined the Car Scene
Organization Outpaced by Influencers Producing Three "The Car Scene Is Dead" Videos Per Week
LOS ANGELES—After nearly two decades of dedicated pessimism, the Anti Car Car Club has officially announced it is shutting down operations, citing an inability to compete with modern social media influencers in the increasingly crowded field of declaring the car scene ruined.
The organization, originally founded in the 2000s specifically to complain about stance kids, rattle can exhausts, and XXR wheels, built a loyal following through forum posts, arguing in parking lots, and lengthy Facebook tirades explaining why car enthusiasts peaked years ago and everybody sucks now.
Club leaders say they never anticipated the rise of content creators capable of producing prodigious amounts of “The Car Scene Is Dead” videos every single week.
“We got completely outclassed,” admitted club president Ruben Castillo while packing away several self-published books titled Things That Ruined Car Culture. “Back in my day, if you wanted to tell everyone the scene was dead, you had to show up at a meet all angry and buy boba. Now some guy sees a single Alibaba wheel post and uploads a forty-minute documentary about the collapse of automotive civilization.”
According to former members, attempts to remain competitive became increasingly difficult as influencers completely unjustifiably but very confidently expanded their list of alleged car-scene killers.
“First it was horsepower chasing. Then it was stance kids. Then it was takeovers. Then it was Alibaba. Then it was electric cars, but they deserve it. Then it was exotics. Then it was cheap builds,” said former member Hector Navarro. “At some point I realized the scene wasn’t actually dying. We just hadn’t carefully removed the stick up our ass.”
Researchers at the Useless Technicals Institute found that while thousands of videos have been produced warning enthusiasts that the hobby is finished, attendance at car meets, track days, autocrosses, racing events, and cars and coffee remains largely unchanged.
“The scene appears to be suffering from a terminal case of existing. These people have too much time on their hands,” said researcher Daniela Morales.
The report also noted that many enthusiasts reporting the death of car culture had not attended a local event in years, preferring instead to doomscroll an endless stream of content featuring other people allegedly ruining the hobby.
“We spent years trying to destroy the culture,” Castillo said. “Turns out the professionals figured out it’s much more profitable to turn on a front-facing camera and regurgitate whatever flavor of hate they’re monetizing this week.”