The Cybertruck Tells Us What We Want

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Yes, I’m going to blog on Elon Musk’s Cybertruck and how it teaches us what people want. Buckle up, but avoid a crash because the doors will probably stick.

Now if you expect me to praise Elon Musk or the Cybertruck, then you’re new here. The Cybertruck is an ugly mess, a renegade PS1 asset turned into an overdesigned and overhyped dysfunctional chunk of metal. Even if Elon Musk hadn’t worked hard the last few years to ruin his reputation, the Cybertruck would be a joke (and indeed it didn’t help his image). There’s a reason it’s so hated – and ironically the reason the Cybertruck is so hated is a lesson in what people actually want.

See, the Cybertruck, for all its flaws, is the realization of a vision.

It is a bad vision. It’s got an ugly retro-futuristic design with no appeal. Its control system sounds horribly inconvenient. The design makes visibility questionable, to the point I’m nervous to drive near one.. Even the unintentional flaws like the rusting or the dangerous hood, are things that seemed to be ignored in pursuit of the vision. That vision, apparently, is being a prop from a 1980s direct-to-video film.

But it is clearly a vision made by a person, there is an idea here.

Even if people had not, soured on Musk, the Cybertruck would still be the fulfillment of a vision. This truck is designed by someone with a plan, it is an expression of a human voice and human intent. Therefore because we know there is a person behind it, the dislike becomes personal, passionate. We get why it is the way it is and we don’t like it.

To hate something truly, is to have a personal connection to that hate. There’s someone and some decision to understand and dislike.

The hatred for the Cybertruck also tells us why we like things. A vision that speaks to us, that tells us about the intent and the creator and what it means, is one we can love. Through a book, a movie, or a vehicle, we can feel the intent, the human agency behind it. The love of something is also personal, because we know there is a person there and we get it.

Why we hate the Cybertruck is why we can love things – the human factor.

This is also why we really hate everything soulless, personality-less, from AI to corporate bureaucracy. There’s no one there, no one home, no moral actor. Even in hating something, knowing there’s someone there to hate is enlivening, dare I say, human. The Cybertruck may be awful, but it’s awful in a human way.

So before you entirely write off the Cybertruck, take it as a lesson. Not in hubris or questionable design decisions (since we’ve already had that lesson), but in why we hate and love things. It is a personal statement, and humans gravitate to those.

Even if just to complain.

Steven Savage

They Don’t Care, I Don’t Care

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

The modern media sphere is a strange space. We’re overwhelmed with some great stuff on way-too-many streaming services. Potential hits like “Coyote Vs. ACME” are being killed by tax purposes. AI art controversies are everywhere, to the point where “bad AI” is an insult.” Some once-beloved figures are revealed on social media to be complete numpties (my new favorite insult). When you just want to watch something for fun, it all seems a bit weird.

What I find is that, more and more, I feel like I care less about media.

There’s so much B.S. that it feels like all media executives and no small amount of other people just don’t give a damn about making neat stuff. It’s tax writeoffs and script changes to extend a season and sudden cancellations and number tweaking. Look, I’m not going to act like a lot of media has been high art, but it feels like the amount of people in media who don’t care is high or has always been higher than we’d like.

Then it makes me hard to care either.

This feels weird. My fiancee recently watched Resident Alien which, though I didn’t get into, was a delightful mix of Northern Exposure and My Favorite Martian – if the Martian was really sort of a jerk. She also started Ripley, which has a compelling film-noir-meets-Bergman vibe that surprised and delighted me. This is just the last few weeks, there’s great things out there in the media.

But any of these wonders could vanish in a moment because of some bad executive decision. They could be archived because of obscure tax codes. Someone might get recast with an “edgy” actor who will then drown in scandal like everyone predicts. Without things on hard media, good things can disappear.

It’s just hard to care when so many people with power and money don’t, or even seem actively hostile to what they’re supposedly doing (Warner Brothers). Why care when they don’t and might destroy something to get a stock bump?

At the same time, I look at zines I read, obscure films and up-and-coming mad geniuses like Mike Cheslik. These are made by people who care and that leads me to care, because there is something about enjoying media that requires both parties to give a damn. I think one reason people will enjoy even sleazy exploitation flicks and bad b-movies is the people behind them cared in some relatable way.

Someone who wants to pay the bills and slam out a film with the proper percent of explosions and dinosaurs I can at least get, you know?

So here I am, surrounded by truly great things I take time for – Dune II, Delicious In Dungeon – but I wonder how many other people care less now, or who’s interests have changed. Reach out to me and let me know your experiences.

Steven Savage

Punching A Hole Through My Head Into Myself

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

Punching A Hole Through My Head Into Myself

A few of my regular readers know I have side projects under various pen names. We creative types all know the need to be ourselves by being someone else for various financial, marketing, or personal reasons. Sometimes those other selves teach us lessons.

It may surprise some of my readers that I’ve started doing art under one of my pen names. Not book cover art which everyone knows, or my abortive attempts at learning to draw by hand. I’ve gotten into digital art and fusion, with legacies such as midcentury modern (naturally), branding, punk, surrealism, and more. Some of it might find it’s way here, of course, but now it thrives in a more private space.

As I started doing art, I noticed my themes were deep, often disturbing, often profound, and always weird. Very honestly, had you shown this stuff to me a few years ago I wouldn’t have guessed it came from me. Now it came out with the gesture of a mouse and the click of a button, thoughts on religion and humanity that had an edge you rarely see in my writing.

This art also felt right, felt proper, felt real.I was expressing something within me. Yet when I grasped for the words to say what I was expressing, it was difficult. I didn’t know how to easily describe what was coming out in my digital art experiments.

Then I realized that visual art gave me a way to express ideas and parts of myself that my writing did not. I had an entire different language to express a side of me previously left to feelings, to vague allusions, and over-or-under descriptions. What once took careful and oft failed engineering of words came out in black and white, in filters and shapes.

I had taken up experimenting with art and given part of me a new language to reach peope. I also was far more aware of sides of myself, of feelings, of opinions, now that I had a new way to express them. I knew myself better.

This is why I think it is critical for people to learn an art of any kind – writing, music, drawing, something. Learn to express, learn to create, learn to let yourself out. There are things we need to give voice to in order to both reach people and reach ourselves.

It is also important that we creatives, no matter our chosen method, keep experimenting and broadening. A writer should try art, an artist should try music, a musician writing, and so on. We are always finding out more about ourselves, and each artistic method is a new way for the real us to come out. You don’t have to be professional or even be good, but you should explore, have fun, and see what happens.

Where’s my art going to go? I have no idea and that’s not the point. I’m going to see what happens – and I’m going to get to know who is watching this happen much better. In time, we might get to know them better together.

Steven Savage