I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time now but something always distracts me. I get sent into this white hot rage when I watch any of ACA’s “reports” and then fall asleep and forget about it the next day. But today, this amazing petition has popped up and is currently sitting on 8000ish signatures.
Because of this a lot of people have been sharing ACA’s videos around the intertubes with the f*ckACA/f*ckGrimshaw hashtags and it made me realize that we’re giving them exactly what they want and basically contributing to the ratings which allow them to continue making this garbage. At this point it’s pretty obvious that A Current Affair is doing stuff just to rile car enthusiasts up, mainly by lumping us all in with the few who choose to abuse their cars and disregard basic laws.
Why? Because we, the car enthusiast community react to it. Hundreds of people share the videos around and that in turn gets them more attention, more money and more go-aheads from the producers/people funding it.
It’s the same way that I could jump on YouTube right now and go on a massively sexist rant and get 71626726227373 views from people threatening to kill me but I’d still earn a tonne of money. People would share it around and even though it would have negative connotations, I’d still get paid. As long as I didn’t breach any rules regarding broadcasting I could be earning stupid amounts of money just by being an asshole – otherwise known as “pulling a Grimshaw”.
Things like the aforementioned petition are much smarter ways to go about it. They will not benefit in any way from that petition getting viewed/signed. But when the videos get shared around it gets them views, attention and in turn an audience. People are willing to fund it more and more because they know that people are paying attention.
I’ve noticed on a few occasions that they say certain buzz words deliberately out of place/context just to add to the frustration on our part. They know will will pick up on them saying a certain car is a Subaru when they are showing a Mitsubishi and they love when we react. I don’t suggest you go back and pick out these things but I’m sure I’m not the only one that can see how transparent that crap is.
The fact that I’m even writing about this is a perfect example of how far they are reaching, in fact I probably shouldn’t be drawing attention to it at all. I would encourage you all to share the petition around instead of the videos in order to benefit ourselves and stop the stigma that gets attached to car enthusiasts.
Any time you feel yourselves tempted to share an ACA video, remember what good old Admiral Ackbar had to say in Return of the Jedi – It’s a trap!
– L