Error in the matrix
We just have to get used to it. The blogger itself is there. It doesn't go away either. Very penetrating: these auto bloggers. So people who enjoy cars and then want to tell about them.
This blog was founded in 2011. Since then I've only blogged about cars. Do I blog? I am? I write? Do I judge? Am I not more of a journalist? “Blogging about cars” has changed. At least I've changed. When the “car blogging” thing became more serious, it was clear to me: I had to adapt. OK. Not too much. But I at least have to get into the vortex of automotive journalists. After the “motorpresse” didn’t want me in 2009, I started writing on my own. Cars have always been my thing. And unlike many other journalists, I was not a journalist, but someone who disassembled a carburetor, set a track and found the OBD interface. In short: I came from the car. Not from journalism school. And I can chase a car around a few cones. Pretty quick. So that had to be enough to become a car blogger.
But as a car blogger, I also wanted to be taken seriously. I even wanted to adapt. The “Association of Motor Journalists” took me in. Gave me a care. And I adapted. Away from the blog and towards a magazine. Away from the “blogger style” towards the motor journalist. But with every driving report that filled the blog, doubts also came.
Are you right with your opinion? What is the car journalist's opinion worth? What do we think we can do?
The journalist per se is a hardly fallible being. I had to learn quickly. The auto journalist per se is even less fallible. The expert. The professional. His opinion always objective. For sure. Unrüttelbar. Firmly chiseled his judgment. The rest of the world now please do it.
Ridiculous.
No matter how hard I tried to be objective, a piece of my worldview was always to blame for the judgment. Anything else would be too naive to believe. The individual author is a “Single Author”. Objectivity is a wish. Not the result. So what to do? Receive the blows from the “specialist editors”? They are all too happy to present themselves as “the final authority of infallibility”. The longer I do this, blogging, trumpeting my opinion into this world as a car journalist, the more the curtain falls. We all only cook with water. We all just have one opinion. A snapshot.
And the reader? Doesn't he care?
Yes sure. If he agrees. If he disagrees, then the author is a fool. But stop. Bloggers are influencers. Journalists are opinion leaders. Not? Yes. But. It all seems much more subtle. The effect is comparable to the medicinal effect of homeopathy. The opinion of the individual auto journalist is only a drop of a power of ten in the Atlantic of opinions.
The confirmation ends up in the comments
A rant is the opinionated, negatively intoned “blogged” thing. When the author resorts to polemics, he is moving far away from journalism. The column of the proletariat, the educated citizen would probably say. There has to be space for this in a blog. Because the blog owner decides here. No editorial team sifts, dilutes, filters and controls the highly subjective opinion-making (aka objective auto-journalism). The full life. That’s why people read blogs. Completely free of any consideration for marketing budgets, the blog is still wonderfully honest and free to write about. Because a blog is not afraid of a loss of advertising revenue.
Or is it? No matter. You have to be allowed to do it here. It has to happen here. The opinion. Honestly. And nobody thinks about the product? The workplaces? A rant over a new car? What does the press department think? Does nobody care about you anymore?
The customer reads, perceives and still buys
The longer I try to be a professional, the thinner the air of credibility. All the more tired of your own praise for the great job. Because what counts in the end your own opinion? For the reader it is one. Among many. And so the rant fizzles out. The reader still buys the car and then happily comments on it under the rant.
Which shows: We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously. We write about cars. An opinion. One of many …
And I think the whole industry is sick of it. A self-made obsolescence. So many opinions. So many statements. So much text. And the reader? He believes what he already knew anyway. If your rant matches his pulse, you are right. If you explain to him what he already knew - you are right and effective. Where does that lead us?
In any case, the example of the rant and the car buyer shows: blogs are read, but we (and by that I mean auto journalism) are not as important as we like to think. And this post? Does he help now?
Possibly. To a certain extent it is the classic “blogging”. A collection of words to vent yourself. to convey thoughts to the outside world. To ensure transparency in the formation of one's own opinions. The blogger himself, a self-centered something. And the funny thing about it? The rant about the car that ended up being bought anyway wasn't mine at all. It came from a guest author. So, a guest blogger. The result of a transformation of the blog into a magazine. A mistake in the matrix, so to speak.
The errors in the matrix. And auto bloggers. And the people who buy cars!