An ode to cranky men on the internet
They have found my Instagram. I warmly welcome them all.
Here’s a surprise! This newsletter has been written sober. Yes! Sober! What a relief to us all.
Unfortunately for me (well, all of me except my liver) my time in Japan has just about come to an end.
No longer will I be roaming these city streets where toasters have wheels, passengers, and a questionable safety rating. Where Godzilla trucks are driven through Tokyo by dour middle-aged men. Where you can break up your car-spotting with a light trip to the Parasite Museum.
I should mention that while I’ve been in Japan, The Car Pit website has been a touch neglected. Apologies for that. There’s only so much one woman with stubby fingers can do.
But! The social media pages have been going off.
Which is to say I have been making a lot of videos have gotten some views, a couple of new followers, and a bunch of snarky comments from men wearing speed-dealer sunnies.
I have a litany of sins, apparently. I am not funny. I am a bitch. I am boring. All true, depending on what time of the day you’re dealing with me.
But perhaps my greatest sin (to date) has been incorrectly saying that four people were dressed in primary colours, when in fact only two people were dressed in primary colours.
What an idiot. What a fucking idiot. Put me in colour prison. Feed me only grey foods. Throw away the key.
This was an off-the-cuff comment I ad libbed. I picked up the error in the edit, but decided to leave in. I knew there would be a bloke desperate to correct my mistake. Who was I to deprive him of this opportunity?
I did not have to wait long. A dude ran into the comments so quickly his little thighs would have chaffed. Sweaty, he took to his phone’s keyboard jabbing at it angrily. There was no time for the consistent application of capital letters. He had a message which needed to be delivered FAST:
This interaction went back and forth a bit more. Eventually when a friend intervened (thanks Erin!) I wrote that I was okay with this dude being a dick on the internet because he was easy to bait and pushing up my views.
Alas - he deleted the thread before I had time to screenshot the rest.
It’s incredible to me that at no point during that interaction did he consider for a moment that I might be taking the piss.
I could have delivered these lines dressed as a court jester, doing little cartwheels, and he would have debated me like a Parliamentarian.
It reminds me tangentially of when I described myself on a dating platform as a “travel-hating swamp hag who doesn’t understand the concept of margaritas” and then had to field ernest questions from men about why I didn’t like travelling.
Perhaps I do need to invest in a jester hat.
Anyway. If you want to watch the offending video it’s here.
I wasn’t joking about the trip to the Parasite Museum, either. No need to travel to see it yourself - just watch this.
And if you’d like to see what a Godzilla truck looks like when it’s in motion, this is the video.
This isn’t even all of it. Heaps of little clips on my Instagram and TikTok. Share them with your friends, for the love of God. I’m dying here trying to crack 300 followers.
Back to more regular programming next week!
See you then!