Never Post

Senior producer Hans Buetow investigates the transit vacuum that’ll be left when Uber and Lyft leave the Twin Cities; Mike looks at how the car has become a default setting for vertical, short form video. Also: PLANES, TRAINS… BIKES

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Intro Links
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Twin Cities Transit Vacuum
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The American Car 
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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta. 

To understand what was going on it is perhaps necessary to have participated in the freeway experience, which is the only secular communion Los Angeles has. Mere driving on the freeway is in no way the same as participating in it. Anyone can “drive” on the freeway, and many people with no vocation for it do, hesitating here and resisting there, losing the rhythm of the lane change, thinking about where they came from and where they are going. Actual participants think only about where they are. Actual participation requires a total surrender, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis, a rapture-of-the-freeway. The mind goes clean. The rhythm takes over. A distortion of time occurs, the same distortion that characterizes the instant before an accident.

Except from The Bureaucrats, by Joan Didion

Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure
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Creators & Guests

Host
Mike Rugnetta
Host of Never Post. Creator of Fun City, Reasonably Sound, Idea Channel and other internet things.
Producer
Hans Buetow
Independent Senior Audio Producer. Formerly with Terrible, Thanks for Asking and The New York Times
Producer
Jason Oberholzer

What is Never Post?

A podcast about and for the internet, hosted by Mike Rugnetta

Mike Rugnetta:

Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a podcast about the Internet. I'm your host Mike Rugnetta. This intro was started on Monday, April 22nd at 8:27 PM, and completed on Wednesday, April 24th at 1:10 PM. Thanks for your patience while we buttoned this one up. We are all feeling much better.

Mike Rugnetta:

So, let's talk about what's happened since the last time you heard from us. Well, that's it, I guess. On Wednesday, April 24th, President Diamond Joe Biden signed a massive $95,000,000,000,000 national security package into law, tucked ever so gingerly within which is a bill authorizing a TikTok ban if the platform doesn't divest from its Beijing based parent company, ByteDance. While earlier versions of the ban would have gone into effect immediately before the upcoming presidential election, the most recent iteration gives the tech company until early 2025, with chances of TikTok going anywhere are slim. Quote, there is no the chances of TikTok going anywhere are slim.

Mike Rugnetta:

Quote, there is no more capitalistic entity than an organization controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. They are going to sell it, says senator Tim Kaine. One person looking to make the purchase, Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who says the app's algorithm would have to be completely rebuilt within the US to adhere to privacy regulations, and so he is seeking a, quote, AI partner to do so. TikTok, for its part, has called the ban unconstitutional and plans to challenge it in court. Google search has started blocking access to news for certain users in California as the state threatens to pass a law which would require the tech giant to pay news outlets for the ads they place next to links to their news stories.

Mike Rugnetta:

Supporters of the bill say it will bolster the flagging California news industry. Opponents describe it as nothing more than a link tax. Google's walling off of journalism is a repeat of a tactic employed by both Meta and Google in both Australia and Canada when those countries passed similar laws. Both companies reached an agreement with Australian news publishers. Google reached an agreement with Canadian lawmakers, but Meta continues to restrict access to news in Canada across all of its apps, where studies have shown that news is shared largely in screenshots now.

Mike Rugnetta:

In his newsletter, LA Times reporter Matt Pierce writes, in the big picture, for a journalist, this is just a different variation of the post hyperlink AI driven business model that Meta and Google are already building towards. 1 in which the world's Internet users park in one spot, look at ads, and are passively served free content via an algorithm. Canada just got there a little earlier than the rest of us. Speaking of the AI future, chip manufacturer NVIDIA's stock plunged mid April, signaling to some a lack of confidence in the future of artificial intelligence technology, or at the very least, that the growth expectations for the corporations producing its technological backing are simply too big to beat. Quote, while companies are investing heavily to build AI powered chatbots, not all of their experiments are boosting revenue and productivity, writes Peter Cohen for Forbes.

Mike Rugnetta:

Shocking nobody. If current AI development trends are aimed at increasing productivity, I question whether people doing that development know what productivity means. I think of a tweet I saw by at authorjmac on Twitter. It reads, you know what the biggest problem with pushing all things AI is? Wrong direction.

Mike Rugnetta:

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes, so that I can do art and writing. Not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes. In show news, you can catch me on episode 227 of the Euro What podcast, where we talk about this year's Eurovision entries from Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, San Marino, and Switzerland. And also I, learn what Eurovision is exactly. I I mean, it's I've always known generally that Eurovision is a competition where Europeans sing songs.

Mike Rugnetta:

But I have somehow managed to go my entire life up until this point without learning any of the details or really any additional information beyond what I just said. So, Ben and Mike were great hosts. They answered all of my questions and I had a lot, and we had a blast talking about these songs. Personally, I am still rooting for Estonia. Also, Alex Sujang Laughlin, who you'll know as our guest from Defector, in the episode 0 Independent Media Roundtable, wrote a piece about the dangerously controlling position Spotify occupies in podcasting, and also about her love of RSS.

Mike Rugnetta:

I'm quoted briefly in that piece talking about how Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has an immoral amount of money. You can find links to both of those things in the show notes. And finally, did you know that you can tip us, like, off? Tip us off on things that you think we should talk about? You can call us at 651-615-50007.

Mike Rugnetta:

You can email us at the never post atgmail.com. Get a hold of us however you like, and let us know if there is something you think we should make a segment about. We would love to hear from you, and we would love to know what you think we should cover. In this episode, oh, it's a good one. We cover cars.

Mike Rugnetta:

Hans talks to Max Nesterach, a journalist at the Minnesota reformer, about the transit vacuum that will be left in the twin cities when slash if Uber and Lyft leave because of fair payment laws. And then I take a look at the history of the automobile interior as an increasingly prevalent short form video filming location. Our first fully themed episode, the Never Post Transit special. And in our interstitials this week, planes, trains, and of course, bikes.

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Hans Buetow:

Alright. There he is, Bahar. On his way, my Lyft driver is here. Hey there. Are you Bahar?

Hans Buetow:

I'm Hans. Hi. It is a bright, sunny April afternoon in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Mike Rugnetta:

Oh, I

Hans Buetow:

put a seat belt on. I've called this car to take me across town to see a former colleague and reporter. I live here in the Twin Cities. I grew up here. So normally, I would drive, but it felt relevant today to use Lyft.

Mike Rugnetta:

Do do

Hans Buetow:

you mind if I ask you a couple questions about about being a driver?

Bahar The Lyft Driver:

Yeah. So

Hans Buetow:

how long you've been driving in the Twin Cities?

Bahar The Lyft Driver:

On, the Lyft? Yeah. In almost 2 years.

Hans Buetow:

You've been driving for about 2 years?

Bahar The Lyft Driver:

Yeah.

Hans Buetow:

So how many hours do you think you work in a week?

Bahar The Lyft Driver:

In a day, I work in 8 hour, maybe 40 hour in a in a week.

Hans Buetow:

Okay. And, I'm sure you're aware of all of the the legislation and the ordinance that's being passed. They're trying to raise the rates.

Bahar The Lyft Driver:

Said that Lyft and nobody, they're gonna be Lyft in Minneapolis. I don't know. Right now when, I started my I opened my app, they send me one, I think they're gonna be changed in July or something. Yeah. July 1st.

Hans Buetow:

Yeah. So so you got a notification in the app that they're gonna be Yeah. They're gonna be leaving in July?

Bahar The Lyft Driver:

They say, yeah. I think the way did an, decision on July 1st, I don't know what the government has going on. We will see in July.

Hans Buetow:

There's a game of legislative chicken playing out in the Twin Cities right now. Coming from one direction, you have Uber and Lyft drivers like Bahar, a majority east African and immigrants who want different protections and pay than what they're currently getting in the gig economy. In sort of parallel but definitely all over the road, our state and city legislators who are trying in all kinds of ways to meet the needs of those drivers and everyone else and often with conflicting results. And swerving into a collision course with both of them are the profit driven and very unhappy Uber and its competitor Lyft who in March this year sent me a very dramatic email. The title was, we are leaving Minneapolis.

Hans Buetow:

And it said in part, quote, Lyft will be forced to stop offering rides in Minneapolis and you will no longer be able to request rides with Lyft that start or end in the city. All these competing forces, drivers, legislators, companies, they're all gonna collide, as Bahar says, on July 1st. And when they do, there are gonna be big impacts, not just for the drivers or political careers or bottom lines, but for the 3 and a half 1000000 people who live in the major metro area of the Twin Cities. Because no matter how it shakes out, this game of chicken is going to affect all of us. From those of us who use ride share services when they get to the airport or just to get around once in a while, but also from those who rely on ride share to get to the doctor, go to the grocery store, work, get to a legal appointment.

Hans Buetow:

There are more than 300,000 rides that happen every week in the Twin Cities. Everyone is gonna be affected by this. And for some, for whom rideshare is a lifeline, it could be dire. All of this is exactly why I'm headed to talk to Max Nesterak. He is a labor reporter at the Minnesota reformer, which means he covers workers tensions between workers and bosses on how to shape the workplace.

Hans Buetow:

Max has been chasing this story for more than a year. He's been talking with drivers, companies, lawmakers, and others, and I am eager to understand from him what he thinks might happen and how we got here.

Max Nesterak:

So for me, I heard about this story in October 2022 when reporters were called to the Capitol for a press conference to discuss driver earnings. And one of the striking images from that is a driver who shows up in a white plaid button down shirt that has this blood stain all over the front. And he, like many of the drivers, is East African. He speaks, with the help of an interpreter. And he talks about how this is his own blood because he was attacked by a passenger.

Taco Reacts:

Snatched the phone from me, which I was holding now. I tried to get it back. He hit me with a medal that he was, holding, on the head.

Hans Buetow:

As an experience, that sounds awful and terrifying. Hit in the head by a passenger only to be denied any financial assistance from Uber. But as a metaphor, it's pretty useful for how this group of drivers is feeling. Taking on risk, left to fight for themselves and being denied any additional support. The group that organized this press conference, the Minnesota Uber and Lyft Drivers Association, they are very clear about how tough they think it is for drivers right now.

Max Nesterak:

They start talking about these conditions that I think many people have been aware of for a long time is super drivers saying they don't make very much money. There can be unsafe working conditions with assaults or carjackings. And there's just little transparency in the app over how Uber and Lyft offer rides or why they deactivate drivers. They want a minimum wage. They want, compensation if they're injured.

Max Nesterak:

And they want greater transparency and a greater voice in their workplace. And so they're at the state capitol with state lawmakers to try and get a better deal through legislation. And frankly, it works. Their lobbying recruits lawmakers to start thinking about how to legislate Uber and Lyft's presence in

Hans Buetow:

the Twin Cities. But as soon as they start thinking about it, lawmakers realize it's hard to craft legislation when there just isn't any good data to base it on. There weren't any answers to questions about what drivers were making in Minnesota. So they had to turn to the best data that they had. Seattle had recently gone through their own minimum pay legislation and had done a study of driver wages and usage in 2020.

Hans Buetow:

So even though the data comes from a different city, during a pandemic where folks were mostly at home, Minnesota lawmakers in 2023 introduced a bill based on those numbers. And that bill is incredible for drivers. It is like nothing else in the country. It offers minimum rates around double what Seattle negotiated in 2022 using that same data. Drivers are thrilled.

Hans Buetow:

It's huge. But companies, not as excited.

Max Nesterak:

Obviously, Uber and Lyft react to this and say this is an unworkable bill. They say it would cause prices to rise so much that demand would plummet and drivers would ultimately lose income. But some Democratic lawmakers, they think, you know, Uber and Lyft are taking such a big cut that they can simply take less profit, take less money, and pay drivers more.

Hans Buetow:

To publicly traded startups in the free market, those are fighting words. Uber responds by facing off directly with lawmakers announcing that they may be forced to leave the state if this legislation goes through.

Taco Reacts:

Mister Cooper, can you identify specific language that you think is problematic? I can. And only address that point, please.

Hans Buetow:

I will. But lawmakers are not intimidated.

Taco Reacts:

It appears the word accident appears on line 210, and it acts moving,

Hans Buetow:

working up until the very end of the legislative session, trying to get this bill passed any way they can.

Taco Reacts:

The concern I have

Max Nesterak:

is We're in a committee meeting where lawmakers are literally drafting insurance requirements for the companies in real time. And

Taco Reacts:

Clerk will close the roll.

Max Nesterak:

You just wonder, is this gonna get across the finish line?

Taco Reacts:

There being 69 ayes and 61 nays, the bill is passed as amended in its title agreed to.

Hans Buetow:

Incredibly, it passes the house.

Taco Reacts:

There being 35 eyes and 32 noes, the bill's passed and its title agreed to.

Hans Buetow:

It passes the senate. And then just a few days later, the bill hits the desk of the governor, Tim Walz. And

Max Nesterak:

He issues the first veto

Max Nesterak:

in his tenure. I I

Hans Buetow:

tell them I understand their disappointment.

Max Nesterak:

I understand their frustrations. Tenure.

Taco Reacts:

I I tell them I understand their disappointment, I understand their frustrations, but I hope they know I'm with them on their cause. This just wasn't the vehicle to get it done.

Max Nesterak:

And instead, he signs an executive order, ordering a state study of driver pay.

Taco Reacts:

Given a little bit of time here and bringing folks to the table, we can get this right and I think it can be a template for the rest

Taco Reacts:

of the country. So it was the right decision.

Hans Buetow:

So the state wide bill is dead. Drivers wanted minimum pay and more protections. Legislators gave them that which made Lyft and Uber throw their weight around and the governor said, not yet, not this. So where do you go from the brink of chicken? Well, as everyone retreats back to life as it was, 2 economists start looking at more than 18,000,000 rideshare rides as a part of the study ordered by the governor.

Hans Buetow:

According to Uber and Lyft, it's the largest study of driver pay ever conducted. But a study like that takes a while. So we fast forward to the release of the study, 10 months. Now it's March 2024, and a date has been set. Everyone is excited to finally get to see what the data says.

Hans Buetow:

But the day before the report is released, something really big happens at the Minneapolis City Council, chaired by council leader Elliot Payne.

Taco Reacts:

It's time for us to recognize that, we have a responsibility as elected leaders to think about the interests that go beyond the profitability of any individual corporation. We have to think about the interest of our residents and them being able to live fulfilling lives in our city.

Hans Buetow:

Minneapolis has a higher minimum wage than the state of Minnesota. They also have a new progressive super majority in the council, and so they have decided they're gonna vote on their own ordinance for higher driver pay the day before the report comes out.

Max Nesterak:

I'm told behind the scenes that the council is being urged to just wait because the report will

Max Nesterak:

will tell you

Max Nesterak:

exactly what drivers need to earn in order to make the city's minimum wage after paying for their expenses.

Taco Reacts:

Iowa asked the clerk to call the roll.

Hans Buetow:

But they don't wait. They feel comfortable relying once again on the data from Seattle.

Max Nesterak:

There are 9 eyes and 4 names.

Taco Reacts:

That carries and that item is adopted.

Hans Buetow:

Once again, drivers are elated as the city council passes the ordinance on old data. And then, the next morning, the new data arrives.

Max Nesterak:

I was probably one of the most excited people in the Twin Cities to read this report, having covered this issue for more than a year. And it's a 70 page report and I open it right away and I start reading. And drivers are indeed earning less than the city's minimum wage on average, about 14.50 an hour.

Hans Buetow:

Minneapolis minimum wage is 15.57, but

Max Nesterak:

What the report shows is that the minimum rates passed by the Minneapolis City Council are actually much higher than those required to give driver to sit as minimum wage of 15.57 an hour after expenses.

Hans Buetow:

So now we know. The council overshot the minimum wage, but companies are paying under the minimum wage, and each side revs their engines and hits the accelerator. For Uber and Lyft, I get that specific and aggressive email saying that in response to the ordinance, they are going to leave May 1st.

Max Nesterak:

Lyft says it's gonna pull out of all of Minneapolis, but Uber says it's gonna pull out of the entire Twin Cities metro area.

Hans Buetow:

For the government, the mayor of Minneapolis responds to the ordinance by immediately vetoing it.

Max Nesterak:

They've kind of backed themselves into this position where they need to either justify what they've already passed or do a mea culpa and revise the ordinance. And they decide that there are issues with the report, and they think that the rights they passed are best, but are willing to evaluate it in the future.

Hans Buetow:

The ordinance enactment date gets pushed from May 1st to July 1st, and that's where we are now, caught in the middle of huge forces rushing towards each other. So what happens next? Who swerves? Which direction? And where do we go from here?

Max Nesterak:

It's such a tough issue to solve because the companies are so powerful and have become such a important part of the transportation infrastructure. So some people say, oh well, you could just take taxis. Axios Twin Cities had a great statistic where they looked up how many taxis are registered. It was something like 1400 in Minneapolis in 2014, and now it's about 30. There's 9 taxi companies, 41 taxi drivers, and 33 taxi vehicles licensed in Minneapolis as of March 20th 2024.

Max Nesterak:

And they are mostly doing medical transport.

Hans Buetow:

That is a shocking number. Yeah. 33 taxis in

Max Nesterak:

Minneapolis. Right. Vehicles. Not companies. Vehicles.

Max Nesterak:

Yeah. That's

Max Nesterak:

why. Vehicles. Cars. Mhmm.

Hans Buetow:

Can you draw a correlator? Is that a result of Uber and Lyft coming in and completely, like, decimating that market?

Max Nesterak:

Absolutely. They offered a better service at a cheaper rate.

Hans Buetow:

That is textbook for growth centered startups. We've seen it happen over and over and over again. Come into a market, drastically undercut the existing competition until you can crush them or buy them, making the market completely dependent on you for that service. But now, we're looking at this interesting situation where companies might be literally legislated out of town. So if taxis aren't viable, if we can't go back, what happens if Uber and Lyft abandon Minneapolis or the Greater Twin Cities?

Hans Buetow:

Well, suddenly the market is open again. And currently there are multiple new startups all rushing to get themselves set up to make a claim in that market before July 1st. There's,

Max Nesterak:

rides. That's w r I d z. And they offer their business model is drivers pay a monthly fee of I think it's about $100 a month. And then they keep 100% of the fare after fees. There's also joyride.

Max Nesterak:

That's joiryde.

Hans Buetow:

And joyride will let drivers set their own price and let customers request specific drivers and build client lists. They currently have nearly 10 full time drivers, but insists their technology will be ready to scale.

Max Nesterak:

There is one called teleport which is built on some of the same technology that runs the cryptocurrency Solana.

Hans Buetow:

You got wheels with a letter u and a z on the end says drivers will get 70% of each fare with the company covering licensing, commercial insurance, and all that.

Max Nesterak:

I mean one is a co op. So drivers own the platform, so drivers earn their minimum rates. And then if there's excess profit at the end of the year, it all comes back to them and it's a dividend. That sounds like a great model. Sounds better than having 2 San Francisco tech companies take half the fare from each trip.

Hans Buetow:

Hitch Minnesota is an Ethiopian rideshare company who also operates in Canada and is being brought to the US by a Somali Minnesotan immigrant and former driver as a COO.

Max Nesterak:

There's another company called Empower that is doing tens of thousands of rides in the DC area. They don't consider themselves a transportation network company like Uber and Lyft. So they don't think they need to apply for a license in Minneapolis, St. Paul, or the airport. It's about $47,000 They don't think they need to carry commercial insurance, $150,000 a year or more.

Max Nesterak:

They say they're a booking agency. We're like Expedia or OpenTable. We're just facilitating this transaction. All told,

Hans Buetow:

as of the beginning of April, Max had talked with executives from 9 companies. All of them were trying to look to take a share of the open market that might exist later this summer. And each of them is trying to have a new way of appealing to drivers and riders.

Max Nesterak:

It's not unlike how Uber and Lyft came storming into cities saying we're something completely different. We're not taxis. We don't. Regulations don't apply to us. And then getting a new classification, and lawmakers having to catch up and try and regulate them after the fact.

Max Nesterak:

So this effort to provide drivers with more protections through a minimum pay rates and other regulations could then just be sidestepped by another company simply by saying we're not a transportation network company. And could we see the Uber and Lyft playbook happen all over again?

Hans Buetow:

Just with a different model.

Max Nesterak:

Just with a different model. When I interviewed the founder of MyWheels, that's a wheels without an h, He's a serial entrepreneur. He runs a private equity firm. He's starting this up in Minneapolis because he's reliant on ride Cherry as a disability that, makes it such that he can't drive a car. And he told me, you know, a lot of these companies, I don't even think they're going to be able to make it to the start line, yet let alone run a good race.

Max Nesterak:

He said, my guess is that we end up with about 2 viable options. So maybe we have an Uber and Lyft, but they're called My Wheels and Move.

Hans Buetow:

Who else is looking at this? Are there other cities or other groups of drivers in other cities who are looking at this? And what lessons do you think that they're looking to take from it?

Max Nesterak:

So I believe Chicago, Colorado, and Massachusetts are all, considering pay standards and regulations for Uber and Lyft drivers, I think they're watching what happens. Do Uber and Lyft actually pull out to teach these other cities and states a lesson that we don't back down? If we can call their bluff and we make them stay, we paved a way for lawmakers in other places to call their bluff, to set pay rates that we think are appropriate regardless of what a corporation say. This game of chicken is being closely watched by lawmakers in lots of other cities and states who are thinking that they want to pass minimum pay standards for drivers. Certainly, it would be great for us to come up with something that's better than 2 publicly traded corporations having a stranglehold over our transportation, but acknowledging that is much different than finding a solution with the least pain possible for all involved.

Hans Buetow:

Max, this has been incredibly helpful. So thank you so much for talking with me and sharing all the reporting

Hans Buetow:

that you've been doing.

Max Nesterak:

Thank you so much for having me on. You know, I've been just living with this for months that it's just feels good to get it all off my chest.

Hans Buetow:

That's what we're

Hans Buetow:

here for, man. I'm glad we could serve that function. If nothing else, what I'll do is therapy. Yeah. Exactly.

Max Nesterak:

It's we

Max Nesterak:

need to let it all out.

Hans Buetow:

Thanks again to Max Neserack for talking with us about all of this and for his reporting over the last 18 months. We will put a link to all of the articles that he's written for the Minnesota reformer in the show notes. And we wanna hear from you. We would love to hear. Are they thinking about these issues where you live?

Hans Buetow:

Have they already solved them? Let us know what your experience has been with pay minimums and driver protections. You can call us at 651-615-5007, or email us at the never post@gmail.com. You can find these and other ways to get a hold of us also in the show notes.

Mike Rugnetta:

A few days ago, I'm sitting in my car, like I am now. It's 4:30 in the afternoon. I've arrived early to our daughter's daycare for pickup. I have 15 minutes to kill, the most unshapely amount of time. Neither a fleeting 10 nor a productive 20, 15 is the perfect interval to simply lose.

Mike Rugnetta:

So I open TikTok. Frying in June. Before long, I'm watching a man in a slightly too large lilac dress shirt and matching striped necktie. He's in his mid twenties, I'd wager, with brown hair and a thin beard. It's a food review with all the gusto and overstatement one expects from short

Taco Reacts:

peak of my life right here.

Mike Rugnetta:

He says, of the butter chicken coated naan that he's folding into his mouth. He moves on to spoonfuls of rice, slathered with the same. The curry oozing out of

Hans Buetow:

Take our whole bacon.

Mike Rugnetta:

Like you might see on the dessert table of an office function, burbling chocolate to be drizzled on strawberries, pre poked with toothpicks. The appliance is 2 feet tall ish, a gurgling spout on top, and 2 plastic domes with a recirculating reservoir below.

Hans Buetow:

But you know what? It adds flavor. Maybe next time I'll just

Mike Rugnetta:

He tilts an aluminum container of rice, squeezing it under the lowest dome. And I notice he's managed to avoid getting any of this on his shirt and tie. Miraculous given that this whole scene has played out in the driver's seat of his car. I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great gothic cathedrals, Roland Barthes writes in the opening line of his 1957 essay, The New Citroen. I mean, the supreme creation of an era, he continues.

Mike Rugnetta:

Conceived with passion by unknown artists and consumed in image, if not in usage, by a whole population, which appropriates them as a purely magical object. Bart was writing about the Citroen DS 19, designed by a sculptor and an aeronautical engineer, considered one of the more beautiful vehicles ever manufactured and a significant milestone in the mechanical development of the automobile in the 20th century. But Bart may as well have been writing about Luke Foods' car, the one with the butter chicken fountain in it, which appears to be an undercover green Kia Soul. The car is a magical object in that it is unbelievable, even when directly beheld. Like a magic trick, endless effort is expended in some out of sight place to make the work done in public seem as impossible as it is also inevitable.

Mike Rugnetta:

A lady cannot be sewn in half, and yet the image is so well known, it practically defines the performance of magic. We ascent to its contradiction. A pickup truck cannot be angry. But yet, we've all been in suburban grocery store parking lots on a Saturday afternoon, staring down these embarrassing behemoths. This is what Barthes means when he says cars are consumed in image and usage.

Mike Rugnetta:

They're machines, which serve a purpose, but they're also, maybe more so, symbols, which signify things about themselves. And so then, more significantly, about the people who drive them. The first time I noticed the car was David After Dentist in 2009, in which David Devore junior, having had anesthesia to remove an extra tooth, asks his father, filming on a flip cam.

Clip:

Is this real life?

Clip:

Yeah. This is real life.

Mike Rugnetta:

He's 7 years old in the video and buckled into the back seat of some stationary vehicle. The large rear window frames blown out trees in the afternoon light. The black leather of the car looks new. And when David screams

Clip:

Stay in your seat.

Mike Rugnetta:

And slumps explaining that he doesn't feel tired.

Clip:

I don't feel tired.

Clip:

You don't? Uh-huh. No?

Mike Rugnetta:

The dead end sound of the car interior is unmistakable and evocative. This video needs the car. David is enclosed, protected, in transit between states. The car is in public, yet its own kind of private space, where his father films this first surgery for the benefit of his mother before he uploads the video to YouTube for the rest of the family, not realizing there's an option to make the video, like the car itself, private. The intertwining of social media and the automobile makes some sense.

Mike Rugnetta:

The web remade a world only recently remade by cars. Both are used to navigate infrastructure which is now integral to, mandatory for, in many ways, contemporary life. The car was the engine of early travel vlogs. It was the safe space of cap wearing, sunglass clad tough guy conspiracy theorists. It remains the thrumming heart of van life.

Mike Rugnetta:

And alongside the bathroom, it's become a default setting for short form vertical video.

Jordan:

Just, know what I mean? Because here's the deal. Right? Come here. In the great words of little John, what?

Mike Rugnetta:

It's 4:38 in the afternoon. I continue to scroll. And not long after Luke Foods, I arrive at Taco Reacts, known mostly for reaction videos. He shows a clip of someone else's content before inserting his own commentary.

Clip:

The last time you saw someone with an Audi? Early 2000. It's been a while.

Taco Reacts:

It it it it depends

Clip:

because the neighbor's got one

Taco Reacts:

that he drives every day, unless you're talking about the other one. And then in that case, you're damn right.

Mike Rugnetta:

He's a bearded white guy seated almost always in a 4 door Ford F150 pickup. Out of the rear windows of his truck, you may see a house across a suburban street, a parking lot, a tree line. We often join him for lunch as he unwraps fast food packages. The interior roof of the truck features a growing number of morale patches, the easiest of which to make out is for Montana Knife Co. There's also a polar bear and what looks like a fighter jet.

Mike Rugnetta:

Taco, known elsewhere as Paul b, for whom Taco is a kind of character. Taco looks like a Ford F150 owner, insofar as such a thing has a look. His beard is long, dark, and manicured. He wears a structured baseball cap with an elk on it and an arrowhead necklace and sometimes reflective sunglasses. In the back seat of his truck, you can occasionally see arrows with their bright fletching.

Mike Rugnetta:

Scrolling through Taco's videos, reacting to a woman holding a snake, reacting to someone smashing a camera lens, a man saying he wouldn't allow his wife to go to the club, a cat eating a french fry, I find myself surprised. Taco seems nonconfrontationally accepting is maybe one way to put it. He looks confused and dismayed at the guy saying he won't let his wife go to the club, but he remains silent, like he doesn't wanna cause trouble. Elsewhere, he quips with classic millennial affliction about D and D and Harry Potter. Are these the reactions of a Ford F150 owner, one with a baseball cap and reflective sunglasses?

Mike Rugnetta:

What do I think the reactions of a Ford F150 owner should be?

Taco Reacts:

As a representative of Taboop or not Taboop, boop the fuck out of that thing. Give it all the love in the world. Make sure nothing could ever harm it ever. Ever.

Mike Rugnetta:

In 2014, writer and programmer Paul Ford wrote The American Room, an essay chronicling the background environments of YouTube videos. The first time I noticed the room, he writes in the opening line of his essay, was in the Pneuma Pneuma video of 2004, circulated pre YouTube, in which a New Jersey man named Gary Brolsma danced in his chair to a Moldovan pop song called Dragostadinte. Ford notes the sameness of the rooms depicted in many YouTube videos. Their emptiness, their off white color, their size, large. The rooms look the way they do for a few reasons.

Mike Rugnetta:

First, he explains, because of standards. Sheetrock is cut in certain sizes. Certain house plans are easier to come by, which are themselves easier to come by than skilled labor to build them. The rooms are empty, he suggests, simply because such large rooms are difficult, meaning expensive, to fill with art, knickknacks, furniture. Quote, you could judge those rooms and say that America has a paucity of visual imagination, that we live in a kind of wasteland.

Mike Rugnetta:

Or you could draw another conclusion and note that America might be a little more broke than it wants to show, end quote. And so the empty American room emerges. And inside it, the viral YouTube star. The American room has lost its primacy in the last decade. 1st, because the frequency of sudden and unexpected viral mega hits.

Taco Reacts:

Toss that ring.

Mike Rugnetta:

A one off video produced ad hoc like Pneuma Pneuma and without a manicured background

Clip:

Hi, guys. So this is my first video blog.

Mike Rugnetta:

Has waned. YouTube is now known for its creators.

Clip:

Once again, behind me are a 100 people.

Mike Rugnetta:

Professionals who seek notoriety and influence repeatedly on purpose. YouTube videos are no longer posts. They're weightier than that. And with that weight, they exhibit increasingly TV like production. Makeup, lighting, sets.

Mike Rugnetta:

On television shows, the characters' rooms are filled with art, knickknacks, ephemera, and signifiers, Ford writes. Continuing, think of the rooms in the Big Bang Theory, constant visual stimulus. Always something for the eye to do. End quote. YouTube audiences too need something for their eyes to do now.

Mike Rugnetta:

If not a full set, at the very least, a shelf with some stuff on it. The beige wall just doesn't cut it anymore. The American room has fallen from favor, thanks also to the ascendency of the mobile phone, and a locale even more suited for casual video production. The car is a natural setting for social video, less so for podcasts. Not only do its qualities obviate the need for additional production a grid of old LP sleeves.

Mike Rugnetta:

It's a filming locale that excuses and addresses the stress of bare beige walls, of producing constant visual stimulus. The American room is stationary, but the American car is action, movement, motion. Even while parked, it's always in media race, going, arriving, like David after dentist, between states. And so always already a place of excitement and progress before the action even begins. It's also no less a personal space.

Mike Rugnetta:

Jean Baudrillard, in the system of objects, called the car an eccentric relative to the household. In the new Citroen, Bart notes that car interiors were becoming increasingly homely, abandoning the mechano scientific design language suggesting, quote, the alchemy of speed for a more domestic feel, quote, more like the working surface of a modern kitchen than the control room of a factory. The car, Baudrillard writes, makes it possible to be simultaneously at home and further away from home. A lot of people make videos in their car, but I think principally of the videos I see of mostly women screaming.

Clip:

Do you ever jazz?

Mike Rugnetta:

And crying inside of them. Sometimes ironically, sometimes it's hard to tell. Often, they hold a large beverage.

Clip:

This is my Starbucks drink today. I don't know if you guys have tried this.

Mike Rugnetta:

This is a media type of such specificity. You might bulk at the idea that it comprises a genre until you hear Evelyn from the internets ask

Clip:

If you don't have a automobile, where do you scream? Like, where do you just let the proverbial chopper sing? Because baby, within these walls, in this Toyota, in my Corolla oh, I don't play. I gets down.

Mike Rugnetta:

A projectile and a domicile is how Baudrillard describes the automobile. The car too is an abode, he writes, but an exceptional one. A closed realm of intimacy, but one released from the constraints that usually apply to the intimacy of the home. In some ways, for some people, the car is more home than home. My 15 minutes are nearly up.

Mike Rugnetta:

I land on Shannon Blake. One of Blake's videos has been going around lately. She's seated in a car with a white cowboy hat on. There are fake leaves and moss pinned to the roof of her car. A dream catcher hangs over one shoulder and a Nazar over the other.

Mike Rugnetta:

She wears at least 5 necklaces of beads, shells, feathers. Her hands are covered in rings with rocks and crystals. Her wavy platinum hair fans out from under the hat. She wears 3 nose rings, 1 lip ring, and at least 6 earrings. She raps about taking Ayahuasca and about how the pyramids were built for time travel.

Mike Rugnetta:

Someone interrupts her. This is a stitch. An archaeologist enters the frame, noting that since this video has become so popular, he sees fit to set a couple things straight. The pyramids, for 1, were not built by aliens. They are not time travel devices.

Mike Rugnetta:

This is one of the reasons Shannon's video has been so ubiquitous. Endless people lining up to pick apart her new age clap trap. Why, I wonder, have I not seen anyone pick apart her car? The Shannon, at one point, lived in her car. She posted pictures of her car, her home, which she named Nancy, in 2016, a few years after her daughter was born.

Mike Rugnetta:

I put links in the show notes if you wanna go look. People joke that Shannon is the final boss of Burning Man, but she may very well be the final boss of short form vertical videos shot in a car. Say what you must about her bedazzled, co opted shamanism obscured by weed smoke. Her frames are amazing. Having taken the American car, in this case, a late model white Ford Bronco, as a filming location to its logical endpoint, customizing, communicating with the interior of her vehicle as much, possibly more, than its exterior.

Mike Rugnetta:

The Ford Bronco is gone, transformed by whatever aura Shannon is at the center of. Her frame feels very purposeful. Not at all like an automobile, but like a home, personal, lived in, full. I think of Paul Ford. I think of the emptiness of the American home, the rooms in the Big Bang Theory, constant visual stimulus, always something for the eye to do.

Mike Rugnetta:

For Ford and Bart, home is marked by less visual complexity, not more. Blake no longer lives in her car. I've seen videos of her house. It's huge. But her car, nonetheless, feels lived in.

Mike Rugnetta:

Another vehicular visual magic trick. Another contradiction to which I ascent. I wonder what Shannon Presig is. The professionalization of YouTube spelled the demise of the American room popularly. What does the professionalization of TikTok spell for the American car?

Mike Rugnetta:

Will we look back on the empty automobiles of TikTok? No morale patches, no dream catchers, just screaming women in their cups as quaint artifacts of a simpler time before we realized what those spaces could accommodate? And what space will arrive to address the stressors of not wanting to deck out ones? Corolla Or Kia Soul. Or Ford Bronco.

Mike Rugnetta:

Or Ford F150. I look back into my own car. I see dog blankets, a child's car seat, an empty cooler that I should clean. My timer goes off. My 15 minutes are up.

Mike Rugnetta:

Lost, thoroughly. Do you make videos in your car? Do any of your favorite creators make videos primarily in their cars? Why do you think it makes for such an effective filming location, and what does it signify? Also, outside the scope of this segment, but something I mentioned briefly and I'm still curious about, how did the bathroom become another default video setting for vertical videos in the last few years?

Mike Rugnetta:

Surely, there's something more to it than the presence of a mirror and good lighting. Call us at 651-615-50007. Email us at the never post atgmail.com. Drop a voice memo in our air table or leave a comment on the website. There are links in the show notes.

Mike Rugnetta:

And let us know what you think. We may respond to your comment in a future Mailbag episode. That is the show we have for you this week. We'll be back here in the main feed on May 8th, assuming that we all stay out of harm's way. And as always, members keep an eye on your inboxes for special exclusive goodies.

Mike Rugnetta:

If you're interested in helping us continue to make the show and listening to any of our side shows like posts from the field, slow post, and never watch, alongside extended segments and an ad free version of the show, you can head on over to neverpo.s t to become a member. Never posts producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious doctor first name last name. Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. And the show's host, hey, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta.

Mike Rugnetta:

To understand what was going on, it is perhaps necessary to have participated in the freeway experience, which is the only secular communion Los Angeles has. Mere driving on the freeway is in no way the same as participating in it. Anyone can drive on the freeway, and many people with no vocation for it do. Hesitating here and resisting there, losing the rhythm of the lane change, thinking about where they came from and where they're going. Actual participants think only about where they are.

Mike Rugnetta:

Actual participation requires a total surrender, a concentration so intense as to seem a kind of narcosis, a rapture of the freeway. The mind goes clean, the rhythm takes over, a distortion of time occurs, the same distortion that characterizes the instant before an accident. Excerpt from The Bureaucrats by Joan Didion. Neverpost is a production of Charts and Leisure.