The illusion of social media…

Social media has gotten people thinking that all these car builds happen overnight. The content creators make it seem like they have an unlimited budget and chase the rarest of the rare spec of the car. Trying to be “worlds first xyz”. Or throwing the entire kitchen sink of parts and sponsorship plugs into these cars. They keep turning out builds in what feels like a new build completed every other week.

Although it’s not as crazy as a swap these days, my dream has always been to LSX swap my S13 convertible. To me, that is THE swap to do. But with all things social media, the lore of a swapped S-chassis is gone as it’s been done so many times already. For us regular car guys who don’t have an unlimited budget and sponsorships lining our pockets, that engine swap is still rad but expensive to do and would require a lot of time and money.

What I’m trying to say is that what you see on social media doesn’t relate to us regular car people. These content creators are the top 5% in the automotive realm and they have the funds and backing to buy the rarest spec car and spend $150k on it cause they can. They need to be building new cars left and right to keep feeding the machine called social media.

It’s taken me 6+ years and a lot of money to get my STI to where it is today. I’ll be the first to admit that I get caught up seeing these builds and have to remind myself that these types of builds take time and that I don’t need to rush things…

Seeing my friend Aarron (@MoshpitMad) build his hatchback wasn’t an overnight build. It took him 30+ months and two different shops to get the custom wide body done and sourcing all the rare body panel parts for his car. More on his build in another post!!

These types of builds don’t have a 5 day turnaround nor would we want to ever take those shortcuts to do so. Finding the parts takes time. Saving up the money takes time. Installing the parts takes time. Don’t let social media make it seem like this is normal to do those crazy builds in a short amount of time.

For us regular car folks? We don’t have that kind of access and sometimes social media gets to me. It’s downplayed having a set of TE37’s cause you think everyone and their momma has a set. I wish we celebrated more of the wins. You did the oil change by yourself? SICK! You bought that sweet ass HKS exhaust you spent all summer saving up for? SICK! You bought those RPF1’s you’ve wanted for awhile now? SICK! Eibach springs for your car? SICK!

We need to enjoy more of the W’s as regular car folks and normalize attainable modifications and celebrate them more often!

-Kurtis