He's not out there for the racing or the safety. Neither are his fans. They are all there for the "Hey y'all, watch this!" moments and to generate content that people want to watch. Safety is a distant second.
If you want safe racing, his channel is not the place for it. Go watch the SCCA runoffs. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is not many people want to watch that kind of content.
SCCA's Youtube page has a little over 4000 subscribers and their last video, which was posted 2 hours ago, has 37 views. The Runoffs only had about 30k views.
NASCAR has 900k subscribers. IMSA, 208k. NHRA, 148k.
CM's youtube page has over 3 million subscribers and his last video, which was posted 48 hours ago has over 700k views.
People don't want to watch boring, safe races.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Yet you still watched it and put money in his pocket.
I can't stand WhistlingD-bag and don't watch him but lovers and haters still do.
They both are winning.
aw614
Reader
10/18/22 8:59 a.m.
preach (dudeist priest) said:
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Yet you still watched it and put money in his pocket.
I can't stand WhistlingD-bag and don't watch him but lovers and haters still do.
They both are winning.
This is how I feel about WhistlingD and Cleetus, if it shows up on my Youtube suggested viewings, I make sure to continue to select "Not Interested". I know my viewership won't make a dent in their totals, but I feel comfortable knowing I dont want to support their channel.
preach (dudeist priest) said:
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Yet you still watched it and put money in his pocket
I very much support the guy. He saved a dead circle track in my town that would have otherwise been demolished. I enjoy a lot of the product he puts out. Most of it is pretty entertaining. That doesn't mean I can't also critique some of his unsafe decisions. The two things are not mutually exclusive. I intend to race my Crown Vic at his track in January, when they open it up for a race that isn't all YouTubers. However, if anyones got a log strapped to the trunk, I might bail.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
This is how I feel about him too. I enjoy a lot of his content but can say "that was a bad idea, man." Like when he put gas in the crank case next to a 500 gallon tank of gas.
I have friends that were not car people until they started watching his channel.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Sweet!
He supposedly is adjusting his safety from viewer comments. Maybe not enough but I don't read the comments.
I think the Freedom Factory save was fantastic. The drag strip is probably really happy too. I love what those guys just did as well.
aw614 said:
preach (dudeist priest) said:
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Yet you still watched it and put money in his pocket.
I can't stand WhistlingD-bag and don't watch him but lovers and haters still do.
They both are winning.
This is how I feel about WhistlingD and Cleetus, if it shows up on my Youtube suggested viewings, I make sure to continue to select "Not Interested". I know my viewership won't make a dent in their totals, but I feel comfortable knowing I dont want to support their channel.
If you can bear it, I'd recommend listening to Roman Atwood's podcast episode with Cleetus and the episode with WhistlinDiesel. Both very informative episodes. There's more to most people than meets the eye.
In reply to AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) :
Came here to say to to listen to both of thoes.
In reply to AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) :
While true, you can make Teh Algorithm know that you are not interested in their content.
Teh Algorithm is weird. It'll throw you a Eurobeat remix of Fortunate Son, you have a LOL while driving down the road, a half hour later it won't stop throwing you horrorcore/experimental J-core music and you can't figure out how to get back to the world you used to be in because you didn't hit unlike at some point.
Larry Chen interviews CM:
ddavidv
UltimaDork
10/27/22 8:10 a.m.
"Saving Car Culture" means different things to different people. I'm not a Cleetus fan, but I don't hate on him either. He's just not my flavor.
Derek Bieri, David Freiburger, Dylan McCool and Kevin from Junkyard Digs are who saved my love of car wrenching. I was heading down a road of giving up on cars because of modern complexity. I love older cars, but the constant battle with cosmetics and the expense of painting them had turned me off. Along comes this group on YouTube and learn me that...duh...you can have a lot of fun with old stuff that won't win any prizes at the local cruise-in. What do I want a bunch of $10 trophies for, anyway? Make 'em go, slather some 'shine juice' on that patina and have fun. And I am! Wrenching is fun again.
I don't care about 'twin turbskis' or any of that over-the-top burnout sillyness. Others like it, and that's fine. Whoever your YT inspiration is, if it gets you out into the garage and back on the road, I'm all for it.
ddavidv said:
"Saving Car Culture" means different things to different people. I'm not a Cleetus fan, but I don't hate on him either. He's just not my flavor.
Derek Bieri, David Freiburger, Dylan McCool and Kevin from Junkyard Digs are who saved my love of car wrenching. I was heading down a road of giving up on cars because of modern complexity. I love older cars, but the constant battle with cosmetics and the expense of painting them had turned me off. Along comes this group on YouTube and learn me that...duh...you can have a lot of fun with old stuff that won't win any prizes at the local cruise-in. What do I want a bunch of $10 trophies for, anyway? Make 'em go, slather some 'shine juice' on that patina and have fun. And I am! Wrenching is fun again.
I don't care about 'twin turbskis' or any of that over-the-top burnout sillyness. Others like it, and that's fine. Whoever your YT inspiration is, if it gets you out into the garage and back on the road, I'm all for it.
This right here.
As I've gotten older, I've found that going fast and being stupid behind the wheel (burnouts, general hooning, etc) is less of a want than just cruising around on a back country road in my ride. I was spending a lot of time worrying about how the car looks and how I could make it perfect again with shiny paint and a spotless interior. As a result, my projects sat and sat for years.
The recent trend of "just get the thing running and put it on the road" changed my entire view of cars, much like the GRM Challenge and the 24 Hours of Lemons changed my views on having fun in a competition setting. Roadkill and VGG showed me that yes, my terrible vehicles CAN be fun just the way they are, as long as they are relatively safe for the road.
kb58
UltraDork
10/27/22 11:02 a.m.
Look at any of the old photos from the 1950s and none of the cars are shiny, with flat paint, rust, or dents. It was all about the engines and "getting out there." The roots of hotrodding.
Video from latest incident.
In reply to chandler :
IDK what that means. Is it even English? 
Mr_Asa
UltimaDork
11/20/22 12:26 p.m.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to chandler :
IDK what that means. Is it even English?
Had to read it like three times looking for the disconnect. Then I realized who was saying they didn't understand.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Rusty but running is more satisfying than chasing perfection on jack stands for years.
Mr_Asa
UltimaDork
11/20/22 1:24 p.m.
Appleseed said:
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Rusty but running is more satisfying than chasing perfection on jack stands for years.
Took me a long time to realize this. This forum helped that immensely.
Much happier now.
Appleseed said:
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Rusty but running is more satisfying than chasing perfection on jack stands for years.
Disagree. There's an art and something inherently beautiful about chasing perfection. I've cut off and redone more junk on my own stuff that was done years ago than most people will ever fabricate. Because it no longer meets *my* requirements.
And that's the beautiful part about the automotive / motorcycle hobby. There's a little niche corner for just about everybody...no matter what you're into.
GaryC83 said:
Appleseed said:
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Rusty but running is more satisfying than chasing perfection on jack stands for years.
Disagree. There's an art and something inherently beautiful about chasing perfection. I've cut off and redone more junk on my own stuff that was done years ago than most people will ever fabricate. Because it no longer meets *my* requirements.
And that's the beautiful part about the automotive / motorcycle hobby. There's a little niche corner for just about everybody...no matter what you're into.
Yeah, but you are creating art and being paid to do it. Most of us just want to drive the dang thing
In reply to GaryC83 :
No doubt. But how many beautiful dreams of perfection get sold/parted out because of waning desires? Countless.
kb58
UltraDork
11/21/22 1:26 a.m.
Well Cleetus has a distraction at home, in the form of his first son, born a week ago. So that may alter how he approaches future events, and his personal safety as well.
NickD
MegaDork
11/21/22 8:33 a.m.
In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :
There's a certain irony to the fact that it was SxSBlog. After the incident at Bristol they put out a really weird 30-minute video that was leveling all sorts of accusations at Kevin, saying he intentionally put them into the wall. It actually drove a lot of their viewers away and has made them the butt of a lot of jokes lately. Especially when damn near every video they put out has some sort of "We wrecked this", "We totaled this", "We flipped this", including overturning their own truck and trailer on the highway. Personally, I never liked them to begin with, so it had no bearing on my opinion of them.
