So, an old acquaintance who was in my brother's high school class put up something about that on Facebook. He said the red star in the center was proof that Jeep is now a communist company and he'll never buy one (again?). He also has a major problem with Pope Francis. Anyway, my guess is they are targeting people like me (formerly rural, now urbanized, at the phase of life where nice cars are more likely). Also, I just replaced a Jeep with a Toyota.
It's not my fault the Renegade looks silly and the gets worse case mileage.
Of course, I could have missed something because I didn't have the sound on.
Huh, also more or less in Moby's demographic, and mystified. But then I have a pretty visceral negative reaction to the dumb shit people do to try to hang onto feeling culturally rural or authentic or whatever. And nothing about any of the various American largemobiles I've had as rental cars makes me want to go out and buy one.
Who buys Jeeps? Rural people here buy Ford, Chevy, and Dodge pickups. City people, famously, buy Subarus. So, is the target audience suburban "soccer moms"?
I thought the Montana nurse comes home from NYC (or is that Chicago?) after helping with the COVID surge was a better Jeep ad: https://www.ispot.tv/ad/t2Mv/jeep-heroes-journey-song-by-x-ambassadors-t1
I had a giant Buick SUV for a rental once. When you hit the fob to unlock the door, a light cast the Buick logo on the ground.
Jeeps are good for having AWD at a relatively low price. They're pretty common here.
But more and more I see really stupid pickups owned by people in the city.
It used to have a Wrangler. It appeals to people who like both truck-like vehicles and convertibles.
Anyway, I love me some Bruce but this commercial definitely falls flat.
Yeah I really do not understand current pickup design. You're going to give the thing enough power to outrun a 70s sports car and raise it so high on its suspension that you need a stepladder to load the damn thing and this is supposed to be all practical and manly and shit? Please. The 75 Dodge Club Cab that we had most of the time I was growing up got into all kinds of interesting places with nothing more sophisticated than a positrack rear end and you could put crap in the back end without having to lift it past waist height.
What kills me is all the time you see big pickup trucks parked in people's driveways when you know they can't fit into their garage.
Someone said it was like watching a David Brooks column.
The worst rental car I ever had was a PT Cruiser. What a piece of shit- terrible mileage, uncomfortable seating, small cargo volume, rough handling, and I don't know if it was just the model they gave me but it didn't have cruise control which sucked on a 2 hour highway drive.
10- It is easy to explain. It makes your car look murderous. It does this by making your car murderous. People are supposed to get out of your way.
I think rural people who own land may end up being the real Americans. The rest of us are surplus to requirements.
I think rural people who own land may end up being the real Americans.
They aren't built for rural people, but salaried suburbanites who pretend to rurality.
My mom owns far more land than the average American.
Well, maybe contractors and small business owners in the ideal, but they're propped up by a bunch of salaried workers.
I think rural people who own land may end up being the real Americans. The rest of us are surplus to requirements.
Having a functioning brain to go with my urban ennui, I figured out a very long time ago that being self-sufficient in a cabin in the woods is pretty much the bullshittiest bullshit that ever bullshitted. Those pickups don't build themselves, just for starters. Nor did steel plows or Conestoga wagons, for that matter.
Who buys Jeeps?
Overwhelmingly dudes with decent income who like the brand. Actual rurals like where you're at tend towards pickups because of the tow capacity which is far and away larger than Jeep's lineup.
Probably the best under the radar 4x4 SUV in the US is the Lexus GX, especially the used ones.
Which actually goes back to the Jeep ad, with gauzy nostalgia for a past we build identities around fundamentally misunderstanding.
That reminds me, tomorrow our Jeep that I didn't crash will probably hit 80085 on the odometer.
It will look better on the odometer because of the LED display.
It is getting to negligent that federal regulators are not getting involved in the increasing lethality of SUVs, pickups, etc. as they grow larger and larger because people think that's cool. (Most people with pickups actually haul something with them once a year or less, according to a survey.)
American car companies have always traded on the idea of a white America that doesn't suck: Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. The Jeep piece was working that vein, and it only failed because it has become really difficult to soft-pedal how awful white Americans are.
You can't have a car commercial that says, "This glorious beast sucks up gas, spews carbon and is great for running down illegals." So you have to take another tack, but if you're going to tout American decency, you need to avoid getting specific about what you mean by that.
No, the best Jeep can do is to get a universally beloved figure like Springsteen to gesture toward "The Middle," and pretend he's not talking about splitting the difference between open racism and Black Lives Matter.
In truth, given the task the Jeep folks set for themselves, I think this is about as strong an effort as they could have made. A shitty American can look at this commercial, nod his head and say, "Right on, Bruce. People need to reach out to better understand me."
27.last is well said. Depressing as hell, but well said.
This one random guy talking shit about nü pickup trucks made me briefly obsessed with getting a snub-nosed lorry to haul my massive fantasies around. This was, I presume, not the purpose of the article.
Actual commercial trucks generally do not harm their practicality by deliberately making it harder to see where you are going. The Isuzu NPR-HD (which incidentally has more than twice the payload capacity of the GMC 2500 Denali) does have a flat front, but because of its cabover design that places the driver above the engine. That gives it more cargo room for its length, a better turning radius, and an excellent field of view. . . . [N]o doubt many are just as frustrated as I am that you simply can't buy a sensibly proportioned truck that doesn't look like a 14-year-old's gaming rig anymore."
Hüsker Nü would be a good name for a truck.
The point is, you can't have a name with umlats if you aren't even making a team that is bowl-eligible.
They may as well have recycled Springsteen's beloved Song for America.
I like the one where he sings about where he was born.
Also the one where he sings about why he was born.
The one about fucking in a car with good, but I think maybe that was just a cover.
But Song for America has the best lyrics.
Have you clicked the link, Moby? Because if you have I'm surprised you would say that.
I clicked the link, but it was a 15 second ad so I clicked back.
Also, I've always really liked Neil Diamond.
Better than all of those is Hans Zimmer strolling out and taking the spotlight on "Time". (2:15)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdYYN-4ttDg
I say "Not!" to my daughter and she rolls her eyes and says "OK, X-er".
To be fair, if God had meant us to click on the links, he wouldn't have given us such short attention spans.
The link in the OP didn't have an ad.
The ad is aimed at right-wingers, telling them to calm down. Is it an effective ad? I have no idea, and I doubt anyone here does.
re: 29
I was surprised to see, when in the US, actual workmen driving stupid SUV style trucks, rather than things like that Isuzu, which is what you'd standardly see workmen driving here.
That is, driving things that look like:
rather than things that look like:
https://www.romanselfdrive.co.uk/assets/uploaded/images/vehicles/cropped/dropside.jpg
or like:
https://walkermovements.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/NX03-HVV-001.jpg
That's like a pickup truck front, but an SUV. That's all I ever saw used, except with a standard bed.
Either that or the standard windowless van.
54: similarly, does anyone know why heavy trucks in the US are conventional while literally everywhere else in the world they are cab-over (so more of the allowable length is payload and the driver can see over the front wheels)?
I haven't heard a good Peterbilt joke since Cars 1.
No spoilers. I haven't seen it yet.
Wikipedia says that it's the Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula which incentivizes having axles further apart, which is not possible with cabover design.
57: 61 may be part of it, but the bridge formula is usually more of an issue for single-unit trucks w/ fewer than 5 axles than it is for cabovers. Main reason, I suspect, is that the U.S. primarily regulates trailer length rather than combination length, so you don't have the "more of the allowable length is payload" issue here. They apparently used to be more common in the U.S. many decades ago, when limits on overall length were more of a constraint.
The goals of the Jeep Ad were:
1. to sell Jeeps
2. to flatter the banal Sorkin-esque political predilections of the Jeep executives
similarly, does anyone know why heavy trucks in the US are conventional while literally everywhere else in the world they are cab-over (so more of the allowable length is payload and the driver can see over the front wheels)?
Big truck go vroom, dead kids should have been more careful.
Isn't there a collision safety issue with flat fronts, either on trucks or vans?
Googling it up, that may have been part of the motivation for cab-over becoming uncommon in the US, but their being standard in Europe and Asia suggests to me that can be mitigated.
They are probably a lot better suited to tighter European and Asian streets. American streets just aren't that tight.
63: I'm surprised how everyone is looking at Jeep's motivations. Of course they are trying to sell Jeeps.
But why did Springsteen do this?
52 seems right, in all particulars. How many of you godless heathens own a Jeep? You all probably own bicycles.
I thought the contrast between the Springsteen Jeep ad and the Will Ferrell GM ad was interesting.
The Tmobile ad that was pulled due to some endorsement contract disagreement involving Gronk and Brady was actually pretty funny.
68: Because Jeep paid him to?
I guess I should actually watch the ad with the sound off. That being said, unless it includes the phrase "tomorrow belongs to me" or lots of references to '88, I'm not inclined to worry. Springsteen isn't running for office and has pretty good bona fides for an old rich white guy.
It's annoying in its implication that the ideal place to be is in the middle, both on political spectrum and on the map, but that's not too different from pieties heard all over.
73: One thing that ad is not successfully selling is the idea that rural Kansas is more compelling at ground level than from 35,000 feet.
Proper states should come equipped with trees, topography, and bodies of water, at the very least.
Completely unrelated: this is very funny. https://twitter.com/bydavidgardner/status/1359215155784081414
I knew what that link was going to be because there is nothing better on the internet today.
Is that hard to do? Asking for a friend.
Everyone said they couldn't wait until the news was boring again, but there's still a piece that wants the daily hit of Trump outrage. Now all we have to watch is lawyercats.
I have to say it does seem like Springsteen's attitude toward the plains states has come around since that time he made an album about how Nebraska is full of murderers.
still a piece that wants the daily hit of Trump outrage. Now all we have to watch is lawyercats.
I listened to a bit of a Trump lawyer today and I found myself enraged. It was the exact feeling I always had listening to Trump, and after four years of fight-or-flight adrenaline, I am entirely over it.
The company I worked for back in the day was closely involved in the development of the aluminum body for the Ford F-150. The marketing for them barely mentions fuel efficiency, but rather that given the reduced bed weight you can carry a heavier load.
It is sad to think about how much emissions could have been saved if passenger vehicle development had followed the same path as commercial aircraft, with efficiency improvements channeled into lower fuel burn rather than increased performance.
Well, in retrospect, classifying pickup trucks and SUVs an entire separate category of vehicle that is subject to reduced safety and fuel efficiency standards as compared to cars was a dumb loophole to leave wide open.
87: I feel like Ralph Nader was on the right side of that issue but I'd rather set myself on fire than check and find out.
Pickups and SUVs are a big part of the problem, but pretty much any internal combustion vehicle on the road is way more powerful than the 80s version of the same thing.
86: In 2000 I bought a used 1989 Honda CRX HF, at the time a decent-performance two-seater, and I routinely got 45-50MPG in that thing. I was always kind of sad there aren't more cars like that, but in related news, I spent a lot of time very nervous about how low and small I was compared to the other vehicles on the road.
My friend drives a 1991 Honda Civic and gets an offer left on his windshield every few weeks.
And the lawyer has been milkshake-ducked! Granted I don't see anyone as having seen him as lovely personally, more the situation as a whole.
I was just seconds ago about to throw a tantrum over not knowing what "milkshake duck" means. Do you want to tell me or should I google it?
93: I didn't know either. I found out by following the link in 92 and reading for about 2 minutes. Here is a more direct link.
For posterity when all that remains of the internet is our archives: a tweet from 2016:
The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the duck is racist
Ducks can see ultraviolet light so they can be racist ways we can't understand.
Reminded me of Rapha ads:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSUbVx1eu5s
Mid-life man rediscovers the heartlands, with reflective honesty and a grizzled appearance.
Recommending a Chrysler to millions of people is an unusual way to hit bottom, but getting a DWI in New Jersey is common enough.
52, 69: I looked at some hot takes from various conservatives and the video was universally condemned: "condescending," "fly-over America is depicted as 'The Road'", "there are actually some cities and towns in Middle America," "What's with the dilapidated church?", "Springsteen is filthy Democrat and Trump hater," etc. I'd guess it's a rare deplorable who would approve of it.
98 and 99 are wrong. I'm sorry Mr. Springsteen. You weren't even drunk.
At least I'm not driving across half of the Midwest until Sunday.
He blew a 0.02. You can get that from gargling with Listerine.
I liked the ad for Waltish reasons. Journey is a nice image and suggestion.
I think the audience is well-off educated men who voted Republican before Trump but now are torn, and are retiring to a vacation home in some outdoorsy area. Now that they live in Maine instead of Boston they need a Jeep!
Cops in the NY area don't like Springsteen since he wrote American Skin (41 Shots).
