It's the Redneck Tanning Parlor
The modern pickup truck has become little more than a way for modern men don "big boy pants."
It's a rather sad display of faux manhood:
“What are you doing?” Mr. Hall shouted from his tractor. He owns the farm next to my friend Dan’s. Dan was hoping Mr. Hall wouldn’t come by that part of the field today.
Oh well. There was Dan, shoveling manure out of the back of his Ford Explorer. “I’m shoveling manure,” he replied.
The old man thought it over for a minute. Then he asked, “Why don’t you use your truck?”
“Don’t have a truck,” Dan explained with great dignity.
Mr. Hall eyed him. “You’re ill equipped for farming,” he said. Then he put the tractor into gear and rolled off.
………
Sure, Dan would love a truck. But like most smallholders, money is tight. Every truck he looks at falls into one of two categories: (A) It’s the right size, but so old it’s not worth the money. (B) It’s the right age, but so big that he can’t afford to fill the tank.
That’s the irony of the modern pick-up. It used to be that, if you drove a truck, you were either a farmer, a rancher, or some kind of handyman. It wasn’t a status thing. It didn’t make you tough or macho. It just meant that…well, you needed a truck.
……….
These pickups aren’t designed for work. Just the opposite, in fact. The truck market is compensating for the decline of its traditional constituents: the independent, blue-collar worker.
………
Earlier this month, a 16-year-old in a shiny new F-250 was rolling coal at some bicyclists when he plowed into six of them. When I was his age, I was driving a Ford, too: a prehistoric two-door the size of a new Camry. It didn’t have seatbelts, let alone power windows. It didn’t sound like it ate a band of demons, either. More like a big bowl of franks and beans. But it hauled as many bushels of strawberries as I could pick in a day. Which, you know, is what trucks are for.
At least they used to be. Pickups are quickly becoming part of the whole “blue collar chic” thing. It’s like how actresses and politicians are really into wearing Carhartt jackets.
Just like the, "Redneck Tanning Parlor," sketch on Saturday Night Live in the the 1980s. (See the video)
………
It’s the same with guns. As farmers make up a dwindling share of the pickup market, hunters now make up a smaller portion of the gun market. They’ve been overtaken by “shooters,” which is a polite term for collectors. That means fewer gun owners today have a real, visceral association between pointing a weapon at something, pulling the trigger, and taking its life. Which probably doesn’t make for a kinder, safer America.
Don’t get me wrong. I love guns even more than I love trucks. But the culture is changing. More and more, trucks and guns are what my priest calls “big boy toys.” They’re not tools. They’re not for anything. They’re just another consumer good, a fashion statement, an accessory. And they look great with a Carhartt jacket.
The market is flooded with big boy toys. Men aren’t focused on starting families and buying property the way they used to be. That makes owning a truck (and a gun) harder for folks who need them. They’re more expensive and more heavily regulated. They also carry more of a “stigma” as the kids would say.
Too often, this Americana becomes a substitute for the American values they’re supposed to represent. It’s “performative,” as the libs would say. We want the strength, stability, and independence that the yeoman farmer represents—but that’s too hard, so we’ll just roll some coal on a Prius instead.
This is not an essay I would expect to see on a website for a publication called The American Conservative.
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