Hi, I'm Sarah Goodyear, and this is the War on Cars.

What you're about to hear is an excerpt from a Patreon bonus episode in which I talk with journalist and author

Matthew Rodriguez about cars as social media content studios and all the weirdness that entails.

If you'd like to hear the whole thing, along with a lot of other great bonuses and other

benefits, you can sign up at patreon.com slash the

war on cars pod. Enjoy. To me, what's interesting is her choosing the car as the place to tape this

in a way plays into what you're saying because he or she had had this life

and house and, you know, all intertwined with this person. Where was she able to be herself, right?

Where was she able to sort of have her own space and her own identity kind of her own

integrity right is inside of this vehicle and it's like this little world that she sets up as the

venue where she's telling you this story from and it's something that she has complete

control over. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the way that we see cars and how this

is reflected in these videos as a replacement really for the kind of third place that you hear

sociologists talk about at a coffee shop or your

workplace or you know places where people go are now vanishingly rare in much of america and especially since

the pandemic and people are using cars for that for that purpose, but they're alone when they're doing that.

And I just want to go back and say not every all, not all 50 something episodes are in her car,

but it is very significant that in the very first episode, that's where it is,

because it almost gives the viewer the sense that she had to tell you something right now.

She couldn't wait until she got home.

And this is the only place where she has extra time or time away from other demands to tell you this story.

So there is a sense of immediacy, I think, that comes from the confession being in a car or starting in a car.

...