Top Gear and the Wankmonster
Moved from clairvoyantwank:

Once upon a Sunday night the happy, caravan-tormenting, BBC motoring programme Top Gear screened a US road trip special.

The road trip's premise was to send the three presenters to Miami, let them each buy a car with their individual budgets of $1000 and have them drive their cars to New Orleans, while completing challenges along the way. The result was a pre-packaged internet flamewar ready to go with the show's challenges covering cooking with roadkill and the presenters attempting to drive through the state of Alabama with slogans painted on the side of their cars.

Not content with the internet short-out this would cause, they then sprinkle the show heavily with references to Hurricane Katrina and a little mock celebrity altruism when the presenters decide to give their battered cars to the 'Needy and Poor' of New Orleans.

The wank begins in Final Gear's forums in the Episode Discussion thread and rapidly travels around the internet.


Jezzabelle kicks it off 26 mins after the show airs with: "I hope our American friends aren't offended, and if they are, perhaps they could put their energies into fencing off Alabama & those 'humans' featured, then set to make Bush rebuild New Orleans, instead of blowing up the rest of the world."

Because if you're from Alabama, you're not an American.

aznkukuboi adjusts his monocle and calls his butler to contribute: "I might be stereotyping, but I dislike the southern accent. It irritates me because it is hard to understand and sounds of "lower class" status."

It's Jayhawk who opens up the first srs bsnss debate of the thread with his thoughts on yaoi: "Does the people who saw this on Top Gear know that New Orleans is a prime example of socialism, putting the a large majority of its inhabitants on welfare? Do you see know what happens when humans let the government control them via dependence?"

Socialism = Extreme weather.

otispunkmeyer concurs with: "no one in the UK can really comment on new orleans because, well, we dont live there and its not in our news." Before sharing his uniquely UK comment the Katrina/New Orleans situation: "and yeah, i am a frequent visitor to a very american sided forum on the net so i heard alot of stories about people in new orleans taking their donated money and instead of using it to survive they bought widescreen TV's and guns."

Later on and Jayhawk is back again, this time to put Icebone firmly in his place "You obviously do not comprehend how America works. Or rather, how it should work. The government should be, and to some degree still is, dependent on its citizens. Obviously you live in a culture of socialism, which, if you and the majority of the citizens of Slovakia are fine with it, then great!"

Oh yes, disagree with Jayhawk and you're a commie.

Luckily Icebone is equipped with the relevant smackdown "Where we DO have freedom of speech and we actually are a FREE PEOPLE. We don't get the government eavesdropping on us, we don't have the president slashing more of our rights with each passing day, our economy is on the UP, crime levels are a record low compared to THE REST OF THE WORLD, the government takes care of the needy, we have universal healthcare and universal education."

That's what you get for calling a Slovenian 'Slovakian' on t'internetz - the full Visit Slovenia travel blurb. It's no wonder sonofstig gets geographically confused: "Talk about a total overreaction from the Albanians." (and goes back to fix his typo)

Over on the subject of dead cows riding on cars with boys, Atmikes doesn't appreciate the treatment of animal corpses on the show: "Even a dead animal deserves a bit of respect in my point of view!"

Which gives zaybxcwd12 the ideal opportunity to share his appreciation of wild hyperbole: "Do you think the same thing when you are pulling apart your KFC? or do you think about about how your leg of lamb feels when it is getting transported while it is living just b4 you tuck in?. Or a carcas of a pig is stung up then chopped up?."

torqueless just wants to go back to the good old days: "they need to get away from the slapstick and go back to doing what they originally were created to do. which is review cars." Proving that there's always one person who will never be impressed by balancing acts - no matter how big the cow, or how clapped-out the muscle car...

However torqueless' opposition to low-brow media output is limited: "So since i actually live in alabama, should i go find all the people that they pissed off and show them the episode?"

While mikev88 is a particularly incomprehensible troll: "My final word about the Top Gear episode is they have nuclear weapons.....scary."

No, Clarkson, Hammond and May do NOT have nuclear weapons. Though when I look at the fandom, I wish they did.

Finally, Brudus post the address of the petrol station and states: "They must be taught a lesson." And Deanodriver does the same, proving that Google Map Fu is the strongest stalking power in the world.

Now Metafilter have got hold of the slogans-on-cars segment (link courtesy of grapefruitzzz) and are churning out more of the same.

By comparison the dead cow related musings on TopGearTotty and the TG IMDB message board are tame. As are the 91 official complaints the broadcast itself received.

If they do this again next week, there's going to be no internet left for HP fandom.

ETA: There's no wank like wanking to a brick wall. The spooge hits the official weblogs of Andy Wilman (Exec. Producer) and James May.

"It's one thing being iconoclasts, which is how I imagine you see yourselves, it's quite another being w*****s." proctoman

"How would you react to an American TV show that went to Britain and made a carefully edited documentary about the bad parts? Sixty minutes of VAT, the Nanny State, skinheads, the most highly spied-on populace in the world, football hooligans, speed cameras, and rich people laughing as six dogs rip apart a still breathing fox. I'm guessing you'd feel like it was a bit of an unfair portrayal."
Chaz

Its when you see people like those who inhabit Alabama that you realise just how lucky you are to be a British citizen. The people who claim to live in 'the land of the free', yet openly attack anyone who hold different beliefs to their own. These people claimed to be deeply religious, then pelted you with stones because you upset them in some way. And they say the Americans have no sense of irony....

A fantastic episode of TG guys, certainly opened my eyes to a few things!
Verity

However, I don't think the US has a monopoly on the inclusion of a population with low IQ, poor impulse control and thin skins.

I notice you didn't drive around a just-getting-out European football stadium wearing pink jumpsuits and driving a van with the phrase "(home team) Sucks A** Like a Hilton Sister--Soccer is for Little Girls; American Football Rules!" while blaring "Oops, I Did It Again" from loudspeakers to gauge the reaction of Europe's lowest common denominator?
Paul

The best bit?

"Whatever happens, I will as usual be logging onto our mates at Final Gear on Monday for a masochistic kicking." - Andy Wilman

"And that seemed like a fair comment. I like a sense of history as much as anyone. But then something else occured to me.

I've never met anyone in Europe wearing a swastika T-shirt. " - James May

This lot really do want to break the internet.