Note: I wrote this article for our Grand Prix Legends online racing league back in 2001.<\/p>\n
The Screamers. I’ve been part of them for nearly two years now, gone
\nthrough some rough times, some so-so times, some “I’m going to quit”
\ntimes and through some very fine times indeed. What makes us special?<\/p>\n
On the surface, this question is seemingly very easily answered. We’ve
\ngot all age groups covered (from young, yet double-dad roger) to old
\nBill “track designing” Tillman, all sorts of occupations (from cool
\n“mad-science” Kevin to “hands-down-gimme-that-napkin sketch”
\ncarpentering ZZ, with real school teachers to cover the holes in
\nbetween ;-).<\/p>\n
We cover the spectrum fom notorious singles (Simon “don’t come too
\nclose” Goodwin down to Glenn “you can never have enough kids”
\nWhite. We also feature Dave “‘n-email-in-a-month-is-enough” Goodwin
\nand we have “who’s leading the email race???” Uwe.<\/p>\n
Of course, such a group by itself makes for an interesting mix that
\nwon’t start boring you any time soon. there’s always something
\nhappening, there’s always stuff to talk about, from the trivial “my
\ngfx accelerator is faster than yours” stuff to the very personal,
\npainful matters which we had an example of just a couple of weeks
\nback. Yet, the screamers are special in some ways to many of us, and I
\ninclude myself here. So what’s special about the screamers?<\/p>\n
I think many will agree with me when I would say that we would let
\n*any* screamers spend a couple of nights in our own homes should the
\nchance or need arise. Right? Jo inviting me to try out his new english
\nlongbow down on his personal range or a fitting sitting in his
\nHyperStim? Sure! Glenn popping over to Germany (or ex-Jeff for that
\nmatter), sharing a nice night out in the local pubs? Sure! Dave taking
\nTodd out to a night to see Birmingham and explore the local pubs? I’m
\nalso quite sure that many of us have had private communication or even
\nmeetings in real life. What does all this have in common?<\/p>\n
Trust. Trusting each other on the race track is one thing (a fabulous
\nexample of which I had the priviledge to enjoy recently with Paul at
\nSilverstone), but Gentlemen, I think there is more to this than that.<\/p>\n
What I think we’re witnessing here, at this very moment, is the
\ncreation of a what I would like to call a “virtual tribe”. Agreed,
\nit’s not a real tribe, it’s not one that is going to share physical
\npain as you go through it, one that is not very likely to be in the
\nneighbourhood should you need a hand or advice changing a tyre on your
\ncar, trying out some freakish new operating system or even needing
\nadvice rasing your kids “the right way” which we all know does not
\nexist, but still. Nothing more right now than some weird email address
\nthat you can turn to, toss your cookies at or just share joy or sorrow
\nyou have experienced knowing that someone will eventually answer to
\nanything you post here. Most of the times. \ud83d\ude09 Share the joy, the
\npain, the tips, the knowledge. Intricate desires to any human I have
\nmet in my life.<\/p>\n
Ten years down the road we might all be racing each other in virtual
\nrace cars on a real track. Please note I am by no means claiming that
\nthis is going to “advance humanity” which is a phrase that Mother
\nCulture just *loves* to whisper into our ears, identifying “us”, like
\n“our culture”, with “humanity” in a single breath (my Ishmael-reading
\nfellows will instantly recognize the phrase), but rather I think that
\ntechnology will eventually allow us to lead a “more human” life when
\nit comes to the forming of virtual tribes as I have just described. We
\nmight also be meeting in virtual pubs, having virtual beers and giving
\neach other virtual hugs when we’re down, and virtual claps on the
\nshoulders for a good race result during the last league event.<\/p>\n
While all of this will be virtual for some time to come, it’s still
\ngoing to be real humans interacting, humans with an inherent need to
\n“form a tribe” and share experiences, joy and pain. With the
\nScreamers, I think we’re lucky to witness just such a thing in its
\nhumble beginnings. We are sharing it already, and I don’t believe this
\nis going to vanish anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Note: I wrote this article for our Grand Prix Legends online racing league back in 2001. The Screamers. I’ve been part of them for nearly two years now, gone through some rough times, some so-so times, some “I’m going to quit” times and through some very fine times indeed. What makes us special? On the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","category-simracing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132,"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoover.gplrank.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}