Jalopnik

Jalopnik is a Weblog covering cars, car culture, and the automotive industry. Owned and operated by Gawker Media since 2004, Jalopnik emphasizes irreverent humor.

Jalopnik contributors regularly attend media events and press conferences hosted by automotive manufacturers, which prior to the rise of the blogosphere in the 2000s, were limited to traditional media outlets. Jalopnik's site's Editor-in-Chief, Ray Wert, appears regularly on live news programs including CNBC's On the Money.

The word "Jalopnik" is a portmanteau of Jalopy and Beatnik.

On February 2nd, 2011, Jalopnik, underwent a major redesign of their format that faced overwhelming & immediate criticism to which the Editor in Chief responded: "We're not going back to the old design. You'll have to deal with that."

Staff

The site's editor-in-chief is Ray Wert, and other writers include features editor Matt Hardigree. Mike Spinelli, who founded Jalopnik and served as the site's Senior Editor, contributes regularly with Jalopnik as editor-emeritus. In addition to the full-time editors, and John Krewson contribute to Jalopnik regularly. Most recently, Hungarian writer Peter Orosz has contributed, providing coverage of Formula One and other subjects. Staff Writer Joel Johnson fulfills the tall writer quota. Jason Torchinsky (Staff Writer) brings his own flavor to the stories with sketches and flow charts. Staff Writer Patrick Frawley does much of the leg work for the QOTD, AOTD, COTD and other features. Intern Raphael Orlove serves as hoon source and office punching bag. Former staffers include Ben Wojdyla, Justin Hyde, Sam Smith, and "Murilee Martin" (a nom de plume).

Humor

Jalopnik's news items are often intermingled with humorous stories highlighting car culture, humorous criminal incidents, strange cars offered for sale on eBay or Craigslist, humorous phrasing and sarcasm within the items themselves, callbacks, inside joke and repeating themes.

Memes

• The Chevrolet El Camino, and especially conversion of other vehicles to have similar pickup truck bodies
• German automotive precision, also known as "Bruce".
• Toyota, often with the phrase "super potential" (mimicking the Japanese marketing trait of naming products with incongruous English words like "Warlord Maximum Daisy")
• Hoon - an Australian word for driving recklessly, racing, and doing burnouts on public streets, this word is usually used incorrectly, along with made up variants such as "hoonage".
• Auto Show live coverage, including the Detroit Auto Show.
• Dragons - stemming from an earlier post featuring illustrations of Dragons mating with cars. (also known as "Dragoning")
• "Cotomer Sevis" - Reference to remarks made by a disgruntled "customer" attempting to buy a V8 bike frame from the weblog.
• Malaise Era - Reference to the era after the 1973 Oil Crisis, generally agreed to be 1973–1982, when automobiles, especially American ones, experienced a perceived downturn in style, performance, and quality.
• The poor reliability of cars made by British Leyland, especially those with parts made by Lucas Industries plc (whose founder, Joseph Lucas, is called the "Prince of Darkness").
• SLR Guy, a young lad who crashed a Mercedes McLaren SLR. His likeness originally appeared in a picture where he is giving a smug look despite the fact that he demonstrated poor driving skills in a highly capable, and valuable, vehicle. He is regularly photoshopped into other images where unwarranted driver arrogance is suspected.
• Civic Kid, a teenage boy originally found standing in the foreground of a photo depicting a crashed Honda Civic. His involvement in the crash is unclear but his humorous facial expression and hand gesture have earned him much favor among the Jalopnik commentariat. He is regularly photoshopped into other images of vehicle mishaps where driver embarrassment is suspected. (Also: IN THE FACE!)
• The Carpocalypse - Referencing news events related to the downturn or self-destruction of the auto industry following the 2008 economic crisis.
• "Megan Fox" references, where applied is usually related to a savvy and suave car/event/person, however, under the philosophy that said actress is unbeatable in terms of flare. Currently, Megan Fox is considered the patron saint of the Jalopnik community.
• Jalopnik Scotch - Jalopnik community is required to recognize the Jalopnik brand Scotch as the alcoholic beverage of choice. The ongoing theme is that true followers consume Jalopnik Scotch for breakfast.
  File:Jalop scotch.jpg
• Roy Wert - During one of his appearances on On the Money Ray Wert was mistakenly referred to as Roy by Larry Kudlow. Following this, the Jalopnik community began to assign humorous aliases to their Editor-in-Chief (i.e. Roy Wort).
• "Why did you turn?", a phrase superimposed over an image of a vehicular mishap. It is sometimes translated into the language of the country that the mishap occurred in. The phrase originates from a video where some young men attempt to push a Honda Civic onto a truck with no success, and one male blames the failure on his girlfriend allegedly turning the vehicle.
• Nibbles, the fickle hamster who runs the technical side of Jalopnik, whose name is often invoked when there is a technical glitch.
• Jalopchat - is where the esteemed commenters of Jalopnik meet in the evenings to share a libation and talk cars and everything else. Occurs at tinychat.com/jalopnik
• "Because race car" - a meme where questions about cars are answered with the simple phrase "because race car". Example: "Why does the Ferrari 458 has adaptive aero?" "Because race car." A spin-off of this meme is "Because rice car," used when talking about cars with cheap and elaborate/ exaggerated aerodynamic additions or bodykits.

Features

Jalopnik includes several regular, usually humorous features addressing car culture.

Question Of The Day and Answers Of The Day (abbreviated QOTD and AOTD, respectively) - For the Question Of The Day, editor Patrick Frawley asks a question of the general Jalopnik commentariat, with the question usually at least somewhat loosely related to automotive transportation or uses thereof, and gives and example of what his personal answer would be. In the comments section, the commentariat takes advantage of this opportunity to show off their bountiful automotive knowledge, often coming up with quite interesting and erudite answers. By the next day, Patrick Frawley has chosen his favorite ten responses and organizes them, in gallery format, along with a quick explanation for each as to why the selection makes sense, in the Answer Of The Day article. The commentariat then generally gets quite angry and each insists that Jalopnik are attractive idiots for not choosing their specific suggestions.

Jalopnik Reviews - Reviews, typically by Wes Siler, include three parts: a general description of the car; an evaluation of the car (with ratings in categories such as handling and interior design); followed by reasons why a buyer would or would not buy the car.

Nice Price or Crack Pipe (abbreviated NPOCP) - The readers are asked to approve (Nice Price) or disapprove ("Crack Pipe") of the price of a particular vehicle for sale.

Commenter of the Day (abbreviated COTD) - The Jalopnik commenters (or the "commentariat") are honored with the COTD (Commenter of the Day) award. A short story precedes the COTD in order to explain the nature of the comment. The other commenters are then free to discuss the comment and congratulate the winner; a congratulatory reward usually includes a tasteful depiction of a girl and a car (delivered by $kaycog), fine craft beer suitable for the winning comment by Gamecat235. Notable repeat winners of 'Commenter of the Day' include such resident commenters as Spiegel, pauljones, Ash78, Desu-San-Desu, and Potbelly Joe, among others.

Hoon of the Day (abbreviated HOTD) - Hooning is a term used to refer to one who drives a car or boat in a manner which is anti-social by the standards of contemporary society, that is, fast, noisily and/or dangerously. Every day, the editors choose someone who embodies this rebellious behavior best in a video segment called Hoon Of The Day. They are often commenter nominations, in which case a Hat Tip is posted at the bottom in reference to who suggested it. Multi-hoon submission hat tipper TheKlic has earned titles such as HOTD supertipster, and Two Wheeled Hoonstraordinaire

Church of Hoon - A more recent addition to the Opposite Lock section of the site. Members of the site have begun to form the basis for an in-site religion based on the teachings and prophets of the automotive kingdom. It has been called the best religion.... In the wuuurld.

Previous Features

Official Car Pundit Drinking Game - A drinking game first played during editor Ray Wert's appearances on CNBC's On the Money, and since expanded to when any Jalopnik writer appears on television. Commenters post drink rules corresponding to the automotive issues that are to be discussed.

Project Car Hell - In this item two equally time and money consuming restoration projects are picked from the typical second hand websites like craigslist and eBay. Readers are then asked to vote on which car is more "Hellish" to restore; i.e., how bad of a condition it is in when initially acquired, rarity and cost of parts, complexity of mechanicals, and how ultimately desirable the car would be in the chance that it would be completely restored. Although this often involves one car pitted against another, every now and then offers will include three or more cars. Additional humor is derived from the optimistic tone of voice most sellers will use when they try to sell their car(s); "runs reasonably well (no 2nd and 3rd gear)", or "This car is anyones dream project!".

Jalopnik Fantasy Garage - Jalopnik keeps a running list of desirable vehicles (usually historically significant, sometimes just very fast, beautiful, or capable). For a car to get into this list, it has to be proposed by a Jalopnik writer and voted in by readers, usually in a simple Yes/No poll (accompanied by an article introducing the car and explaining its significance) or by having readers choose from a batch of similar cars. If a car in the list is thought to have become unpopular, readers are given a chance to vote it out in a Trimming the Fat feature.

Classic Ad Watch - Murilee Martin covers in this series old television advertisements for cars from around the world, mostly focusing on somewhat off-kilter ads (Japanese ads are most famous for this). Most of the ads feature odd voiceovers, heavy usage of stunt-driving or unintentionally hilarious jingles. Ironically optimistic ads for models or marques which later failed are also popular choices.

Down On The Street (abbreviated DOTS) - Editor Murilee Martin takes photos of an interesting, usually old car in his current hometown, Denver, Colorado, or his former hometown of Alameda, California, and includes a short commentary to go with it. The only specific criteria that a car must meet to qualify for DOTS is that it must be parked on the street (cars parked in garages or driveways do not count as they are on private property), hence the name of the article. More recently this feature has included Bonus Editions which feature reader-submitted photos and commentaries of old cars in their hometowns or abroad.

Jalopnik Gold - A members-only feature unveiled on April 1, 2009 which allowed member to have both preview and edit buttons and other member-exclusive features. This service was discontinued the same evening.

Similar or Competing Sites

• Autoblog
• Edmunds.com Inside Line
• Top Gear
• TheCarAddict
• PistonHeads

External links

• Jalopnik website