The stigma around automatic transmissions.

As far back as I can remember, buying a car in a manual was the way to go. I would see someone in an automatic and scoff at their “petty choices”. Buying an automatic was seen essentially a way of telling the car world “I don’t care about cars”. I look back and I hate that. And the problem is more prevailing here on Car Throttle more than anywhere else for two main reasons.

1. General age group.

2. Carthrottle themselves (please don’t kill me, I still pray to you every night

[Disclaimer] this post is not meant to hate on anyone.

Age groups:
Of all the websites I’ve been on in recent memory, Car throttle has among the youngest average age I’ve ever seen. First and foremost, this is great. One thing that there’s not enough of in the world is car people, so when you have all these young kids being interested in cars, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the Inside. This is also now where a problem lies. More often then not, I see younger CT users start flame wars about the Automatic/Manual debate for no reason more than “Manual is love, all hail the Manual”. The problem with this is that they aren’t even old enough to drive. They don’t understand that buying a car costs lots of money, and sometimes, finding a manual is extremely difficult. What makes it worse, for the past few weeks, I’ve seen numerous comments/posts about how “if you drive an automatic, you’re not a car guy”. That mind set is blasphemous in almost every conceivable way. This thought that has been peppered into people’s brains is so outlandish it makes me laugh. And whenever I go to see who’s arguing who in these posts, it’s always the people who own the cars in an automatic (or manual, they are just defending automatics) vs the kids who buy matchbox cars. In any case, that’s the first problem. [once again, I am not trying to hate]

Car throttle:
As much as I love the YouTube channel, it’s one of the biggest problems. In so many videos, I’ve seen the whole “non car guy driving an auto” just peppered throughout the videos. Even though that this is usually the case with people who drive an automatic
BMW 3-Series or whatever, it’s meant to be a joke coming from CarThrottle. This is, however, taken completely to the heart of many people and there in made CarThrottle YouTube channel a spawning ground of people learning to take the pitchfork and torch to any car they see automatic. CarThrottle has figurative drilled it into many people brains that drivers cars are In manuals. Mind you, this isn’t their Intention, it’s just what many people have taken from it.

The automatic transmission explained:
Many CT users find themselves buying an auto car. Fair enough. What I then find is that they post “new car”, but get blasted for not having one in a manual. First and foremost, many have to understand that when buying a used car, the automatic can actually be seen as the cheaper alternative due to the manual variant being more sought-after. Along with this, the location of where the person lives can also effect the amount of options the person gets when looking for a car too. Here in America, I browse regularly just for the
Fun, and let me tell you this. In America, if yo try to buy a car, the ratio of auto’s to manuals is honestly about 10(or even more):1. At a ten to one ratio, trying. To find a specific car in a manual that’s also in good condition and at low cost can be a grueling difficulty. Even taking away all the things I have previously said, just because someone prefers automatics doesn’t mean the person isn’t a car guy. Something i see on the internet more than often is people not being able to accept the fact that there is more than one opinion. It’s annoyingly and unnecessary.

Conclusion:
Let’s all just take a minute and calm down. There’s probably a lot of disagreements here, so feel free to post them In the comments, but in any case, let’s all take away this from the rant that just ensued. Why don’t some of us learn to accept both Automatics and Manuals into the community, if they don’t already. Hope this shed some light into people’s minds, and thanks for reading my article.
(I love you CT Staff, don’t kill me for my paragraph on you, Ethan is my spirit animal)