Ahh, the butthurt…

Seems VW ran an ad talking about the brand’s history in the US, starting its chronology in 1949. Appropriate, given that the first Beetle (that’s a Type 1 to the cognoscenti) was imported to the US in  – wait for it – 1949.

Now, I am not sure if there is anyone even vaguely aware of Beetles who doesn’t know that they were originally designed by Ferdinand Porsche, a fairly influential fella in the history of car design, or that this design took place under the auspices of the German government as a “people’s car.”  I am sure that the same sort of people who think meat in the supermarket jest growed there and that the idea of  veggies actually growing in – gasp – DIRT may think this a horrible fact to discover, and there are more of those folks than we can count.

During the Second World War, the company switched to producing vehicles for the German army and used thousands of slave labourers from concentration camps.

After the war, it began producing again under British Army occupation. The company’s Type 1 – later renamed the Beetle – went on to become the world’s best-selling car in the 1970s.

“Watching VW try and pretend their cars weren’t originally designed as family vehicles for Hitler’s vision for the German family, all the while playing Neil Diamond, who is Jewish, is the most surreal things [sic] I’ve seen in years,” one user on posted on Twitter.

Another wrote: “What a weird marketing tactic for #Volkswagen to take in their #SuperBowl2024 commercial. Why would you focus on the history of VW when only about a decade before the commercial’s timeline starts (1949), VW was founded by the Nazis and used forced labour from concentration camps??”

Pull in tight on the outrage for Posche, Krupp, the cities of Essen and Wolfsburg, the US rocket program, the entire countries of Japan, Italy…nope? Geez, people, that was 80 years ago.  Now, I could see it if someone with skin in the game, like a WWII vet, never bought a Japanese or German car – I’ve actually known a lot of them. But spoiled Gen Zers who  not only know nothing of history, but look on Desert Shield/Storm as ancient history and before October 7 couldn’t even spell Holocaust?

Smacks a bit of disengenuity to me.

It’s tempting to speak of hypocrisy – buy your Prius from Japan, drive a Mitsubishi, drive an electric car with Chinese technology, complain on your Chinese made laptop. But it’s raw ignorance, at best, and divisive malice in most cases. The only thing that is vaguely amusing about it is that these people spend so much time and energy trying to find something to be outraged and offended BY.

Beetles? Really?

Category: "Teh Stoopid", WWII