“Dont own a ducati and you are automatically a poser”.
The only thing that has crossed the woodlands checkpoint to Malaysia and making rounds between both our country is probably the statement above. Notably spreading faster than the Covid19 virus itself. It didn’t even need incubation period. It was all fuelled by hate, jealousy, self defense and etc and that girl managed to trigger so many bikers with ONE statement. Stupid aint it?
Well, not gonna go further bashing her anymore as i believe the internet has served its purpose and i think this scar is gonna live with her for a very long time to come. Like seriously, cyberbully is dynamic. Someone stops and someone picks up the queue and it lives in the internet forever. Even if it has cooled down, it is in dormant state silently waiting for a chance to rise again.
We are not in any way condoning this type of thinking but it is something that we actually do on daily basis. SILENTLY of course. It is a form of thing that has been ingrained into us city dwellers and we’ve been doing it since our first pay check or even thinking about it since primary school. Some people are more subtle whilst some fairly LOUD about it.
OK, here’s the thing. We do purchase either to satisfy ourself as a form of self gratification, fulfilling a void, displacement to something that’s unjust or a form of escapism from reality. There are some people who goes to the extend to curate a facade of a character wrapping themselves around a certain brand and so much so they mutate themself as an instrument to that brand so that they do not need a single grain of effort to express any form of creativity and just ride along the success of the lifestyle that the brand or community has given birth to thus far.
Remember those days that we glued our eyes to the TV admiring characters like Kamen Rider, Power Rangers, Biker Mice From Mars, Robotech, Ghost Rider, Evil Knievel and etc. The common denominators are bikes and there are costumes and somehow a biker outfit does fit the bill and it is accessible. Dont tell me you guys have never performed a “henshin” when you were young or getting all excited seeing a superbike zoom pass by while your dad is driving you back kampung during festive season or even when trinity appeared in a Dark metallic green Ducati 996 (some gal may have screamed louder than others) and imagining yourself doing that someday. I mean how cool is that huh?
The thing is, everyone at some point of time were inspired. Be it from movies or in real life. From there, a form of desire has been manifested and now that we have buying power. The inner child in you are screaming even more.
As a city dweller, it is a survival of the fittest. We are wired to evaluate, understand and react to our environment. Not so much so limited to an individual but also to the community that’s surrounding us. The system, order and hierarchies. A core result of psychologist identifies it a social signalling. Such as riding a ducati is a social signal of being a rich biker or driving a mustang is a successful FOREX trader or Riding an aprilia is a purist, a racer or even driving a BMW i8 is to signal i am rich and i can afford a ferrari but i do care abit about the environment or even for as simple as holding your partners hand in a shopping centre to show affection and ownership or even posts picture of own vehicles on social media to show that we are an avid biker. We all do this at some point for some reasons different from another but at core belief system, we are achieving a same intention. which is to signal a message across.
The most recent campaign that we can see here in Malaysia are the ones from aprilia. Smack a motorcycle simulator right in the middle of KLCC concourse. It has to scream “look at me i am a racer” and not just to the target audience which is the potential buyer of aprilia motorcycle but also to gain audience of passer-by. To scream a statement out so people would see this as a racing brand.
One can send an array of social signals and there must be some form of interpretation by its receiver. Such as this classic case, the signal that she sent out has to go thru our brains to do its computing works. such as to evaluate, understand and react and the collective response were the same everywhere. Us humans react in a collective way thru repetitive observations of action/reaction and thought process. Most of the time before we send a signal out, we would somehow anticipate what sort of message to be interpreted to. Like how we see most men will get obsessed with the centrefold of a certain type of magazine from the 80s with voluptuous sets of tiddies cladded with some strands of bikini posing over a motorcycle. So the Social Signal Processing outcome would be men loves hot gals and hot bikes? yeah, why not!!! lets send that signal and through time these observation has became wired to the media industry. Come on!! its not sexist but would you rather a hairy dude with a fat gut posing sexily beside a red ducati appearing in the middle of a magazine that you bought with your hard earned money?!??!?
We do not have much brands (if any even) in Malaysia who creates and curate a form of lifestyle segment that their prospects could latch themselves with, such as the west are doing great in this segment but rather, in Malaysia we have a community who does that for the brand (funnily its not the other way around) Hence some Marketing agenda went astray such as the Pure racer girl riding a Ducati. I mean can you actually blame anyone? it is a fad and fashion being claimed by an individual and there isn’t a steering to move this marketing vehicle forward. And dont tell me the brand distributors weren’t proud to have a form of obsessed fandom base towards their brand but as to what gain? a wrong message that is inconsistent with the brands direction that is.
This may not be the first and certainly may not be the last. There will be tons of it to come. Imagine some half ass dude comes to claim if you aren’t on a BMW S1000RR Race 2021 with M Package you aren’t a real racer but a poser of 2 wheels, or if you dont have a GS1200 adventure you are just commuting on a motorised 2 wheel vehicle or if its not a harley, its not a motorcycle. Whilst it is fine for brands to make such bold competitive statement in the USA it is fairly dangerous for an individual to create such claims. I mean, we are in Asia la. We are suppose to be cultured, modest and at least dont brag.
So the next time you think of posting something controversial, means you are not thinking enough. If you are a marketing or public relation manager of a certain brand, dont be too proud of having obsessed fandom on your side as one day this will happen again.
lastly, some people buys a vehicle or a certain brand they want for their own selfish reasons. I mean we all do. Some prefers to play barbie dress up on their bike whilst some people prefers to race it. To each their own. Ride on road, not on keyboard