Hate, Conspicuous Consumption, and the Pathetic Display of Epic Fail that is "rollin' coal."

Are there even words for this (hopefully short-lived) fad? If you asked some regular people at the grocery store, or a coffee shop, even at a ball game to come up with something more ridiculously counterproductive than simply making a bonfire out of dollar bills I doubt they would think of the despicable act of nihilism that is 'rollin' coal.' As many befuddled functioning human beings have pointed out, this is the phenomenon of modifying vehicles to dump lots of diesel into the engine and have it spew out of after-market (and illegal) smoke stacks as black soot. There is cutting off your own nose to spite your face, then there is rolling coal, which spites everything. And unfortunately, when these bastards hit their switches or whatever it is, they are driving forward, out of the carcinogenic cloud and are only as affected by it as people miles away. So they won't be dropping dead of pollution-related causes anytime soon. We have reached a level of hate, conspicuous consumption, and nihilism among the 15k plus members of the rolling coal cult which human stupidity is rarely capable of obtaining.

As the above links indicate, the phenomenon (meme? hobby? collective descent into madness?) definitively entered the zeitgeist over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. I admit to never having heard of it before then. I suspect that while we have lots of rednecks around here who drive pickups and hate the president, people here are just too frugal (or cheap) to waste money by spewing fuel all over the place. In my neck of the woods it is more an aggressive display of indifference as preferred protest. And Harley-Davidsons with loud tailpipes as opposed to dirty, sooty ones tend to be vehicles (no pun intended) of rebellion. And make no mistake, in their own words this is what coal rolling is about; flipping a giant middle finger at the supposed liberal environmentalist scourge that runs our country. And a larger display of misdirection for the sake of profit has not been seen since the gun manufacturers realized the incredible boost in sales possible in reaction to possible public safety legislation. It is as though every snake flag-waving hick suddenly discovered the Dead Kennedy's song California Uber Alles and mistook it for a fox news headline.

"First they came for the coal rollers..."

At the dawn of industrialized consumerism, companies inspired the well-to-do in Europe and America to buy expensive luxury apparel and accessories simply to display them in public. Conspicuous consumption was meant entirely to inspire jealousy in observers, it gave the wearer of expensive furs, jewelry, or custom-tailored suits a sense of superiority. Restaurants built window seating and hotels constructed lavishly decorated lobbies with comfortable chairs all for the benefit of the conspicuous peacocks and their displays of finery. To give this analogy a splendid Buzzfeed/Upworthy twist, YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT! A number of anarchists took issue with rich assholes flaunting useless crap in public simply as a display of status while the majority toiled in poverty and started bombing areas of downtown where the peacocks mingled. While this violence was met with a crackdown on dissent by the ruling classes, conspicuous consumption as a lifestyle faded from public view as well.

Are coal rollers the new peacocks and dandies simply displaying conspicuous consumption of diesel as a status symbol? No, of course not. The correlation exists, these rednecks are performing in public and wasting untold amounts of money but the causation is 180 degrees south, as in towards hell. The performances are recorded for display on YouTube basically to show off how badass they are to each other. But they also perceive themselves as rebels, protesting... clean air? Why, please for the love of God, can't these rebels without a cause protest President Obama's clear stand against suicide?

Conversely, and I know this is going to cause a lot of pushback, what is demonstrated here is the futility of individual action. However noble, efforts by conscientious thinking individuals to go green will accomplish little while coal rollers, chick-fil-a patrons, wal-mart shoppers are able to abuse their freedoms by working ever-harder to dirty our nest. This is a subject for another day however.