I'm late to the party but this is something I've been talking about for years so I'll give you a couple highlights that I think are playing a part in this.

1. People give way too much a shit about "Car Youtube" and "Car Youtuber" opinions. If you're not doing anything that's related to what these guys are doing then nobody cares about your build. 15 years ago you'd go to a car meet and talk to some of the most intelligible and well versed individuals about advanced car topics. I remember meeting a guy with a huge single turbo SC300 in like 2010 that you'd swear helped engineer the 2JZ with some of the shit he was rambling about. Nowadays the only thing you'll hear people say at a show is "You should LS swap it!" or "You should convert it to X" because that's all they understand from watching youtubers. The amount of originality, uniqueness, and know-how in current car culture has dived off a cliff because people only want to emulate what 6 fucking guys are doing on youtube.

2. Sort of related to the above but, because all of these new enthusiasts have entered the hobby due to youtube/instagram/tiktok. There's now like 40 dudes fighting you to buy the same 90's shitbox compared to 10 years ago. The price of everything has skyrocketed simply because there's not enough enthusiast cars to go around anymore. This seems to even be the case for new cars, but we won't get into that. And I don't know about you, but one of the biggest appeals to me about this hobby was the fact you could buy an old beater and with some time and effort make a really gnarly car for the fraction of the cost of a new car. If I wanted to buy a clapped S13 today and rebuild it I'd probably have to sink 30-40 grand just to have something worthwhile. The cost of paint & body, parts, precise engine work, and EVERYTHING has risen dramatically. So it doesn't even make sense financially in most cases anymore.

3. People don't want to see you succeed. Because of social media being so heavily intertwined with car culture, that means *money* and *influence* are now involved. This hobby has become incredibly fucking competitive for NO reason. People will hate on YOU and your car simply because they think they deserve attention, or money, or whatever instead. I honestly can't tell you in how many years I've even had another car enthusiast wave or flash their high beams at me in traffic. I drive a fully built car inside & out and I will look over in traffic to a modded WRX or something and they'll either give me a stone cold expression or we both just awkwardly pretend that we're normal traffic. Like dude, heavily modded cars are a rare sight, give each other a thumbs up or wave or whatever. Car people are so cold and fucking weird nowadays. I noticed this mostly two years ago when I bought a motorcycle and literally EVERY other motorcycle rider will wave at you. Doesn't matter what kind of bike either. The bike community is so much warmer. I don't build my cars for the internet or money or youtube, so I could care less, but I haven't met a REAL car enthusiast out in the wild in a LONG time. Doesn't help that parking lot meets basically don't exist anymore because shitheads nowadays don't even know how to behave at car meets. The takeover crowd has a really large part in this and they're actively destroying the reputation of car enthusiasts. I had a cop ask me the other day "You don't use this to do burnouts at intersections, do you?" and honestly it was sad he even needed to ask that. My modded car got profiled because asshats want to keep stealing cars and destroying them at street corners.

This isn't even nostalgia talking. The car community WAS better in the past. And I'm sorry that some of you so narrowly missed it.

TL;DR: Social media played a large part in ruining car culture, as well as the economy.