Before you read this, I need you to know that I understand how absurdly petty and stupid this all is. I get it. This post I’m about to write here is not the work of a healthy, well-adjusted human, and I get that, but at the same time, I felt compelled to write it. It’s not even topical! It’s about a post I wrote way back in December, months and months and months ago, about the last car you can still buy new without an LCD screen, the GMC Savana/Chevy Express. It’s not even so much about the post, but about comments made on the Instagram post that went along with it, and, perhaps most significantly, this is about the all-consuming terror that is Someone Being Wrong on the Internet.
Now I want to be clear, I firmly believe that I did not start this petty war, but I did allow myself to get sucked into it (38 weeks later), and I do believe I will fucking end it. It’s directly about the display on the infotainment system of the GMC Savana/Chevy Express van, and whether or not it is, in fact, an LCD display. In my article, I specifically noted that it is not – in fact, that is the whole point of the article, that this is the very last new car you can buy without an LCD display on the dash. There is a monochrome display there, but it’s an old school vacuum fluorescent display (VFD).
Anyway, like many articles, we had an associated Instagram post about it:
View this post on Instagram
Now, what I want to point out is that in the comments on this post, there were a surprising amount of people who insisted that the whole article was wrong, because the display shown was, in fact, an LCD display. These people seemed to delight in what they felt was an awesome gotcha:
Now, you’ll notice that at the time, 38 freaking weeks ago, I did try to reply that it was, in fact, a VFD screen. Then, I’ll be honest, I forgot about all of this until yesterday when I happened to be looking for something else in my Instagram feed and found this. And then I read the comments again, and found that my irk gland was secreting a lot of irkatosin, which made me irked.
Who are these people that have such blind, unthinking confidence that they feel the need to correct something without even trying to confirm that that something even needs correcting? Look at fucking Patrick there, the only one who felt so confident he needed to respond on two separate threads, once stating “it literally is not” and then again claiming “there’s no way,” suggesting that these monochrome VFDs cost as much as an LCD.
Oh, Patrick. I’m sure you’re a great guy, but if I may offer some humble advice: before you go making wildly confident statements like this, in this sort of dickhead manner, maybe just take a moment to consider that maybe – just maybe – the person who wrote the article actually did the minimum of research.
I don’t expect any of these VFD denialists to believe me, so today I fucking contacted fucking GM itself and just asked outright. Here was the response from GM’s Global Tech and Innovation Comms representative:
Hey Jason,Hope you’re doing well. You are correct that it’s a Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD).Have a great weekend!Kellie
Did you see that, Patrick and all of you other overconfident display-identifiers? It’s literally a VF fucking D.
It’s been a long week.
Do not anger the Torch. You would not like Torch when he’s angry.
So, are you telling me that if I’m enough of a clueless dick on the Autopian’s Instagram, I get to be mentioned by name in an article?
FOR. REAL?
I will take this wrong lesson seriously and will find (even more) ways to be wrong on the Internet. And this is on you, sir. You brought this upon yourself.
Technically, a VFD is a vacuum tube. Some people even use them as amplifiers.
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/08/audio-amp-puts-vfds-to-work-in-an-unusual-way/
So you can tell people that the GMC Savana/Chevy Express has a radio that uses vacuum tubes, and you would not be wrong.
I’m not a very smart man, but I take some solace in knowing that I’m at least smart enough to know that I’m not smart, which puts me ahead of a lot of folks.
Has GM learned to spell gauge correctly! It’s not gage.
lmao this is what i’m here for!
Fuck yeah!
Oh fuck yes, I live for unhinged long-term pettiness! Emailing a corporation to ask if it’s a fucking VFD reminds me how my phone number is blocked from calling Skittles corporate. Apparently they don’t like people calling to ask why the original packet has no blue Skittle. Some fucking rainbow that is.
Back in about 1970, a friend’s class wrote a letter to M&M Mars asking why there were no blue M&Ms. They got a nice letter back that explained that there were no blue food dyes that met their requirements and were cheap enough.
In 1995 they did get blue M&Ms, so I don’t know what changed.
In their defense they probably have no idea what lcd or vfd stands for. Nor the difference. Given how cheap oled displays have gotten and how they are replacing vfds in most applications. Winstar even has a product they call pmoled that is direct replacement for vfd. I wonder if GM will go though the effort of sourcing an OLED replacement or redesigning the PCB and molding to allow for an oled. Or just shove some double din touch screen in.
Not only are they the last VFD radio, they also decontented the Bluetooth for 2025!
Patrick is a Little Cynical Di…
Disagreer. Yeah, that’s it. Disageer.