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.
I completely agree, it OBVIOUSLY is a V.F.D – a very functional display.
Lemony Snicket says it’s the Volunteer Fire Department.
It looks exactly like the display on my wife’s 2008 Saab 9-3 convertible.
When the 9-3 finally went full GM. A sad, carved out husk of what it once was. That last 9-5 was something special, though.
Doesn’t look like a variable frequency drive to me.
Or a Volunteer Fire Department. I don’t know what Jason is smoking…
Have you seen his other two
rantsposts today?“There’s nothing wrong with you that a little Prozac and a polo mallet can’t cure.”
— Woody Allen
“It’s been a long week.”
Understatement
I applaud being petty, in fact I celebrate it and encourage it. Bravo Torch!
Because this is the internet, I’m going to do no research and go by memory. What I think is going on here is that people are confusing LCD with LED, as in 7 segment displays. LCDs don’t actually emit light, they just allow light through out not, so they require a back light, color filter, etc. They also don’t perfectly block light with is why most LCD displays can’t show true black.
Regardless, these are neither, but at least that confusion is plausible.
They tooled it up probably 25 years ago, used it in absolutely everything, and there’s a cargo ship still full of them. It’s a $2 part. Why would anyone think an 8″ touchscreen is cheaper. (And as others have pointed out, why would anyone argue with Torch?)
Similar to how I wouldnt try to score on Lebron, you are not the person I would argue with on this topic.
Never go against torch on tail lights or outdated tech.
“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?”
Literally 2/3 of the internet. That might be low.
2/3 is way too low.
there’s no way it’s only 2/3, internet nowadays is full of people like that
You’re a North Carolina resident. Isn’t it a state law that every resident must be at least a little bit Petty?
Absolutely. Reading this article brought great LaJoie to my Earn(est)hardt.
North Carolinian here and can confirm am a petty person
Petty, or just a Dick.
Or a Richard if you are being formal.
Yep, this one’s going in the glovebox
Hey Jason hope you are doing well. Welcome to the dark side. It’s nice to have a respected owner of the Autopian coming over.
Get ‘em!
It’s like almost no one knows that an LED display is an LCD screen back-lit by LEDs
I, for one am looking foward to next years T-shirt in the dot matrix font that says “ It’s literally a VF fucking D”
I will take two, please
Okay I read it in my head as a “VENEREAL FUCKING DISEASE”
Hope you have a restful weekend Torch!
The newest VFDs I can think of were in 1980ies HiFi boxes, so I assume LCDs are cheaper to integrate. Why use VFDs this late?
Its GM. They probably bought a million of them in the 80s.
I suspect VFDs can survive a wider temperature range more easily, and perhaps are easier to make brighter.
They hung on in car audio systems for a long time, the GM vans are the last holdout, but there were certainly other vehicles that kept them into the 2010s
There were multimeters that you could buy in the mid 2000s that used them. In fact I think they might still be around.
I guess it’s just a matter of whether or not changing the manufacturing process is worth it considering the total profit and the number of units sold.
Patrick eats paste.
Give em hell, Torch. My Focus has one and I love its dated from-the-not-too-distant-future look.
To the victor go the spoils.
Whatever those spoils might be. I’m drawing a blank in this case.
You’re so petty that I’m going to start calling you Tom.
Don’t come around here no more.
Dang it. I posted mine before I read yours. Sorry.
That’s good, ’cause Torch won’t back down.
Torch, can I just say that I appreciate your commitment here and that that this is exactly the level of petty that makes the Autopian great
I’m looking at it, and I think it’s a LCD. Hold on, maybe it’s my screen that is the LCD.
Wow. Just wow. It’s a display, folks. And it’s Torch. If it emits light, I trust what he says. No point getting worked up about it.