Hello and welcome to the PowerDrift Podcast and today I'm here to ask you a question.
Why're you guys complaining so much?
But before we get into that, subscribe button, bell notification icon, and if you like this
video and you have friends who complain a lot, please do like this video and share it
with them so that they understand that this kind of negativity is not really getting us anywhere.
Negativity, the biggest unlock I think that the internet has had for the human race is
the ability to vent negativity into a safe space as it were, and that seems to be internet,
Twitter in specific and we do a lot of reviews, we put out a lot of news, we put a lot of
opinion and we hear a lot of negativity back, not in the sense of your review was poor or
your video quality was bad, but stuff like,
this motorcycle only has 17bhp, if it had 20, it would have been better
at the stage where we've only seen a photograph of the motorcycle.
Or they said, we're going to release this motorcycle and you be like, this thing is three years late.
or they'll release a motorcycle, you'll look at the price and say, who'll even buy this?
Or they'll release a motorcycle and you'll say, where are the roads to ride this motorcycle?
Now here's the thing, being negative is very easy for us to do, right and if you were to
take PowerDrift and turn it into a negativity oriented video source, I think we'd do even
better than we do in terms of numbers, we'd have more subscribers and all that because
being negative is easy, it's entertaining, and it's a lot of fun.
But ultimately, it's a little bit corrosive.
What it means is, you're beginning to become a little bit more cynical and the optimism,
which is to me, the foundation of life, of civilization, of everything we've achieved
so far, is going away from you, but you're not realising it.
Why am I saying this?
When I started road testing, one of the first things that my editor at that point, man called
Bijoy Kumar, why would tell us is, remember that you're in the business of celebrating
vehicles first and everything else later.
The idea that we have personal mobility of this form that gives us so many emotions, so much
it evokes so many feelings, sensations, we create so many memories for us, is
why we are in this business in the first place, right?
When I was a 18 year old, 19 year old kid thinking about road testing motorcycles for a living,
do you think my idea was, I'm going to go out there and I want to, you know, find
plot holes and loopholes in every single motorcycle that I come across?
Obviously not, right, and I'm assuming that you are in the same place because you're also
looking at the motorcycle world and saying, wow, that'll be such a great motorcycle to
own, as opposed to, wow, that motorcycle is going to be so hot to ride in traffic,
it's useless, right?
But look at where we've reached, I still think, when I go for a road test today, and it doesn't
matter if it's 100cc motorcycle, a 50cc moped or a 1.0-litre class sport bike at a racetrack,
I'm still excited because I'm thinking, what if this is the next big thing, what is, this
is the motorcycle or scooter that will unlock this part of the market and a lot of people
have such a great time on it, create so many memories, this is going to be awesome,
this is where my journey to a road test begins.
Not all road tests go like this, right,
you do show up at a place and you look at the job that a manufacturer has done and sometimes
you ask questions, saying that, really, you think this was a good idea, you couldn't have
done it like this, don't you think that would be a better idea?
Sometimes they agree, sometimes they disagree, sometimes you see your feedback reflected
in a motorcycle that comes out three or four years later as an updated version to the previous one,
but the idea is, I always go into the thing excited saying, wow, this is going to be fun
and in the process, I have learned to ignore the first impression of the thing
as you see it on Instagram or something as your first,
sort of, formative sight of the motorcycle, right,
so when Yamaha launches the Aerox, my first reaction is not, what is wrong with this vehicle,
but my first reaction is also not, what is right with this vehicle,
my first reaction is, wow, this means that the Indian scooter enthusiast finally has
more choice, they are free to exercise this choice, right,
you can always go to a showroom, look at it and say, this is a piece of crap, I'm not
going to buy one and that's fine, I mean that, you're well within your rights to do it,
but when you start seeing these kind of things online straightaway, you are building your
own mindset, so by the time you are ready to say, hey, look, I want to buy a 15bhp scooter,
the only choice I have is the Aerox or the SR 150, you already have preconceived notions
about both of these things before even having seen them in the flesh.
Why are you doing this to yourself?
As a road tester, I cannot afford to do it at all.
But I'm saying as an enthusiast, who loves the idea of being on two wheels or leaning
into corners, why would you write-off products before you've had a chance to
see them for yourself, experience for yourself.
I also get a lot of people who are saying, oh, that bike is too big for me, I will never
be able to afford it, why?
Who said that you have to own them today, I mean, 10 years ago, I couldn't afford a
big bike, but that didn't mean that I will never afford a big bike, it just meant that
today, I'm in a situation that I can't have one, so I bought the 390 Duke because that
was the fastest machine I could afford at that point of time.
It's hilariously good, I still have it, I'm still in love with it
and I still think it's an incredible motorcycle.
It didn't stop me from dreaming about a Ducati or an an Aprilia or something like that, right?
If you're 23, 24, 25 years old, by the function of how human civilization works, your salary
is beginning to grow, but it is at a relatively modest level, find the best bike you can afford
at that modest level and start your life with motorcycles.
Coming online and saying, oh, Ducati made another 11-lakh rupee bike, what the hell,
how will it benefit us?
It won't happen today, but it'll happen in 5 years, give yourself time, work hard towards it,
it can be achieved.
But fundamentally, the point I'm making is, I see a lot of us enthusiasts falling into
the trap of criticising things, just by seeing something online, or falling in line with
somebody's opinion we see online and to me, that's a bad place to begin, think about who
is offering that opinion, and what is the value of that opinion based on who is offering it, okay.
So for example, if your father is a, say a, superb accountant at the top of his game,
and he starts to give you advice on how nuclear fusion works,
would you take your father very seriously?
You can't, right, because what does this man know about nuclear fusion.
And in the same way, if you met a nuclear scientist who decided to give your father
advice about accountancy, would your father take that very seriously?
Because I mean, he's a nuclear scientist, what does he know about accounts?
In the exact same way, if you think that I do good work with motorcycles, and I say,
I think this is a great idea, you should take it seriously, but only as an opinion that
I'm offering, it should not become your gospel.
And this is true for every single person who tests motorcycles, or rides for a living,
ultimately, you have to ride this motorcycle, or scooter,
so the ultimate opinion that matters is yours.
But if you start opinion forming from a negative place, you're painting yourself into a corner
that you will not be able to get out of.
So that's all I wanted to tell you about in this podcast, because I see a trend towards
a lot of online negativity going on.
You can counter that by being positive online as well, but that doesn't seem to be very
natural to us right now.
What is positively a trend, is that, we go online and criticise things and, I mean, look
at what Twitter has become, right, it's become a place for you to rant about Uber and your
gas service and whatever else is wrong with the world.
There's more to the internet than that, there's more to motorcycles than that for sure.
It's a huge, positive, optimistic, amazing, life changing experience,
how could you start that by saying, I think that bike's price is wrong.
Let's wait to see it, let's wait to ride it, let's get a sense of,
what does it do in the real world and then decide whether it's good or not.
If it's not good, you don't have to buy it.
If it's good, please do, I encourage you, work really, really hard and get it into your
garage because it will change your life.
Thank you so much for watching, this is the PowerDrift Podcast, I know this seems like
a little bit of a rant, but it really really bothers me, the amount of negativity that's
out there, especially on the part of genuine, warm, sensitive enthusiasts who feel the love
for motorcycling but this is what they do online, it really, really bothers me because I think
it sets the tone wrong, I invite you to try and fix it.
Thank you so much for watching, this is the podcast, please do hit the subscribe button,
if you haven't, the bell notification icon, so that you can get notifications when podcasts
go out and do like and share this with your friends because I believe, being positive,
being optimistic is the source of everything good that we've ever been able to do on this planet,
from the beginning till now and for the motorcycles, let's start today.