Everyone gets a trophy!

You made it through Kindergarten… Graduation Ceremony. Everyone is special!

Soccer team comes in fourth in the tournament… They all take a trophy home.

5th grader loses in the semi-finals of the spelling bee… She still gets a ribbon.

School banishes the Honor Roll because it makes some kids upset… Everyone is a winner.

Enough is enough. Awards and recognition are supposed to be incentivizing. They are supposed to encourage and reward those worthy of praise. Acclaim and accolade is meaningless when it is distributed haphazardly. Competition, adversity, and challenge have valuable lessons in life. Life can be difficult. It can be a struggle. Losing is good for you. It teaches you that even if you're good at something, things do not always go your way and you have to find a way to deal with it. Losing has value. I do not believe we should reward people, young or old, for just showing up. What does praising mediocrity accomplish? When everyone gets a trophy, no one really wins.

I was recently cleaning and organizing the desktop of my laptop of the seemingly never-ending bevy of automotive pictures that find their way on there on a regular basis. I came across the pictures below and remembered I found them months ago on the Facebook page of a well-known automotive publication. Now, I acknowledge that this is not exactly analogous to a youngster receiving a ribbon for placing 9th in a school art fair, but there is certainly a level of truth to the notion that showing up is all you have to do sometimes. You cut corners on your car by purchasing replica parts? No big deal. We will still feature it on our site that has millions of followers. 

And we wonder why faking the funk is so readily accepted. I read some of the parts lists. Fake aero, fake wheels, fake seats, fake harnesses… If the publications that showcase these cars are not discerning and scrutinizing, who will be? Be the funk. Don't fake it.

JDMphasis… Innovation over Imitation