I really don’t get what’s so hard to understand about this fundamental cornerstone of society: don’t mess with someone’s ride. How much more clear could it be? Why do some people not understand it to such a degree that they’d photograph their child jumping on somebody’s Lamborghini, like this guy?
I thought I was done with this. I thought after the insipid saga of the Miata-dancers the whole world somehow got the message, and we’d all be free to put needless car-molesting behind us, and lay with lions and live lives of peace and beauty or whatever. But no. No, some Kiwi named Jackson (but spelled Jaxin, like a personified energy drink/STD hybrid) came along and ruined everything.
Yes, Jaxin Hall, whom I’ve never heard of but who appears to have at least one Tumblr fan page, posted this picture to Instagram:
The caption reads:
I thought maybe it would be bouncy like a trampoline for her but it wasn’t #dadmode5000
Let’s see, I’m a dad, so I should be familiar with the standard set of #dadmodes. If I recall, 1000 is responsible-dad mode, 2000 is goofball dad mode, 3000 and 4000 are reserved for future expansion, 5000 is inconsiderate asshole dad, 6000 is embarrassing dad, 7000-8000 are both farting variants, and 9000 is very interested in your fusebox dad.
The 5000 sort of makes sense, then.
From what I can gather, Jaxin Hall was a member of a “metalcore” (is that the boyband version of metal?) band called Of Mice and Men and later left to start his own clothing line, or something. Ex-band member/current fashion-related job suggest someone likely okay financially, so I don’t think he placed the child on the Lamborghini Gallardo 570 SL as some sort of statement about wealth and class, as far as I can tell?
That wouldn’t have made it any better, of course, in any way. I’m just trying to figure out why someone would do something this senselessly shitty.
Now, I’m not perfect; a few years ago, for a Will It Baby topshot, I had my then much smaller son Otto posing on the hood of a Porsche Panamera. Even though I was careful to be sure his rubber-soled shoes were completely clean and free of grit, I now know it was the wrong thing to do. He wasn’t jumping, and I took pains to be clean and careful, but shoes just don’t belong on a car’s body, even if it’s a company-owned press vehicle. I was wrong.
But randomly having your kid stand on the hood of a car you don’t own to make some lame joke is, of course, also wrong. And not because the car happens to be expensive; that doesn’t matter at all, though I’ll admit it does help with getting people interested.
The car could have been a band-aid-colored 1989 Corolla and this would be just as bad. A person’s car should always be assumed to be important to its owner, no matter what. For many of us, it’s a very important relationship, and it’s a violation to have someone stand – or worse, jump – on the car for no reason. That can cause real, needless damage.
The fact that these sorts of things happen over and over again makes me feel like someone’s replaced my regular toothpaste with new Colgate with LSD and flouride. If it’s not your car, don’t jump on it. Don’t let your kid jump on it. Don’t damage it or dry-hump it, or do anything disrespectful. It’s someone’s car, they may love it, and it has zero to do with you or what you think about it. This isn’t complicated.
Of course, like all these dumpster-fire stories, it gets just a little worse. As various car-interest forums and websites have seen the original Instagram post, of course it was deleted, and Hall’s Instagram and Twitter soon became private.
Hall posted an apology that read:
My apologies to the exotic car community for my poorly thought-out actions.
I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t actually let her jump on the car. I made sure to dust off her shoes and placed her gently on a strong part of the hood. I took the photo and removed her making sure not to scratch anything. I shouldn’t have done it and I realise now the error of my actions.
While the wave of strange and unusually cruel abuse my wife and I have received is not justified, I do understand people being upset and I am sorry. If you have any problem with my actions, I understand and I am sorry.
If you think it’s ok to use it as an opportunity to vent some weird repressed rage issues you have by taking it a step too far with some disturbing threat at my family, then that’s not ok and I hope you get the help you need.
Sorry.
First of all, he’s right: there’s no excuse for threats or attacks on his wife or kid in any way, at all, ever. That’s just ridiculous. It just makes all gearheads look bad, and, come on, nothing that happened here in any way merits threats to the man’s family.
The apology is a little weird when you think about the backtracking on the jumping aspect, which was the crux of the original tweet, but it’s not really possible to prove what actually did happen there, and, even with the precautions claimed in the apology, you still shouldn’t make your kid stand on a stranger’s car in a parking lot.
Also unpleasant is that someone has been going through Facebook posts talking about the event and reporting them, getting them removed. Here’s one example that was sent to me:
Jaxin doesn’t seem eager to hear what you think of his encouraging kids to jump on other people’s private cars, and he doesn’t want anyone else to hear it, either. We reached out to Jaxin Hall to give his side, but as of press time we have not received a response.
So, let’s recap: Kids are great. Being a dad is great. Being a dad who encourages their kid to jump on someone else’s car, be it a Lamborghini or otherwise, is shitty.
You don’t fuck with someone’s ride.
Period, end of story, done.
UPDATE: Apology found, and added to story.