Addicted 2 Using F1 Drivers &Followers As Lab Rats

All of my posts are perfect no qualms (except the ones about George’s feet which I would like yall to stop liking as I don’t want to be reminded about it) but keeping track of the ones I most often refer to here for safe keeping:

Alex’s media strategy

Carbono analysis 1 & 2

Galex vs. Brocedes analysis

Assorted small Galex ponderings 1 2 & 3

George merc-sonality analysis

Alex’s breast milk fetish

Will Alex stay at Williams?

Alex and Franco vs Alex and Logan

Content:

For f1a, I respect the drivers as drivers so I usually talk about f1a as a series or the racing. For f1, i do not respect the men (in general, but particularly) as drivers. They are only useful as playthings for my entertainment so I usually talk about less driving related things. My main interest is in perceiving different facets of relationships and personalities and trying to make assumptions based off things I’ve seen or heard. Because of proximity to Alex, I commonly post about George and Carlos, but I will speculate about everyone and anyone for whatever reason. Also, as a ground rule, I think all f1 drivers are inherently immoral and most of them are also fucking annoying and I am not afraid to point this out

The bolded points are the main sort of pillars of what I perceive his media strategy as being and then below them are explanations of what I mean, examples of how this is being pushed and my hypothesis on why its happening

Being mean/diva

(Description/examples) Alex has, as many of you noticed, straight up called himself mean or a diva on many occasions. He’s done this both directly and indirectly and it is a repeated thing for him saying things like “im not angry but I am mean” and “im more of a diva than people realize.” This stands in contrast to people referring to him as an overall good guy (for example Alex Jacques naming him as the nicest guy on the grid, and Kym the Weirdo defending Alex when a different photographer accused him of being rude). Often when Alex is told he’s a good/moral/nice/kind/grounded whatever guy is when he pulls out this very direct commentary that he is not. For me, things are most clearly media narratives when they are continually repeated expressly (if you were so *insert whatever here* you wouldn’t need to say it all the time. I think this also applies to the Oscar calm narrative. Him and his team love explicitly repeating that Oscar is calm and chill but not emotionless. This is a huge part of his brand). Something else that is a hint of branding is when other people on your team start playing along. For example, Carlos started by saying Alex was a nice genuine good guy in his pre-Williams or early teammate interviews, but later on he was repeatedly mentioning Alex (1) being rude and (2) Alex having this dark secret. This can be explained by him just happening to discover that Alex is secretly a rude evil dude, but an alternate explanation was Alex saying hey, stop telling everyone im a good person all the time. I don’t want that

(genuine or branding) Alex is genuinely a dick when the helmet is on. When the helmet is off he seems like a good person (relative to drivers i do not claim he is a great person relative to non drivers) and the other drivers and f1 media comment on how Alex is a good person. For this reason I would argue that him talking about being mean in the car is 100% genuine but him being mean outside of the car seems less so. Even when he is being bitchy in the media pen intentionally stirring shit, it tends to read as a sort of humorous intent rather than being cruel. In general, because of the explicit repeated insistence and the fact that other people seem to disagree, I think this is largely branding for Alex. Something else to note on why I think this is branding is because he did a podcast with high performance and then actually called them afterward to say he didn’t come across well enough and wanted to film it again. The only real difference i noted between the two episodes were that Alex came across as softer and more subdued in the first one. It’s just speculation, but I think he or his manager/socials person/whatever picked up on the fact that he seemed unusually softer and wanted to push back against that

(the why) Alex in his Red Bull era was chaotic (see below) but less directly stating he is mean (except to media related people- see chaotic). Alex himself admits to this saying he was too nice at Red Bull. So why the change? Alex was being hammered during his Red Bull days for being too nice. Him saying “they race me so hard” over the radio did irreparable damage to him imo even though it was somewhat out of context (he shouldn’t have said it but contextually it wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be) and people in like every comment section of everything talked about how Alex is too nice for the sport and he is too soft to win. In contrast Lando gets some of that same “not having a winners mentality” narrative but he handles it by changing the premise that you don’t need a “winning mentality” or that “winning mentality” can be different things but Alex challenges the premise that he doesn’t have what is seen as a traditional “winning mentality” by reinforcing that he is mean and ruthless. Because of this response and also I would be remiss not to mention racism here- as an Asian man he is often stereotyped as kind, moral, obedient, feminine, and submissive, if you don’t believe me, see how many galex/2019 rookies posts cast Alex in this light even tho he is readily chaotic and messy- it benefits him to be seen as more aggressive and mean to counter this narrative that has been placed upon him

Diva/Down to Earth

(Description/examples) you might have noticed that I have diva in two places. It’s because he uses that specific word a lot and I think it’s two fold. One is in the meanness and the second is in his more “down to earth vibe.” Alex has multiple times noted the absurdity of the wealth of f1 drivers including his own. For example, at Red Bull he explained he was still living at home because he didn’t have much money and later at Williams he disclosed that he paid a lot for his teeth, comments that he makes so much money (as such is a diva), and pokes fun at the Monaco price tags and other drivers’ (I think specifically George’s) yachts. Similarly, he says he hates the attention and just want to drive. This was a point that was added to this concept recently and the below explains why

(genuine or PR) originally, I didn’t think deeply on this because all drivers say that they don’t like the attention and try to seem down to earth and stuff and they’re all fucking liars. Originally I excluded it because it was too boilerplate f1, but then Carlos in an interview stated that Alex specifically unlike most drivers genuinely hates the attention. This could have been a case of Alex having him say that but to me, this felt 100% genuine when Carlos was talking about it. I will also say that Alex’s down to earth schtick lands better for me than a lot of the other ones almost as if he has a higher modifier to add to his d20. So for this, I feel as if it is PR because all drivers do it, but I think he is a bit more believable than the others. So it’s somewhere in between PR and genuine.

(the why) at a baseline seeming down to earth and not delusional about wealth makes a driver more likable to people undoubtedly, so this is enough of a reason why, but I think some of this genuinely has to do with his childhood going through a period where he didn’t have money so he has a better pulse on the situation. I am someone who has changed socioeconomic status over my life and I know how absurd wealth feels when you’ve experienced a lack of it before, so I think he may be in this boat (or I am just projecting). I am going to add the absolute least substantiated point of this post here. The word diva is typically a feminine one describing a woman or an effeminate man. Ive talked about him not pushing away femininity like most but if (and this is a massive if like it is likely not true) if Alex is queer, this for me would be a defensible way for him to sort of flag this without saying it (similar to Chappell shilling, calling himself a WAG, and wearing a ‘hot cowgirl summer’ hat). Again though, I am not claiming he is queer and I think that all of what I am saying here in this post is just stuff I am essentially making up and that this specific point is the furthest fetched of all of them.

Being chaotic

(description/examples) Alex is chaotic and says this directly often. He mentions being chaotic and loving causing chaos explicitly, but he also is implicitly showing this all the time by being chaotic, especially in Williams and his own media content. For example, his photo of wooden cocks was a real winner, him launching the shit out of the ping pong ball in that one video, him gossiping about George “negatively” in a podcast because he knew they were talking to George next. He does absurdism or “dirty” jokes a ton- think about his gift for lando as a breast milk pump of his “save a horse” caption. In general he loves getting off topic especially when someone who is more serious that he can play off is around (like Logan, JV, or occasionally Carlos). Another example of him being chaotic is one of my favorite, Alex Jacques saying he was excited to do his first drivers parade (I think in f2) and Alex straight up takes out his phone and shows the camera a picture of Jacques with a horrific haircut

(genuine or branding) if this is a branding choice and given the repeated explicit and effortful emphasis it has, it probably is, I think it may be reinforcing rather than inventing as honestly he has always portrayed this image, even in junior series. He wasn’t always portraying himself as mean but he has always been chaotic and a bit more unfiltered online. There’s a lot of insane old (and new) social media stuff from him. So my thought is that he’s genuinely naturally a shit stirrer but he draws attention to this.

(the why) I think a big part of this is that Alex genuinely hates doing media content and being a shithead makes it more bearable for him. Similar to the mean explanation above though, being chaotic goes against that submissive sort of stereotype, so I think it’s intentional in that sense as well. Again though, I think this is largely just who he is in his natural state, it’s just reinforced a lot

Commentary on racism

(Description/examples) Alex often describes his experiences of racism without labeling them as such and he gets his point across while holding on to plausible deniability that he is talking about racism. For example, at Red Bull he has claimed that he personally has not experienced racism but at the same time says it exists in motorsports and unlike his current teammate (or his teammate at the time) he did kneel for the BLM protests. There have been other times where he talks about racism but hides it sort of. For example, he has said that f1 media only acknowledges his British heritage when he has good results (e.g., London born Thai) but he’s just Thai when he is bad. This is clearly driven by racism but he delivers this whole thing as like a joke so there is that layer of plausible deniability that he was just being his usually messy jokey self if pushed on it. Also his post about Yuki being off the grid reads to me like he is saying racism is involved without explicitly stating it. He also has said that he’s biased towards Asians on the grid (his words not mine), and the way he talks about it doesnt directly say “hey racism is a factor in what happened to Yuki [and me]” but the post hints at it. Again, plausible deniability. The PR or genuine doesnt make sense for this one so we are skipping to the why

(the why) honestly, in any position with a spotlight and when you’re in jeopardy, it is hard to “make waves” by talking about or alleging discrimination. For Alex in particular especially at Red Bull it would play into this narrative that he is soft and he didn’t want to bring the team bad PR (especially since he was Helmuts boy and Helmut later had said some really racist stuff so im sure racism wasn’t a new hobby of his). Assuming the allegations against Williams are true (which I am) the vibes there are racist and rancid. He has more power at Williams than he did at Red Bull, but being outspoken about racism is probably heavily frowned upon by leadership there, so while he wants to talk about it, he also can’t do it directly without risking too much

Final thoughts:

Pink pony club (obvious reasons) but I low-key believe that his favorite song off Midwest princess is actually red wine supernova (but realistically picture you would be better off that album due to his relationship)

I love a slow show (the national) characterization of Alex (and if you want to take that and add a spicy angst twist to it dumb by roe kapara) but also by the national slipping husband is kinda fun for his holiday off from the grid too

Have it out by mother mother would be a banger for freshly dropped from the grid

For the final rbr season, my really basic answer is nothing’s new by rio romeo. I’d love to make an edit of that some day

Williams/current era Alex really gives forgotten souls by mother mother in the way that hes often present but unrecognized. Along with this, im going to unfairly and maybe sacrilegiously sneak in make the news by roe kapara for that year off the grid but the same sort of vibe

If I said sex with a ghost by teddy hyde just retrospectively looking back at high points in his career would you call me crazy

I can’t really emphasize enough body by mother mother for all of the weight stuff that comes with being a taller driver. If you don’t believe me read this incredible mini fic. “Carlos is a much smaller man” HAUNTS me on the daily

This is a wild shout based on nothing at all but I think Alex would LOVE fruitcakes by Jimmy Buffett. It’s not like about him or anything I think he would just really enjoy it

If I am allowed to be insane i see fire by ed sheeran is Alex if he resigns with Williams again lol this is a threat more than anything

If you want rpf pairings Galex is great for silver spoon by Erin lecount but I think others have said that already, but I also can see an envy the moon by morgan powers for them especially in the zoom era. For Lily, their whole Instagram presence and whole relationship is serving how your love makes me feel by diamond rio. It makes me bitter tbh how much they seem to love each other. I actually could love an Andrew in drag (magnetic fields) situation for Charles (charles in drag) or really any of his teammates because I could see that sort of thing being very him. I could def see bent (matchbox twenty) for like a sargebon situation. It’s only sex by carseat headrest is screaming malex at me and no matter how many times I dismiss that thought it returns so like sorry for that one

This task was honestly so interesting to me because most of my favorite songs and even ship playlists for other ships didnt really work here (like I kept desperately trying to shill you won’t be mine by matchbox twenty but I couldn’t really place it)

Optional exit poll for my own curiosity