We Get It... You Vaped.
A Love Letter To A Subculture Long Gone
Editor’s Note: Since writing the first draft of this piece, I have quit nicotine altogether. 13 years beholden to the chemical and physical sensations, and still not yet free, but well on my way. Maybe I will write something about this at a later date.
It’s painful to watch the world around you change, even more so when the change is negative and seemingly arbitrary.
Back in 2012, I was suffering from a habit I picked up during the stressful months of my early college years; I smoked, 3 or 4 a day, to “take the edge off”. But as I became convinced that they worked despite the evidence that they did nothing to manage my stress, the habit grew to a pack a day before you could blink.
I went home for the summer that year and tried to give them up. All of the stress I thought was alleviated came tumbling back the second I considered quitting. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
My mother had quit some years before that and tried to help me get away from smoking. She got me one of those vapes, and almost immediately, I could breathe better, was less prone to mood swings and anxiety, and was spending a lot less money.
The product was in its infancy at the time, with no big cloud chuckers or custom-built copper tubes featuring flashlight batteries. Not yet anyways… But I was happy, much healthier, and less financially burdened.
Then, as the product matured, local companies started making e-liquids. All of the attention that went into confectionery and candy making found a new and very trendy life in this subculture.
You knew the shop that had all the great lines and eventually much nicer gear.
It’s hard to watch something you love become something you hate. Even harder when you know who caused it.
Vapes became more custom, with hobbyists and enthusiasts alike gathering at shops to build custom coils to compete in local competitions… cloud comps, even the vapor equivalent of a yo-yo competition, vape trick competitions.
Check the link to the video as it is age-restricted. The techniques are really cool and quite difficult to do. At my best, I had maybe 10% of his tricks figured out.
At the same time as the vape competitions ramped up, the car culture found its intersection with vape culture. A lot of guys with custom cars, Evos, WRX, sleeper clapped-out Civics, had custom vapes. The scenes were similar to begin with.
The devices also became smarter and better over time. While I was in college, we went from small devices that ran on unregulated battery voltage (Joyetech, ELeaf, and the like) to voltage-regulated devices (with DNA 30 chips, etc) that regulated wattage with advanced control systems. They read the resistance of the wire and controlled output voltage to deliver a consistent target wattage. Ohm’s Law in the palm of my hand!
This was a whole new world for us. You didn’t have to turn your own coils and build your own rigs to get competitive… and for those that didn’t compete, burnt coils became something that only ever happened if you ran the system dry.
Then, perhaps, we flew too close to the sun. We made the news for all the wrong reasons. The media didn’t focus on harm reduction.
They caught teenagers with them.
God.
Fucking.
Damnit.
The second we saw the campaigns from the “Truth.org’s” of the world hit the TV, we knew.
The industry would lose its character, charm, and hype because cheap suits with fine arts degrees and a penchant for burning electricians’ coffee wanted to make rules for the lesser beings. Flavored products became illegal, not because they were more dangerous, but because people who aren’t legally allowed to have it might want it, so nobody should have them.
Sound logic. Now do study drugs and bourbon.
Well, fast forward another 6, 7 years and it’s clear as day they have succeeded, at least in California, the land of shitty paper bags, self-defense charges, and exorbitant taxes.
Products in this category now cost twice as much, are nearly impossible to import into the state, and are taxed and regulated far worse than actual cigarettes.
I thought maybe I’d quit, but I think many people will turn back to smoking, guaranteeing the future income from California’s tobacco lawsuit will be there to support the next generation of health conditions.
My state is full of intelligent lawmakers and is free of corruption.*
* <placeholder text for incredulity>