Jeremy Clarkson Establishes his DriveTribe Domain

After Jeremy Clarkson's ill-fated end on the massively popular BBC show Top Gear, he fell off the face of the earth for a little while, and rightfully so. His dismissal can be equally attributed to his rambunctious temperament and tactlessness as it can be to his physical altercation and verbal bashing of show producer Oisin Tymon. The final straw, Clarkson and Tymon's confrontation, was by no means the deciding factor; the final year of the dynamic trio, 2014, saw Clarkson at the root of three large-scale controversies, according to Car and Driver. In that time, Clarkson made an anti-Asian racist joke resulting in a lawsuit for the BBC, said the N-word in rehearsal footage, and gloated about the British victory over the Argentinians in the 1982 Falklands War, driving a Porsche with the license plate H982 FKL in Argentina. It was later revealed that the license plate came that way and that Clarkson had nothing to do with it. And yet, these are only a few in a long history of offenses.

All that behind, however, Clarkson is taking steps to establish a new domain. Information about the Top Gear trio's newest project has been buzzing since August. They've taken it upon themselves to create an online motoring community, a social media platform for car-enthusiasts. The former team - Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May - will be supplemented by former Top Gear producer Andy Wilman.

DRIVETRIBE, the final product, went live Monday the 28th of November. Available online and through the app, the platform works in a unique way, by divvying up users into "tribes." Tribes cover a specific topic of interest, ranging from hardcore ("Vintage Racecars") to casual ("Sh**ty Car Mods"). Here are some examples:

• "James May's Carbolics"
• "Jeremy Clarkson's Tribe"
• "Hammond's Fob Jockeys" 
• "Off Road the Planet" 
• "Future Machines"
• "Curves, Soulful Driving"

In order to use the platform, you must sign-up by logging into Facebook. From there, you are prompted to join up no less than six tribes, each granting access to different content. Don't worry too much about choosing the perfect tribes to begin with as this can be changed later on. After joining six tribes, the next thing you'll notice is that there are followers and that you can bump posts to those followers, indicating that the website will function similarly to Reddit and Twitter. Users can comment, repost, or bump (the equivalent of favouriting or upvoting).

Clarkson told Mashable in a press release, "The internet is brilliant. You can watch Pandas sneezing and find out when it's high water in the Easter Islands. But until DRIVETRIBE came along, there's never been a one-stop-shop for people who like cars."

After a quick perusal, the site is clean, visually-pleasing, and well divided thanks to tribe's content division. Tribe-relevant content is presented in a scrolling, NewsFeed-like manner. Scroll to your heart's content; the posts are endless. Users interested in unrelenting car information can tailor their experience accordingly whereas those interested simply in surface matters can alter their feed (hello, "Dogs in Cars").


Below you'll find the preview for DRIVETRIBE:

Jacqui Litvan

Jacqui Litvan, wielding a bachelor's degree in English, strives to create a world of fantasy amidst the ever-changing landscape of military life. Attempting to become a writer, she fuels herself with coffee (working as a barista) and music (spending free time as a raver). Follow her @Songbird_Jacqui

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