Can we briefly talk about the fear of missing out? I’d like to put it to you that FOMO doesn’t exist in 2019.

In today’s world of instantly-gratifying always-connectedness, the fear of missing out has become the realisation of missing out, or ROMO. Here’s why:  it used to be the case that when you missed a cool gathering or great event you’d not find out about your mistake until maybe the next time you spoke to a friend, or even weeks later when some photos appeared in a magazine. But not any more.

Now, everyone is a broadcaster, and they have their own network in their pocket. A couple of taps on a glossy smartphone screen and you can be broadcasting still or moving images to a huge audience – incomprehensibly so for some people. This means we all know what (almost) everyone is doing much of the time, and we can experience that nagging feeling of FOMO in real-time. Thanks, technology.

This most recently happened for me when I decided to pass on Bicester Heritage’s first Sunday Scramble of 2019. I’ve shot Bicester’s ‘winter’ Scramble a few times, and although it’s always a great event, it’s usually plagued by bitterly cold weather and/or heavy rain. What’s more, I thought that attending every Scramble event was a bad idea, as inevitably you end up seeing much of the same, just arranged a bit differently.

Last year I omitted the post-festive Scramble from my calendar in favour of their spring event (which was amazing) and so this year decided to do the same in the name of extending the festive hangover. Besides, I still had snacks and chocolate from Christmas to get through, so not leaving the house all day once again felt like the right thing to do.

But then I made a crucial mistake – surrounded by what felt like hundreds of empty multicoloured Quality Street wrappers, and yet to attempt to salvage any form of dignity by getting dressed for the day – I swiped across my phone and booted up the ‘gram. Khyzyl Saleem’s story occupied the number one spot at the top, so it seemed like a good place to start. What followed, not just through Khyzyl’s story but also through the phones of apparently everyone I know and follow, through a series of images and 11-second vertical videos, was that sinking feeling that I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Winter Scramble had attracted a huge crowd, and a diverse one at that. Yes, the usuals – the cars I’d seen at Bicester ten times over – were still there, but I was fully aware that there were some real gems in attendance – an F40, Dan Lawry’s awesome custom hotrod Beetle (this needs a feature, right?), a B12 Alpina, a very cool Fiat Abarth X1/9 rally car (replica or real, it doesn’t matter) and, as we’ve come to expect from Bicester heritage, more tastefully resto modded 911s than we know what to do with.

The fear of missing out became the realisation that I was missing out.

However, I firmly believe that ROMO is a gift that should be shared, and so here we are. Enjoy The Kyza’s gallery below, and next time don’t make the mistake I did.

Jordan Butters
Instagram: jordanbutters
jordan@speedhunters.com

Photography by Khyzyl Saleem
Instagram: the_kyza
Facebook: TheKyza