Cyber-Ducky: Tesla’s Floating Savior?

TRUCKS! They’re as American as high fructose corn syrup and consumer debt. Once the ubiquitous symbol of blue-collar workers and sun-up-to-sun-down farming, they are now seen as a hallmark of a pusillanimous, downward trend in North American Motoring.

Rugged excursions across unforgiving terrain have been replaced with bi-weekly jaunts to the Wal-Mart parking lot and favored by modern faux-tough dandies, who pilot their gaudy pavement princesses gingerly from driveway to Wal-Mart parking lot. They never haul more than the weight of a 52-pack of Depends™ adult under garments, and a few cases of Whiteclaws.

The cut-throat world of automotive trends is a fickle, cruel, bitch of a mistress. One person’s F-150 is another chump’s Chevy SSR. One, the darling of James David Power III and his associates, while the other is fated to litter junkyards the world over. How is one to decide which bandwagon to hop upon?

Peculiar automotive endeavors, like the SSR, have a long history of ingratiating themselves into the collective vehicular psyche of equally peculiar enthusiasts. Everyone loves an underdog, even if that dog is demonstrably terrible, overpriced, and ugly as shit. Sometimes, common sense isn’t enough to sway the masses.

Excluding the SSR above, few vehicles elicit such a divisive response from the public as the Tesla Cybertruck. And few before it have required as dedicated a hand-holding to comfort its embattered core of owners.

Launched on the International Day for the Remembrance of All Victims of Chemical Warfare in 2019, the Tesla Cybertruck has quickly become one of the most talked-about and derided vehicles on the road today.

Proponents of the Cybertruck include longstanding Tesla fans and grade-school children. Both praise the vehicle for its simple design and the ease with which it can be drawn with either crayons or sidewalk chalk.

Alternatively, the Cybertruck’s many detractors and motor vehicle regulators have raised a laundry list of concerns since the truck’s launch. Loss of drive power, corrosion of body panels, faulty windshield wiper motors, software bugs, and ceaseless recalls, all raise serious concerns about the vehicle's safety and performance.

Despite this, the Cybertruck shot out of the gate strong. Conservative estimates place production numbers around 47,000 trucks produced since its official launch in November 2023. However, the glaring issues have raised concerns: despite ~47,000 vehicles being made, over 100,000 have been subject to recall, which raises some serious questions.

With the general public’s perception teetering between disdain and disinterest, has the Cybertruck’s self-imposed reputation for strength and durability been shattered like its very windows on the day of its launch?

Tesla doesn't seem to think so. Despite the issues, the car maker has blazed forward, finding encouragement in the most likely of places.

The M$T¢, or “More Money Than Sense” caste, to the rescue. A fluctuating social order that prefers credibility and irrational expenditures over reliability and value. As such, with the unwieldy handling of a Mississippi Riverboat and the towing capacity of a turn-of-the-20th-century Stanhope single-horse buggy, the Cybertruck has endeared itself to the M$T¢ crowd and quickly became their bastion of privilege and poor decision-making.

But M$T¢’s self-conscious hang-ups are as prevalent as their common sense is non-existent. So when digital and print media began lambasting the Cybertruck for its obvious faults, M$T¢ did what all embattled social cliques do in an ill-advised attempt to sway favor back to their side. They took to the internet.

Reddit, a haven for the rationally destitute, became one of many sounding boards for the M$T¢’s. Snide_Kadiddlehopper is a moderator of the popular subreddit r/sighboretruck and an on-again, off-again Cybertruck owner, depending on recall status. It was Snide who first proposed sharing a memento between Cybertruck owners to lift the spirits of his contrite compatriots.

As per Snide_Kadiddlehopper:

“My third Cybertruck had just broken down, and as I was waiting for any one of the four competing Uber drivers I had requested to chauffeur me the 223 miles to the nearest Tesla dealership. As I waited, I spotted another abandoned Cybertruck not 40 yards from my own!

At first, I thought it was my second Cybertruck that had broken down in the same area 4 months before. Like my first two trucks, it was apparent none of the passenger seats had ever been sat in. But unlike my earlier trucks, there were the tell-tale signs of a first-time owner’s frustrated paroxysm following their first Cybertruck breakdown.

Greasy handprints on the windshield and windows showed the driver’s failed attempt to escape the inoperable vehicle, an issue common to a particular generation of the Cybertruck. Crusty salt streaks of dried tears on the steering wheel where the exasperated driver rested their head after their limp palm strikes proved fruitless in freeing them from their brushed steel prison.

It came to me right then and there, a sign of solidarity to share with fellow Cybertruck enthusiasts, something that says we are in this together. A symbol to lift the spirits of this driver, and all others after!"

The symbol: a single charred $100 banknote tucked under the windshield wiper blade of the abandoned Cybertruck.

Snide, helpless, and probably useless, took a page from other embattled car groups. Jeep owners leave rubber duckies on the hood or dashboard of other Jeep owners as a sign of camaraderie that has been going strong since 2020.

And as far back as motoring trends have been recorded, the drivers of lifted trucks are required to greet one another with open-mouth kissing and firm ass grabs.

The irony of the charred C-note is lost on most of the r/sighbortruck subscribers; regardless, though, the symbol has taken off. Within a month since Snide first posted, the subreddit is flooded with posts of Cybertruck owners sharing photos of their own singed momentos adorning their inoperable 'trucks.'

So far, the M$T¢’s fervor has helped Tesla weather the Cybertruck’s numerous storms, including dwindling sales and mounting public criticism, which nearly brought the group to the edge. It’s struggles like this that bring people together, drive interest, and maybe, maybe pull a vehicle back into the public’s favor.

In the grand scheme of things, the Cybertruck is nought but a baby in the global truck market. But with the ardent support of the M$T¢ crowd, it’s not impossible to think that the Cybertruck might rise to the status of the F-150. Maybe this rusting heap of brushed steel is fated not for the junkyard, but for showrooms the world over, to be a star, a star that burns with all the brilliance of a Tesla Model X fire.