A trending meme about remembering who’s inside those cars stuck in traffic inspired more parodies and other jokes than sentiment. After a well-meaning post on X with an image of a traffic jam went viral, other users started making up their own ideas of the thoughts, feelings, and motivations that might reside in each vehicle.
What started as an attempt to garner empathy from others may have only exposed the extent of people’s hostility to other drivers, or at least cynicism around our car-centered society.
‘This is such a beautiful concept’
On Dec. 6, 2024, X user @https_sxxxx posted a meme image of a highway leading out of a city and packed with vehicles, many labeled with hypothetical reasons for each person to be in the car. One person is “going home after their first kiss” another is “sobbing because they got fired” while a third is “rushing to the hospital.”
“This is such a beautiful concept I’m gonna cry,” the user commented.
The post went viral with over 44.2 million views and 328,000 likes by the time the weekend had passed. Comments and quote tweets also did numbers as people started making parodies of the original image replacing the empathetic labels with funnier ones, including assumptions we’re more likely to make about the people in between us and home.
‘I’m da king of the highway!’
These parodies may better represent how we think about other drivers when trapped in traffic, which is often not when we’re at our best. Traffic is stressful and can be almost unbearable when tired, in a hurry, or toting a full bladder. Drivers also tend not to act their best in this situation, and X users are taking the opportunity to poke fun at a specific type of vehicle owner.
One popular parody replaces one of the cars with a semi-truck labeled with “IM DA KING OF THE HIGHWAY!!!” This may be a reference to a popular tweet from 2022 by @Senn_Spud that also addresses attempts to think better of people on the road.
“(Cognitive behavioral therapy enjoyer I just cut off in traffic) Think positively. He is probably in a rush for a reason. Maybe he’s late for a job interview. Maybe his wife is giving birth,” the post reads.
“Me: I’m da king of da highway,” it concludes.
Everybody’s going to work
A more common form of the parody meme replaces many or all of the labels with one thought repeated over and over. Some of these claim a better representation of what people are doing on the highway, like the image that labels everyone either going to work or heading home from work.
Others ditch every label for one like “in my way” or “needs to piss,” or even “stroking it,” which is not a safe activity to engage in while driving, to be clear.
Aside from the parodies, many other commenters had something snarky to say about the original meme’s sentiment. Multiple users spoke on how weird it is that some of us need reminders that cars are driven by people.
“It’s so sweet when someone realizes for the first time that other people have lives and aren’t just background scenery in their own life…” wrote user @eeeeow, “for me that realization happened when I was a child but we all learn at different paces”
The traffic problem is getting worse
According to data collected by street light sensors, traffic in the U.S. continues to become more of a problem in the 2020s after bouncing back from the beginning of the pandemic. Congestion in the spring of 2024 was considerably worse than in 2023. Out of 100 of the biggest metropolitan areas in the country, 88 saw increased vehicle miles traveled.
“While there was some hope that a new remote work culture might keep miles driven down and congestion at bay, StreetLight’s results indicate that the status quo isn’t working,” StreetLight Data concludes.
“Without significant changes, the upward trend in VMT shows no signs of peaking.”
That congestion fuels road rage, which contributes significantly to accidents. A study published in 2021 reports that 67 percent of fatal traffic collisions involve aggressive driving.
If we can’t empathize our way out of this, we may have to resort to public transportation investment, as much as the U.S. might hate that idea.
More traffic meme parodies
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- Elon Musk’s next-gen Tesla Roadster is a next-gen dank meme
- Here’s why you’re seeing Mercedes CLR GTR copypasta in Reels captions
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