An early omen of what was to come appeared outside Lincoln Center last November: a Cybertruck on display as part of the Baron Investment Conference (a gathering of “like-minded individuals” looking to take their “investment knowledge to the next level,” per the website). By early spring, more Cybertrucks arrived on the streets. At first, spotting one felt novel. “Pretty sweet to see in person,” one person posted to Reddit after finding one parked in the city. Then, kind of ominous. “Why are there so many Cybertrucks everywhere all of a sudden?” a friend texted earlier this year.
As more started showing up, people shared photos in group chats and on social media — a kind of mapping project. There was one in Soho, one outside of Barclays Center, another in Long Island City. There was the Layers Bakeshop Cybertruck; the Bushwick Cybertruck (not to be confused with the other Bushwick Cybertruck); the Bingo Heating and Cooling Cybertruck; the Chrystie Street Cybertruck with its South Dakota plates, amassing tickets. If the 7,000-pound Cybertruck, with its hard angles and tanklike proportions, looked ridiculous in general, it looked especially so cruising around the most transit-dense city in the country.
In the Cold War of nondrivers versus drivers in the city, Cybertruck owners became a particularly notorious subset about which to speculate: doesn’t ride the subway, rich, entitled, MAGA-pilled. (A Subaru Forester driver at least kept up their Park Slope Coop shifts!) People posted pictures of Cybertrucks parked on the sidewalk. One Cybertruck illegally parked in the bike lane with a fake chaplain’s placard was a “cyberschmuck.” (Within three months, the owner had racked up 31 violations.) Another Cybertruck owner brandished a gun on Central Park South in a fit of road rage before speeding off. (But really, how hard could he be to find? The Cybertruck was “lime green,” per the police.) I’ve seen people flip off Cybertruck drivers on the street, point and laugh at them, and others (okay, me) walk up to Cybertrucks to touch them, only to set off the alarm.
Cybertruck owners, meanwhile, started to feel bullied. Were the increasing tensions an extension of the election? On Election Day, one Cybertruck owner parked in front of Trump Tower and had people spray-paint pro-Trump graffiti on it. He had driven it cross-country. Afterward, it mysteriously landed in a Hell’s Kitchen tow pound. In mid-November, one Cybertruck owner complained on a “Cybertruck Owners Only” Facebook group that Manhattan parking garages weren’t allowing him in because they said the trucks weren’t covered under their insurance policies. Someone else posited another conspiracy theory: “Could it be a silent boycott due to Elon’s backing of our president-elect?”
They shouldn’t fret too hard. For now, the Cybertrucks — like the more demure Volvos and junky Kias — seem to be winning the struggle over how our streets are put to use. The roads are theirs for the foreseeable future. The Cybertruck haters’ only consolation is that at least we don’t have to worry about our fingers getting sliced off.