Chad Driving POV Videos

About

Chad Driving POV Videos is a viral video trend primarily on TikTok that uses the veiny, muscular arm of the Chad Driver exploitable placed in front of dashcam footage and paired with captions following POV centric phrasal templates that highlight car driver stereotypes like BMW or Tesla drivers. The trend started in late 2021 and continued into 2022, spreading to platforms like YouTube and Instagram.

Precursor

Chad Driver

Chad Driver refers to an image of a veiny, muscular arm holding a steering wheel. First becoming viral in June 2016, the image has since gained popularity as an exploitable, with users altering the windshield view, usually as if the driver intends to run over various people or characters.

Prior to April 22nd, 2016, an unknown Instagram account uploaded a cabin view photograph of a GMC car driving on a road, with a veiny, muscular arm holding the steering wheel. It is unclear whether the arm is edited in. On April 22nd, 2016, Imgur^[1] user EikoTheBard made the earliest found repost of the image (shown below, left).

Origin

On December 21st, 2021, TikToker^[2] jailpr0os_army posted a video that layered the Chad Driver's arm and a BMW dashboard over top snowy, Russian dashcam footage of a car rear-ending another car, acting as the Chad Driver's windshield view. The TikTok had a text overlay reading, "POV: That Romanian guy who want to always test he's bmw's max speed," and over the course of eight months, the video received roughly 93,600 plays and 5,700 likes (shown below).

Spread

On December 22nd, 2021, TikToker^[3] jailpr0os_army uploaded another video with a similar style, this time making a joke about "That guy who is always late to swich he's summer tires" and also editing in GigaChad in the rearview mirror. The video received roughly 7,900 plays and over 380 likes in eight months (shown below, left). Jailpr0os_army ultimately started a trend that'd continue into early 2022, exploited by many creators on the app. For instance, on January 17th, 2022, TikToker^[4] doooferz posted an iteration that made fun of Harley Davidson motorcycle drivers, earning roughly 11,000 plays and over 600 likes in seven months (shown below, right).

Continuing into mid-2022, the trend continued to grow, predominantly inspired by the videos from TikToker jmshkm who began making stereotypes for every person using the template. he posted his first TikTok^[5] on May 27th, 2022, making a joke about Nissan Altima drivers speeding and swerving on highways, It received roughly 52,400 plays and 2,700 likes in two months (shown below, left). Jmshkm's TikToks snowballed engagement heading into June 2022. For instance, on June 7th, 2022, he posted a TikTok^[6] that earned roughly 4.1 million plays and 355,600 likes in a month and a half (shown below, right).

On June 27th, 2022, YouTuber^[7] Twatical posted a Chad Driving POV about foreign taxi drivers swerving and playing "the worst local radio station you've ever heard." The short received roughly 13,000 views and 1,000 likes in one month (shown below).

The meme additionally spread to Instagram in July 2022, when Instagram^[8] meme page largetrap reposted a jmshkm TikTok^[9] on July 28th, 2022, about tesla drivers having their autopilot fail, earning roughly 80,400 likes in one day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References