I know that we often get accused of having a strong anti-Tesla bias on our site, but that mostly comes from hardcore Tesla fans. , , but I admit, it is a bit complicated. I think most of us here respect the engineering and design of Tesla’s cars, but have some real issues with the and and, yes, the . But the Tesla-stans, there’s something unusual going on there, and by chance I was reminded of it today.

Don’t get me wrong—there’s rabid brand-loyalists all over the car-verse, and they can all be exhausting to deal with in their own tedious ways. I probably have exhausted many, many unfortunate party-goers unfortunate enough to not think of a quick excuse or too slow to dart to an exit to avoid hearing me drone on and on about some automotive bullshit.

But I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite like a hardcore Tesla fan, because there is definitely something else going on here.

For example, today, on the Twitter computerized message center, I happened to notice this tweet (I’ll screenshot and fuzz names to prevent the person from getting swamped with replies they maybe don’t want):

Ah, okay, just someone having some fun with a pie chart-maker. And, I suppose, giving a healthy warning to everyone this person meets. On it’s own, it’s not that bad, I guess, but if you look at this person’s feed, you can see she’s clearly not fucking around here:

...and

Okay, okay, we get it. I mean, I’m not going to tell anyone what to like car-wise, ever, and there’s lots of fans of particular cars that have lots of related content on their social media? I mean, they have less about “master plans,” but whatever.

Let’s look at the responses to that first tweet with the pie chart:

See, it’s one thing to be into a car, and to get your friends interested, but the Tesla tweets all seem to go that extra bit: not just his pal got a Tesla, but that “it’s all he thinks about.”

And there’s more. So much more:

Maybe this guy is joking? Fuck, I hope so:

With that in mind, here’s more Tesla/romance mashup stuff:

If all the love is getting to you, relax, there’s weird gatekeeping going on in the community as well:

I bet the people leaning on the have to own a Tesla to be “allowed to promote them” (wtf) would really have issue with this poor bastard, who has yet to physically touch one yet it still dominates his thoughts:

I feel like I should issue some sort of warning before this next one, because it’s a seven-fucking-minute rap dedicated to Elon Musk. This one I had to embed so you can actually play it.

The title says “humorous” but we’re not dealing with parody here, because a parody rap wouldn’t attempt to cram the entire Elon Musk Wikipedia page’s worth of information that’s free from jokes or anything but weird adulation:

Jeezis, it’s still going on as I type this. Ug, I can’t. Shit, I lost the window where it’s playing! Fuck!

I don’t want to pick on any of these people unfairly, but they are illustrative of something that’s been going on here, something fascinating and strange, a new breed of car enthusiast, one that’s even more unpleasant than the dude in the

I’m not the this, of course, and it’s hardly a new observation.

At this point, all I can say is that whatever has been going on with Tesla’s impressive and alarming affect on its fans, it’s something we’re going to be dealing with for a while to come, and it’s worth watching.

If you’re a self-aware Tesla-stan and want to comment, I’d love to hear your side; if you want to call me a miserable short who’s jealous and only wants to see the destruction of humanity so I can cash my checks from Big Oildeath, well, I’m happy to read those, too.