TikTok is a “social media” service that I have been vaguely aware of for some time now, though because life is short and I am busy I do not know much about it. I have since been forced into TikTok by #grasscar.
I became aware of #grasscar thanks to a Gizmodo tipster, who himself became aware of #grasscar thanks to some tweets by The Ringer writer Alyssa Bereznak. The videos show various individuals making DIY replacement floor mats for their cars out of artificial turf you can buy by the square foot at home improvement stores across our great nation.
Bereznak collected a few of the videos in a Twitter thread, but we’ve been advised against embedding them here on the site, but you can look at them on Alyssa’s fun, informative Twitter page:
There are many, many, many more where those came from. Truly too many to count.
Ah, you’re back. Great. By now, you get the idea. The fact that Home Depot appears in so many of these might ordinarily lead me to conclude that this is some kind of viral marketing campaign but I sort of doubt that because many of them also don’t feature Home Depot, while other people went to Lowe’s. And besides, if this is a viral marketing campaign then I will have to be forced to admit that viral marketing has gotten more sophisticated than I have ever imagined.
The slightly creepy/hypnotic music in the videos is most often attributed to Erin Rease, who posted among the first (possibly the first?) #grasscar video on June 16. That video has 2.8 million views as of this writing and even NASCAR was moved to reply.
GrassCar already exists as lawnmower racing in Texas, so fight them about it NASCAR.
You may also be wondering about the safety of doing this considering there’s a possibility that the turf could get entangled with your brake and throttle pedals, though that also would be an issue for any kind of sliding floor mat on the driver’s side. I would suggest the safest bet, should you choose to go the #grasscar life, is to have it secured somehow, possibly with velcro, zip ties, or even sheet metal screws. Many possibilities there, all assuming, of course, that you’ve cut out the right shape, to begin with, and the turf you’re using isn’t too thick.
Because in the end this isn’t any better or worse than a cheap aftermarket floor mat, and whether you like it or not will all depend on your personal preference.
EIC Rory Carroll is very interested to hear from plant and soil scientists, turf experts, auto-industry engineers, and possibly floormat experts who could apply their knowledge to what types of live grass would be best suited to floormat life and what the best ways to shape and affix said live floormats. If you’re one of those people, and you have ideas, please contact me, Erik Shilling.
Thus concludes my brief dalliance with TikTok. I’m not sure what I’ve learned, but I am different.