Musk unveiled the car in November 2019 at Tesla’s design studio. Head designer Franz von Holzhausen attempted to demonstrate the vehicle’s shatterproof glass by hurtling a metal ball at a window at full speed. The window shattered. Great omen! It was also pretty weird that Musk was introduced by a hologram of someone called “Cybergirl,” who people speculated was actually a hologram of Grimes, the pop star Musk was dating at the time.

Plenty of design press fawned over the shiny new thing—“Long live the Cybertruck. See you in the Thunderdome,” wrote Dwell. But Wired wisely asked the opinion of an actual expert: Raphael Zammit, who chairs automobile design at Motor City’s own College for Creative Studies.

“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness! What did Tesla do? What did they do?” he said. “It literally breaks every rule we tell to our students. It’s what we tell them not to do.”

Regardless, the Cybertruck started to infiltrate the cultural atmosphere. It was lampooned on The Simpsons. There were countless memes. It was embraced, very early, by rappers. Weeks after the unveiling, Travis Scott used his personal connections to the Tesla CEO (they did Christmas together with the Kardashian-Jenners) to snag a Cybertruck for his video for “Gang Gang,” a posse cut with the Cactus Jack crew.

Three years later, Pharrell Williams, 21 Savage, and Tyler, the Creator featured the Cybertruck in their video for “Cash In, Cash Out”—rendered in Claymation. Offset’s video for “Swing My Way” has Anok Yai sitting atop a Cybertruck. Bad Bunny said, “Me monté en la Cybertruck y me acordé de la Montero de los viejos tiempo.” Meek Mill said, “They was doing cyber attacks, so I bought a Cybertruck.”