Judging from the comments, this video is one of the most divisive viral videos on the internet right now, for all the right reasons.
If you watch it without sound, you're not going to get it. If you don't enjoy driving, you're not going to get it. But, if you remember the first time you sat behind the wheel of a car with even a little bit of vroom, you'll get it.
If you can still recall walking away from a car with a sore left leg from stomping on the clutch for the first time, you'll get it. If you remember looking at your parents' manual gear shift as a child and wondering, "what do those other numbers mean?" you'll get it.
This video is a love letter to the first time you went fast. Like, really fast. Remember feeling like your face was being ripped off, even though you were just accelerating rapidly from 55 miles per hour to 70 miles per hour? Remember that satisfying "bump" and leap as you hit the next gear at exactly the right moment?
Watching this driver experience that thrill brings all of us back to the first time we felt actual turbo power. Hearing the engine whine like some giant insect initiates some primal recognition of power. We feel the adrenaline rise, and the fight or flight instinct kicks in.
But, in this case, there's only one option: go faster.
As the driver hits the gas, stomps the clutch, and shifts into higher and higher gears, something ignites within all of us who have had this moment. Maybe there's a reason some of us are hard-wired with a need for speed. Maybe we're hooked on the feeling of moving faster than our human bodies were designed to travel independently.
Or maybe it's just because going fast is just really, really cool.
This post was originally published on May 20, 2021.