I am the author of this Corolla essay. My friend who works in the tech industry told me it was posted here. Thank you for reading it! I never expected a silly essay about a Toyota Corolla would gain this much traction, but it is what it is. It also made the LA Times, but in an abridged version.
I'm not sure if this is going to change too many opinions here, but the exhaust is not literally a "fire-breathing dragon" loud (I was using hyperbole for fun). It rumbles on cold start but it's only loud when you floor it, which I don't. We live in a suburb of LA and my neighbors are older and family folk and I am respectful of them. They actually like my car and am happy I got it because it makes me happy. The amped subwoofer can only be heard IN THE CAR because it's really small, like an old encyclopedia, and it sits under the passenger seat. The music I like has bass and there was ZERO bass in the stock sound. And last, I don't track it but I am lucky to live near iconic Angeles Crest Highway and I do drive it up there for fun. I get passed by locals in SUV who drive way faster because they know the road way better. Also, one not expected benefit of the car AND the essay has been all the awesome and nice people I've met through them. Modern life can be so isolating and it's hard to meet new people or make friends in your 50's, so I am grateful that most of all.
Best, Ky-Phong
PS: I actually am mainly a speculative fiction writer nowadays! Lol
As an American, I find it most noticeable/funny in Helen Mirren's Fast & Furious franchise role. You can tell she's having a blast putting on the intentionally worst working class accent she can (in a way that it sometimes seems like she assumes Americans aren't in on the joke and it is mostly just for herself) to fit her role as Jason Statham's "mum", and there are definite fun moments of "Is she intentionally parodying Michael Caine here?" that do give me (as an American) silly, brief moments of "Americans still think that sounds posh", plus it does serve to more directly connect Statham's accent to Caine's. I don't think a lot of Americans notice how close they are and yet do notice that Statham and Caine have very different stereotypes in American cinema.
After being to strip clubs just twice in my life, and with both of those being very different experiences, I have to agree with you. Comparing it to porn (let alone an actual intimate relationship) is like comparing watching fast & furious movies to average driving experiences. While F&F movies are technically more wild, the real life experience of actual driving (even if it is technically waaay more mild than in the movies) is way more stressful/impactful/etc, to the point where even making the comparison feels ridiculous.
The first film (pre-apocalypse) was actually filmed mostly in and around Melbourne. I grew up in Warrnambool and Horsham so any trip to Melbourne would take you through some of the filming locations along the old Western Hwy. The first film was really about 70s Australian car culture and filled with utes, panel vans and of course big V8s. More early Fast & Furious than the later dystopian theme.
You're correct about the second being up Broken Hill way.
When I was using dating sites, I did the same on OkCupid, and signed up a fake account with the photos of a woman that was slightly above average in appearance. I was curious to see how many messages I would receive, but more importantly, the type and quality of those messages. I thought that would give me a better idea of how to write my own messages (e.g. if 90% of messages were asking the same question, I didn't want to also be asking that same boring question).
The first day I was surprised at the amount of messages I received. I think it was at least 10 in a few hours. However, it quickly faded, and after a few days, I was lucky to receive one message a day. That gave me a little confidence, knowing after the first day, the average woman was not receiving hundreds of daily messages.
Similar to what you said, a few people would get angry if I didn't reply. A third of the messages hinted at sex, thinking they were being clever with winky emojis.
In the end, on my real profile, I think I was decent with messaging. I sent out 200 messages on OkCupid (I focused on roughly the top 10% of profiles over a large radius), and had over 50% of those turn into conversations. My first messages were always similar. I would write one or two sentences that joked about something in their profile and asked a simple question. The idea was it needed to show I read their profile, it needed to make an attempt at being funny, and most importantly, it needed to be easy to reply to within a few seconds. When you write long messages with complicated questions, people don't want to invest the time in a reply, so they'll respond "tomorrow", which never happens. The other thing I did was almost always message women that were online at that moment, and I tried to turn the messages into a real-time conversation with instant replies.
As a simple example, let's say a woman's profile said she liked the Fast & Furious movies. I would write a first message saying, "If you had to choose between me and Vin Diesel, who would you rather date?". There's a high chance she would respond saying the obvious, "Vin Diesel :P", and then I would reply, "Would it change your mind if I said I had 100% more hair than Vin Diesel, and I go for ice cream on first dates?". These type of messages are very easy to reply to, innocent, and people can be creative and fun with their responses. In that example, I'm even hinting at a date, and it doesn't seem pushy. In this case I would then keep writing playful messages and then ask her to meet up for the ice cream like I originally suggested.
Hacker Cinema
6 comments on Hacker News
Hi everyone,
I am the author of this Corolla essay. My friend who works in the tech industry told me it was posted here. Thank you for reading it! I never expected a silly essay about a Toyota Corolla would gain this much traction, but it is what it is. It also made the LA Times, but in an abridged version.
Here's the link: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2026-06-22/fast-furious-films-import-street-racing-culture-asian-americans
I'm not sure if this is going to change too many opinions here, but the exhaust is not literally a "fire-breathing dragon" loud (I was using hyperbole for fun). It rumbles on cold start but it's only loud when you floor it, which I don't. We live in a suburb of LA and my neighbors are older and family folk and I am respectful of them. They actually like my car and am happy I got it because it makes me happy. The amped subwoofer can only be heard IN THE CAR because it's really small, like an old encyclopedia, and it sits under the passenger seat. The music I like has bass and there was ZERO bass in the stock sound. And last, I don't track it but I am lucky to live near iconic Angeles Crest Highway and I do drive it up there for fun. I get passed by locals in SUV who drive way faster because they know the road way better. Also, one not expected benefit of the car AND the essay has been all the awesome and nice people I've met through them. Modern life can be so isolating and it's hard to meet new people or make friends in your 50's, so I am grateful that most of all.
Best, Ky-Phong
PS: I actually am mainly a speculative fiction writer nowadays! Lol
As an American, I find it most noticeable/funny in Helen Mirren's Fast & Furious franchise role. You can tell she's having a blast putting on the intentionally worst working class accent she can (in a way that it sometimes seems like she assumes Americans aren't in on the joke and it is mostly just for herself) to fit her role as Jason Statham's "mum", and there are definite fun moments of "Is she intentionally parodying Michael Caine here?" that do give me (as an American) silly, brief moments of "Americans still think that sounds posh", plus it does serve to more directly connect Statham's accent to Caine's. I don't think a lot of Americans notice how close they are and yet do notice that Statham and Caine have very different stereotypes in American cinema.
That's a solid hypothesis.
After being to strip clubs just twice in my life, and with both of those being very different experiences, I have to agree with you. Comparing it to porn (let alone an actual intimate relationship) is like comparing watching fast & furious movies to average driving experiences. While F&F movies are technically more wild, the real life experience of actual driving (even if it is technically waaay more mild than in the movies) is way more stressful/impactful/etc, to the point where even making the comparison feels ridiculous.
You're not wrong, that scenario was in a Fast & Furious movie. I'm guessing it's something numerous parties are considering in some capacity.
The first film (pre-apocalypse) was actually filmed mostly in and around Melbourne. I grew up in Warrnambool and Horsham so any trip to Melbourne would take you through some of the filming locations along the old Western Hwy. The first film was really about 70s Australian car culture and filled with utes, panel vans and of course big V8s. More early Fast & Furious than the later dystopian theme.
You're correct about the second being up Broken Hill way.
When I was using dating sites, I did the same on OkCupid, and signed up a fake account with the photos of a woman that was slightly above average in appearance. I was curious to see how many messages I would receive, but more importantly, the type and quality of those messages. I thought that would give me a better idea of how to write my own messages (e.g. if 90% of messages were asking the same question, I didn't want to also be asking that same boring question).
The first day I was surprised at the amount of messages I received. I think it was at least 10 in a few hours. However, it quickly faded, and after a few days, I was lucky to receive one message a day. That gave me a little confidence, knowing after the first day, the average woman was not receiving hundreds of daily messages.
Similar to what you said, a few people would get angry if I didn't reply. A third of the messages hinted at sex, thinking they were being clever with winky emojis.
In the end, on my real profile, I think I was decent with messaging. I sent out 200 messages on OkCupid (I focused on roughly the top 10% of profiles over a large radius), and had over 50% of those turn into conversations. My first messages were always similar. I would write one or two sentences that joked about something in their profile and asked a simple question. The idea was it needed to show I read their profile, it needed to make an attempt at being funny, and most importantly, it needed to be easy to reply to within a few seconds. When you write long messages with complicated questions, people don't want to invest the time in a reply, so they'll respond "tomorrow", which never happens. The other thing I did was almost always message women that were online at that moment, and I tried to turn the messages into a real-time conversation with instant replies.
As a simple example, let's say a woman's profile said she liked the Fast & Furious movies. I would write a first message saying, "If you had to choose between me and Vin Diesel, who would you rather date?". There's a high chance she would respond saying the obvious, "Vin Diesel :P", and then I would reply, "Would it change your mind if I said I had 100% more hair than Vin Diesel, and I go for ice cream on first dates?". These type of messages are very easy to reply to, innocent, and people can be creative and fun with their responses. In that example, I'm even hinting at a date, and it doesn't seem pushy. In this case I would then keep writing playful messages and then ask her to meet up for the ice cream like I originally suggested.