Car Crash Overstimulation Videos

Submission 1,051

Part of a series on Overstimulation Videos / Sludge Content. [View Related Entries]

About

Car Crash Overstimulation Videos refer to a loose subset of overstimulation (sludge) content that depicts 3D-animated videos of cars attempting to dodge road obstacles, crashing into things, flying off cliffs, dodging giant hammers and similar situations. The videos are usually created using the BeamNG.drive vehicle simulator. The format achieved virality in YouTube Shorts in 2023, with multiple Shorts within the format garnering tens of millions of views.

Origin

The prevalence of car crash sludge content stems from car crash videos, created in the video game BeamNG.drive, uploaded by YouTube channel BeamNG Nation in 2021. On May 16th, 2021, the channel uploaded its earliest video,^[1] titled "Cars vs Massive Speed Bumps – BeamNG.Drive," which accumulated over 152.2 million views in three years (shown below, left). On May 17th, BeamNG Nation uploaded another video that received over 67.7 million views on YouTube^[2] in three years (shown below, right).

Spread

The YouTube Shorts trend achieved virality starting in March 2023 when MBS Shorts,^[3] AaronRheins2,^[4] FRANQ Drive^[5] and other YouTube channels joined in on it.

For example, on March 27th and March 30th, 2023, YouTube^[6]^[7] user MBS Shorts posted two of the earliest viral YouTube Shorts within the format (shown below, left and right). The videos, titled "Cars vs Hot Dog Maker 🚗" and "Car Brake Test 🚗," accumulated over 21 million views and 5.8 million views in 10 months.

Multiple videos falling within the format, including videos of cars flying off cliffs, passing through narrow obstacles, attempting to fly over a raised bridge, etc, went viral on YouTube. Videos in which cars (and later 3D models of popular memes such as Skibidi Toilet and Amogus) attempted to run through an obstacle course of rapidly rotating hammers achieved particular popularity around this time (examples shown below).

The abundance of obstacle course car crashes on YouTube was reflected in memes referencing the trend in January 2024. For example, on January 16th, 2024, X^[8] / Twitter user @scrumble_eggs reposted one such video, commenting, "This is what the European highway system is like." The post (shown below) garnered over 1,400 reposts and 9,500 likes in one week.