The Vision Pro’s killer app: Cybertruck clout-chasing accessory

The Vision Pro era is only a few days old, and while people continue to debate whether this is the future of entertainment and productivity or something else entirely, one group of people has found a well-defined use case for Apple’s new gear: chasing views.

The new genre of “wearing a Vision Pro unusually” social video has many forms, with robot dogs, subways, and crosswalks making appearances, but the niche that keeps popping up in our feeds is the one that includes an element of Tesla / Autopilot / Cybertruck hype to the mix. The Verge asked Apple about the videos appearing on social media, but the company has not responded.

See X user Dante Lentini, who had to explain that his video was a “skit,” and he wasn’t actually arrested for wearing a headset while behind the wheel of a Tesla.

Or Edert Lopez, similarly misusing Apple’s headset in a couple of viral TikTok videos:

The second one was notable enough to attract another variant of clout chasing. A freebooted version on X was eventually shared by the US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s account as a “reminder” that driver assistance systems require the human behind the wheel to remain fully engaged.

So, where does this leave us in the clout-chasing economy? I don’t know, but our eyes are where they should be — either on the road or staring far too closely at windshield wipers.