Dodge made a massive social media mistake over the weekend, and the internet is offering exactly zero forgiveness, with Instagram commenters relentlessly piling on after the brand promoted street takeovers. This is a problem because street takeovers are totally wack, and anyone who participates them should be ashamed of themselves.
Having become especially popular during the pandemic, when many streets were empty and people were bored, street takeovers remain a popular way for people to put others’ lives in danger, or at the very least completely inconveniencing anyone else on the road. KTLA describes what a street takeover is in its story “What is a street takeover and how is social media fueling the illegal activity?“:
Illegal street takeovers have become a common occurrence in Los Angeles that authorities warn can turn deadly.
Takeovers typically involve “flash mobs” of hundreds of spectators and several cars that arrive in a coordinated manner at specific intersections, or even interstates, and blocking traffic to speed and show off dangerous stunts like drifting.
As vehicles turn and screech through intersections, spinning dangerously close to cheering crowds, the stunts are often filmed by onlookers and posted on social media — which police say generates even more interest in the illegal activity.
Illegal street racing has always been part of L.A.’s car culture, but police say the practice has changed over the years.
Per the Police Executive Research Forum, vehicles used in Street Takeovers are sometimes stolen.
This is the very worst of American car culture — an abhorrent display of utter recklessness and complete lack of consideration for the wellbeing of others. I cannot possibly denounce this activity more. Donuts in an empty parking lot with a friend or two is one thing, but a huge group of cars and people in the middle of an active intersection/street is something that else ‚ something totally unacceptable.
Which is why Dodge is being dragged after this Instagram post over the weekend:
This was part of a rather odd “marriage is scary” series of Instagram posts wherein the brand was trying to be funny, suggesting marriages are scary because of the risk that the partner isn’t into the car things you are into. The posts featured heritage cars (last-gen Chargers and Challengers), as well as some current models:
I was only able to take a screengrab of the main post and not of the comments, which were brutal. But even after Dodge deleted its post, the unrelenting continued in this other Dodge post:
View this post on Instagram
Here’s a look at the rightly-harsh comments replying to Dodge, a brand whose vehicles have been key to the whole street takeover movement, and a brand whose macho burnout-y, V8-y, muscle-y messagaging probably hasn’t helped, either:
First, I’ll say I’m proud of the car community for standing against dangerous, irresponsible, and inconsiderate idiocy known as Street Takeovers. That so many of us are united in this stance gives me hope, as it seemed for a while like the world was heading into chaos, with street takeovers happening far too regularly. But it’s clear that the masses think street takeovers are not cool, and Dodge — promoter of street takeovers via that Instagram post — is therefore also not cool. At least at this moment.
I’m not going to feed into cancel culture; I think people and organizations make mistakes, and so long as the mistake isn’t too egregious, we can all forgive and forget. This is just a social media post, and Dodge eventually removed it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we learned that whoever posted it didn’t fully understand what they were writing, and if they did, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dodge distanced themselves from that person. But I’m not going to speak for Dodge; after seeing this post yesterday (hat tip to David Osorio!) I reached out to the brand for comment but have not heard back. How they reply is how I’ll gauge how upset I want to be at the brand for promoting the very worst, most erosive part of car culture — a culture we here at The Autopian love and cherish so deeply.
UPDATE (Aug 8, 2025 12:16 AM EST): A comment from Dodge:
“As part of a carousel responding to the ‘Marriage is scary, because what if…’ social trend, our Dodge post was intended as a nod to our upcoming Roadkill Nights event, a safe, legally coordinated street take-over held every year in August,” said Nate Buelow, Head of Brand Marketing, Stellantis North America. “Our enthusiasts checked us very quickly, and as a brand that upholds the safety of performance driving, we recognize that we made a mistake in its messaging and deleted the post quickly. The Dodge brand does not condone illegal street takeover events and has put checks in place to ensure a social post like this never happens again. “
I hate Dodge’s commercial where they say “Never stop being American”, with visual context that implies that “being American” means being a loud, obnoxious douchebag all day, every day.
Hey, they’re just going after their target demographic.
Well, to be fair, that is the current brand of America.
I hate how accurate that is.
Jeez, you fart “Stars and Stripes Forever” into a megaphone one time…
OH I WISH!
Americans are really assholes
Started thinking about that ad before I finished reading the headline.
I don’t think it’s fair to qualify street takeovers as part of car culture.
It’s part of attention-starved-asshole culture. I’m not trying to start a young vs old battle on this one, but people that do car stuff because they like cars don’t need a camera out at every moment to do it. Once the camera is a necessity above all else, now you’re just talking about asshats who just happen to do car stuff, not the other way around.
Please separate these twatwaffles from those of us who like cars, learn how to drive them, fix them, take care of them and can operate them responsibly. Nothing wrong with going fast if you can handle it, the conditions are safe, and the location is appropriate. None of those apply to asshats who just want internet clout.
“Twatwaffles”. Thanks for that one!
It’s not about the cars, it’s about the views.
If they could get the views from knitting videos they’d all be shoplifting from Hobby Lobby.
This kind of thing wreaks of desperation and a complete lack of ideas. I have yet to see a new Charger on the street, I guess either nobody wants them, their usual demographic can’t afford them or they’re incompetent to make them. Or all of the above.
Yes.
One thing I think is that social media and memerot culture has made it super easy to narrowly target many different subcultures.
All you need to do is slap some captions on some pictures and one or two interns can personalize your ads to every flavor of emotionally-stunted manbaby that give car enthusiasts a bad name.
I saw one last week finally! Thankfully it’s better in person than photos, but it’s still not something I find desirable. I’m in Denver where there are a ton of EVs, and it’s still the only one I’ve seen.
Can’t wait for them to announce their new spokesperson as Tim Allen.
Convicted felon Tim Allen
Marriage is scary when you’re an incel whose life experience is thru video games.
What a moronic set of marketing posts.
Marriage is scary when your ex-wife got the house and you’re sleeping in your Challenger.
<flashback to six months ago>
Marriage is scary. What if she realizes I’m an a-hole?
TBF S/he probably knew that going in.
Marriage is scary when your wife finds out you financed it for 96 months at 16.99%
Yes, marriage (to a car sold by a rudderless company with no compelling products AND an 84-month loan) is scary.
The new 120 month loan with lower your payments by $10 a month and if you’re a Dodge buyer, you won’t comprehend the math it takes to figure out what that’s eventually going to cost you.
Stellantis can go ahead and go bankrupt. They don’t make anything anyone needs anymore. Cut Jeep loose and just cancel everything else.
Sigh, Jeep is the cannibal that caused this whole mess.
You’re right.
2 time Jeep owner (XJ and WJ). Jeep is the appealing parasite that drags down entire corporations.
Aren’t most of the Hellcats in street takeovers stolen?
If you are going to either do serious damage to the car or get arrested and lose the car, what rational person would use the own car?
You don’t see Hyundai promoting the theft of their vehicles in advertisements.
Marriage is scary, what if they don’t like you hanging out with your Kia Boyz.
Rational person, you say?
I’m disappointed in Dodge. “Drive It Like You Stole It” was right there.
Volvo did: “Drive it like you hate it”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXyW6fWE5I8
The other stereotype:
Buys high horsepower V8 Dodge, proceeds to drive at EXACTLY the speed limit everywhere.
Those are the boomers who, against overwhelming evidence, think any of the LX platform cars outside of the limited edition supercharged ones are going to be worth something when they’re on their deathbeds. They’re not, but we’ll let them have their fun because I’d be down to buy a babied manual RT or Poo Pack Challenger in 10 years as a weekend toy.
To be fair, if they keep getting crashed at the rates we’re seeing, run of the mill Challengers might be worth something sooner rather than later.
That’s okay, I’d rather have the current Z anyway. Better looking and way less baggage.
to be fair they have been trading above their weight limit for the better part of a decade now. Strange really, but it is like the whole escalade phad, you cannot always explain the X-Factor on some things.
I honestly think that the boomers who buy these are the ones who either had, like, a 318 Challenger in high school or just “always wanted one” and can now afford a full-throat Hemi Challenger. The first time they take it out they get on the gas a little, which scares them enough that it never, ever happens again.
I mean, after years of commuting to an office in things like Crosstreks and Rav4s at 10 under in the fast lane, I would presume they have no ability to handle something that is RWD and massively overpowered.
Perhaps it’s for the best that they just poke along slowly. Besides they can go vroom vroom when they pull up to the Cracker Barrel and impress all of their friends. Isn’t that enough?
Harley guys near me (large Venn overlap) consistently blip the throttle for no reason at all. Slowing down but don’t downshift. Not rev matching. WTF?
This. Plus, they can impress all of their geriatric friends who know nothing about cars, because they’re old but they’re still young at heart enough to drive a “flashy sports car”.
This….is what I did exactly when the hellcats and Demons made the 392 SRT8’s worth a bunch less money….I did that simply because I wanted a manual car for a good price though and it was before the bigger boom of these things later.
But there is a difference between going over the speed limit or even getting up to the speed limit with some power VS Drifting around an intersection looking like fools. I kind of blame Hoonigan for a lot of that though.
Honestly the surprising part for me is how difficult it can be to turn off the mommy controls to get any of these ultra powerful cars to even do a burnout. the traction control button seems to only release so much of the built in Peacock controls.
I think at least 75% of the time I see a Charger its going to do something reckless, either floor it when the lights turn green or changing lanes like maniac on the highway while speeding. Its less common with the Challenger since the cops have their eyes on them all the time. Same for the Durango.
agreed, just the other day when I was riding my bike, some jerk in harlem was tooling about like he owned the streets.
Not exactly a takeover but the burnouts and donuts crowd are exactly who killed off the Cars and Coffee in Houston, most of which were Mopars. I hate to lump them all together but screw them all, we had a good thing going for a while there.
If you’re a fan of classic cars, there’s a car show near the corner of Louetta and Kuykendahl pretty much every Saturday afternoon when the weather’s nice. Dunno much about it because I’m usually busy, but drive past it pretty regularly. They cone off a section of a strip mall parking lot.
Marriage is scary, because what if they don’t want to marry a tactical wanker and I’m just a fling? I am very insecure.
HA! Tactical wanker! I’m gonna use that.
I mean, Dodge (and Ram) have always leaned heavily into the tire smoking American badass “I do what I want” image, and is continuing to do so with the recent announcement they’re going to drop Hemis in everything again because they can, so this is just pandering to their target audience.
Frankly I’m surprised there has been so much pushback, but rightly so. Most real gearheads hate street takeovers. Yes, I used to be involved in street racing way back in the day but we made great pains to go to empty areas and avoid the general public, not intentionally inconvenience them.
I am with you.
I do kind of wish they would take over the empty mall parking lots if they really feel like being peacocks. There is not much involved with this form of showboating with relation to being a gearhead, I agree.
But then who would see them? When you block off the roads, you get to scratch two itches: first one be an asshole (which is what they are) and the other is to force an audience to watch you.
These are nothing more than people who really really need attention and don’t care how they get it. Mommy never told them the difference between good attention and bad attention.
You couldn’t be more right on this. If they were to do it someplace sanctioned, the thrill is gone.
The whole idea of “consequences” is not something that they consider.
“I’m not going to feed into cancel culture;” -DT
Cancel culture is just what people call it when they are confronted with the negative consequences of their behavior. So often we fail to realize that, while something might not be criminal, that doesn’t make it right and doesn’t entitle us to approval, and often results in negative consequences that are rightly deserved.
Hopefully Dodge learns from this and strives to be better.
Yup, using “cancel culture” as a term for something obviously bad is like using “woke” as an insult. It is a sign that the person has missed a whole lot of the underlying reality.
Yep, unfortunately the 3 posted here were actually pretty good. I laughed at the 1/1 18 car garage one.
Now to be overshadowed by that last nonsense they posted.
I laughed at that one too, as it’s something my wife and I have actually discussed, though mostly jokingly.
“Cancel Culture” has only recently gotten a term. Your observation is really correct. I didn’t hear that term over the big Bud Light boycott
Legal, moral, and ethical overlap far less often than they should
I don’t love street takeovers but I think that people doing stupid shit in cars is a tale as old as time and some of the hate against street takeovers is diet racism.
Kinda similar to how I feel about Surrons and other e-motos.
Both are extremely dangerous but I also think that as a society we’ve become extremely risk averse and that may be antithetical to what has made america such a dominant force.
Ok, please do explain how disliking people who intentionally block roads with dangerous activities that also has a side dish of car theft as a means of attention-seeking entertainment is “diet racism”.
While I agree that people have always and will always do stupid things, that behavior doesn’t confine itself to one subset of the population.
The last street takeover that I witnessed was mostly black people. Also if you hold the street takeover in the poorer section of town (majority black in this situation) then the police response will be lower because police would have to leave the parts of town where bars were still open and business was still occurring in order to respond.
Dodge (and Ram with the Hemi’s return) have had some incredibly cringy and desperate marketing as of late. It’s nice to see the public on the whole call them out for their nonsense, and I’m not at all shocked that Dodge doesn’t see the irony of using discontinued models for the bulk of their advertising. Even Dodge knows they don’t have a compelling product left to sell new, and they haven’t yet learned that all publicity is not in fact good publicity.
it is almost surprising they don’t advertise the theft of the Dodge vehicles most often involved in these events. It definitely seems like an inordinate amount of challengers are stolen and used for this kind of stuff.
Those “marriage is scary” lines sound like they were written by a 14 year old who’s mad that his best friend has been spending too much time with a girl.
Add a few years, no emotional development, and an 84-month subprime loan and you’ve got the target Dodge buyer.
Yeah maybe this is the long play for Dodge. The official brand of “my friends have moved on but those betas don’t understand the sick HEMI lifestyle”.
“I sleep in a racing car, do you?”
“I sleep in a big bed with my wife.”
“Oh… yeah”
See also: Barstool Sports’ entire readership
I’ve long been very critical of Dodge and the other American Stellantis brands for encouraging this kind of bullshit. I think the Internet was rightly pissed because every single person that drives on American roads has had their life flash before their eyes because of some reckless stunt a Charger or Challenger driver is trying to pull off in a desperate cry for attention/perhaps help. If you want a laugh pull up listings for either car and eliminate all of the options that have been in accidents. More than half disappear.
Believe it or not I do actually understand the appeal of these. There’s something about masking the go pedal, listening to the wail of a V8, and letting your monkey brain take over. The last time I had a V8 sports car in my possession for an extended period of time I was still mashing it and giggling like a child after more than a week. It’s big, dumb fun.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a ticket to being antisocial with no repercussions. Your hobby becomes everyone else’s problem when you decide your fun is more important than the safety of the people around you. For better or worse these cars do tend to attract the lowest common denominator, and when you add in the fact that Dodge will finance literally anyone you basically have 4,000+ pounds of Big Altima Energy that hits 60 before you can blink.
Also I cannot get past how cringe Dodge and RAM are. We’ve now gotten to the point that we’re making WIFE BAD CAR GOOD jokes on our socials? I’m not sure if that’s as bad as v8 bAdGeS oF pRoTeSt but it’s not far off. I get that the people they’re trying to sell to by and large aren’t exactly intellectuals but if I owned one of these I’d be a little offended by what a fool they take me for.
They have to resort to the lame boomer humor in their marketing since they’ve ballooned MSRP by so much with the new Charger, the retired subsection of the population is the only one that can afford their products.
The trunk’s big enough for your mother-in-law!
but if I owned one of these I’d be a little offended by what a fool they take me for.
This marketing strategy doesn’t have the sort of tongue and cheek nuance or self-awareness that is necessary to make this work. Also, I’d hope that Stellantis isn’t spending half their marketing budget on Wife Bad Car Good jokes. You don’t exactly need a team of writers to come up with this dreck. If I were for whatever reason spending big money on one of these products, I too would be a whiff offended that this was their attempt a wooing me.
Right? And before someone goes “but NSane you’re a leftist who drives hot hatches” I’ve absolutely considered an LX platform car before, it would just never get past the wife.
…but a new straight 6 hatchback sedan version? That just might
I genuinely liked the LX platform and a number of years ago considered a Charger with the Pentastar and AWD. At one point those were a shockingly good deal (around 29k). The LX designs are awesome, and once they updated the interiors at the refresh these became actual good cars.
I don’t have actual prejudice towards the Dodge brand (I should after the Stratus my dad owned in the 90s) and I own a Voyager. I actually want to see them succeed. But not with this approach.
The sad thing is that the Social Media Marketing Director or whoever is probably pointing to the engagement numbers (sure, it’s negative comments, but it still feeds the algorithm) and saying this whole thing is going to lead to big sales. Maybe even asking for more money because of it.
I would say that dealers are probably begging for some sort of marketing that actually promotes what they’re selling, but my local dealer has literally 6 Durangos for sale, and nothing else. No Chargers. No Hornets. So maybe Dodge really is in “let’s just try to make sure they don’t forget we exist!” mode.
You prompted me to check the inventory of my local dealer. They have exactly 1 Dodge in stock. A new 2023 Charger SXT.
And your response prompted me to check another location, turns out those 6 Durangos are actually shared by two dealers (same group) 20+ miles away from each other.
Checked another further away and they have… 6 Durangos. I know we make fun of Chrysler being a single vehicle brand, but it appears Dodge is no better off at this point.
WOW!
My local dealer shows 2 Durangos and 2 EVs. All 2025, and one of the EVs hasn’t arrived yet. No Hornets, and they are out of the older stuff.
Checked one of the local dealers here. 8 Dodges, including a 2023 Challenger that was turned into a convertible (once $90k, now $68k). 3 Charger EVs ($24k on the hood). 3 Durangos.
And drum roll…..1 Hornet with a sticker price of $51k!! That is five and a one. On a compact SUV that isn’t wearing a three pointed star or a “L”. One of the Durangos has a lower sticker.
And every one of these cars has a healthy discount advertised….except the Hornet! “Please call” for the Hornet. We got a hot model here folks.
90 Jeeps in inventory for comparison.
DAAAAAAANG!!!
Most of the Durangos I see around here are cop cars.
Looks like 10 vehicles for mine. 4 hornets, 4 Durangos, 2 Chargers with more than $20K on the hood.
We do seem to have a fair number of Hornets running around town. They had roughly $9K marked off.
So I got on the checking the local Dodge dealers bandwagon. There’s three in my area. One has 1 Durango and 1 EV Charger, one is showing 8 Durangos and 1 Charger EV, but 4 of the Durangos and the Charger are at a different dealership in a different state, and the largest of the three has 7 Durangos and one ’24 EV Charger that they are offering with $24k off MSRP.
Alienating half the population seems like a dumb move for anyone selling a product, bet I remember Dodge really leaned into the Rednecks In Dodges thing for years.
If you’re going to alienate half the population, you better have some incredible product to convert who is left…
…looks at Dodge lineup…
Oof.
I do kind of wonder if the Mustangs are left out because too many drive straight into light poles and crowds when they are stolen instead?
Unless I missed it, Ford hasn’t done a “Cars, coffee, light pole!” advertisement. To bad National Lampoon isn’t around, that would make a great Mustang ad , maybe not as good as the “If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen he’d be president now” ad, but close.
https://www.theretrosite.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/National-Lampoon-Ted-Kennedy-VW-Ad.jpg
Around here the jackapes hooning in traffic are more likely than not to be piloting a BMW, Mercedes, Audi, VW, Tesla Camaro or Mustang with the occasional Jag, Nissan or Subaru for flavor.
Driving like an ass isn’t brand specific. All it takes is and ass and a car.
The ad campaign is admittedly lame but appears to be leaning into the brands usual target audience. Stellantis needs to vet it’s old edgy advertising, maybe they should go for a Jag, Bentley thing and create a different kind of edge.
The bulk of the BMW, Mercedes, Audi, VW, Tesla drivers aren’t hooning, and generally the hooners seem to be driving older examples.
No comment on brand new Mustang and Camaro drivers but that seems to be a fairly mixed bag too.
All of the Chargers and Challengers that I see are the very least driven for maximum sonic effect and they’re all new enough to still have the packing tape stuck to them.
Take a drive up the 401 or 407 or any of the 400’s in Toronto or the analogue highways in NYC area sometime. You get everything from rattletrap chargers through the latest issue Audi and Mercs Same for all the other ones I mentioned. I’ve had some of the numbskulls blow by me in traffic doing 80-100 km over the going traffic rate weaving in and out like the were in a race. Often there are 3 or more of them in the same group.
They are dangerous and bad for the car hobby in general IMO.
Dodge made a massive social media WIN over the weekend . . .
More attention than they could have gotten for their products. And their core buyers DGAF, at the least, and love it at best.
*Dodge hiring someone to drive through a crowded farmer’s market at 175 mph in a new Charger while flying a Dodge flag out the passenger window*: Look at all the attention our product is getting!
I won’t lie, the Challenger lost a lot of appeal to me when one was used to kill someone at the Charlottesville white power rally. I am certainly not saying all Challenger drivers are like that, but I struggle to get the image of the one driving around with the busted bumper after the driver murdered a protester with it out of my mind.
Be curious to hear what percentage of manslaughter cases have involved a modern Charger/Challenger in some way.
Well, now that Dodge has gone on record as endorsing that use of their product they certainly are on the hook for civil liability.
there was a story here a year or two ago, on a report from the IIHS (or possibly NHTSA). After changing the fatality stat so that a traffic fatality was connected to both the victim’s car and the other car in a multivehicle MVA, the top five spots (not in order) in fatalities per 100,000 miles driven were taken by Charger, Challenger, and 2- and 3-series pickups. It might have been just 3-series, I forget.
An 18 car garage consisting of various trim levels and years of the same three models. Predictably consistent with the level of imagination that would appreciate takeovers.
“Sometimes that type of collecting is OK.”- Man with 5 versions of the Atari 2600 (none from this century.)
Looks like they weren’t able to dodge the negative reactions!
I’m sorry, I’ll see myself out.
That was pretty dodgy.
I find it even more interesting that the majority of the vehicles pictured in the ads are no longer sold by Dodge.
What better indictment of the Hornet and new Charger that they get a fraction of the attention of vehicles introduced nearly two decades ago and that have been off the market for almost 3 years? In Dodge’s own advertising!
Have you seen the clip of the straight 6 Charger that’s been going around? It sounds pretty damn good….I’m 100% sure it won’t be enough for anyone who’s owned or aspires to own a Hemi powered one but for a more subtle weirdo like me who’s a fan of BMWs but doesn’t want to pay the ludicrous ownership costs?
Color me intrigued. It sounds very similar to the S58, which I think makes a glorious noise.
I just went and listened to one, and I agree with you.
I think the jury is still out on whether the Hurricane will turn out to be any cheaper to run or more reliable than a BMW, but the sound is pretty decent.
Reading between the lines was always a skill that differentiated the people who were paying attention versus those just reacting.
When the advertising folks aren’t talking about the product on dealer lots (you can draw your own conclusion as to why), you’re basically boned.
Trading on nostalgia (of, um, a few years ago) doesn’t pay the bills if you’re not selling the product on dealer lots now.
My first thought too. How sad that they don’t even feature their current products in the ads?
It isn’t like they put a 426 Hemi from 1970 in there alongside a Hellcat for the nostalgia points, it is a bunch of 2023 Charger/Challengers.
I’m blaming AI.
Who’s Al and what did he ever do to you?
He knows what he did!
I mean, he’s weird, but it’s a fun weird. And making music in so many different styles definitely takes a lot of talent.
I so rarely upvote/like/smileyface posts. But you, my good sir, have earned it
Some human went through and attached these to pictures of Dodge products and chose the quotes they wanted, at least. An AI would have given us a less cohesive and probably slightly less coherent set of posts over cars that look like they might be Dodge products, but just don’t exist.
Dodge may survive after all. This post shows they truly understand the people who buy their cars.
From what I have heard about the street takeover crowd, it is probably more accurate to say this post shows Dodge truly understands the people who steal their cars.
Not sure if that helps them out quite as much.
All Dodge is understanding is that people want Dodge cars, they don’t seem to care if it’s people stealing them or if they are even models they still produce.
If the current cars get stolen then they can sell a new one to the original owner
It’s not grand larceny, it’s nonconsensual ridesharing.
No, no, no, the Grand Larceny could just be Stellantis’ next Dodge product. They had the Dodge Grand Carvan, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and now the Dodge Grand Larceny.
It could be argued that the sale of any Dodge product is grand larceny.