I Don’t Really Understand What’s Going On With This Viral Range Rover Video

Archaic as I am, I generally don’t feel “old,” at least not what I perceive to be whatever “old” is. This is true for almost all aspects of life, save for trying to understand what makes things popular on TikTok. My kid showed me this short video on TikTok, a video sort of about Range Rovers? Or at least in a Range Rover and featuring the existence of Range Rovers as its primary theme. Anyway, this video seems to have millions and millions of views and likes and thousands of comments and it’s just an elderly British woman asking what car she happens to be in.

That’s it.

I mean, I think that’s it, unless there’s some sort of subtext I’m missing here. But it seems like that’s it. Here, watch for yourself:

@forsmiles_ #foryou #xyzbca #fypシ ♬ original sound – ForSmiles

Let’s just break down everything that happens in the video: there’s some coughing as we enter the scene, which is the sumptuous white leather interior of what appears to be a new Range Rover. Our bespectacled, gray-haired star is then revealed, and she asks, in a refined British accent, “What’s this called, then, this latest car?”

The camera then pans to the open door, where a balding man stands casually in the doorframe, wearing a gray sweater, one hand in his pocket, and responds “It’s called a Range Rover, Granny.”

Then, there’s a cut-off laugh and that’s it. Boom! That’s all! That’s the entirety of this little one-act play, where a woman desires to know the name of the vessel she is contained in, and another person, possibly her actual grandchild(?) reveals the answer.

So why the hell is this so popular? It’s been reposted on countless other accounts, including on Instagram and in original and parody form (like this furry-themed one?) on eX-Twitter, too:

It’s called a Range Rover granny ???????? pic.twitter.com/axa2W5EldA

— dorag. (@dorag32) August 26, 2024

Also, it seems to have first arisen in August! But I’m just hearing about it now, which tracks. So it’s a couple months old, and yet there are accounts where the video is re-posted every day, up to this very day. Why?

Again, what am I missing? This seems to not be so much a car-fetishist thing as it may be a British-fetishist thing? Some of the variations of these videos caption it as being “the Most British video” or something about the accents.  So perhaps that’s the key here? The intense Britishosity of it all?

I still feel like I may be missing something. But maybe I’m supposed to. Maybe that’s the way of the world now, and I best get used to it.

Does this count a car video? It’s certainly Range Rover-themed. But whatever this is video is actually about, whatever this strange, powerful hook is, it’s not really about Range Rovers. Maybe it’s about the rhythm of the speech, the sounds and pacing, the repetition, the half-truncated laughter and coughing, the unashamed snippetness of it all?

Whatever it is, it’s definitely a Range Rover, Granny.

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