"Cars" GOAT Debate / Lightning McQueen "Washed Up" Twitter Discourse

About

The Cars GOAT Debate and Lightning McQueen "Washed Up" Twitter Discourse refers to a viral debate, discourse and memes on Twitter / X comparing the stats and careers of characters in the Cars cinematic universe, centering on the protagonist Lightning McQueen and whether or not he's the "greatest of all time" (aka the G.O.A.T.). Twitter users started the debate in November 2023, talking about the cars like they were real-life professional athletes by comparing their stat lines. This predominantly included the character Jackson Storm from Cars 3. Curiosity was inspired by the discourse that flooded the timelines of many Twitter users.

Origin

The debate seemingly started with a post shared by X^[1] user @ElonHatesKJ on November 16th, 2023, in which he ran through Lightning McQueen's stats and asked, "Greatest peak OAT ?" The tweet received roughly 29,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Soon after the tweet on November 16th, 2023, X^[2] user @ElonHatesKJ posted another tweet about Lightning McQueen, captioning a scene from the first Cars film with, "chills ." The tweet received roughly 14,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Spread

Inspired by the user's posts, others on the app began quoting with their own opinions and reactions. For instance, on November 16th, 2023, X^[3] user @zebulunalford_ quoted with a scene from Cars 3 involving the character Jackson Storm, writing, "he washed bro," gaining roughly 9,700 likes in one day (shown below).

On November 16th, 2023, X^[4] user @WfromDeBall posted a meme that compared Lightning McQueen and Jackson Storm, gaining roughly 55,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). Also on November 16th, X^[5] user @jazzsox compared NBA player Trae Young to McQueen in a similar format, receiving roughly 9,300 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References