Pavement Princess

Submission 12,124

Part of a series on Internet Slang. [View Related Entries]

About

Pavement Princess is a slang term that refers to a large, expensive truck, often lifted or otherwise customized, which may not be able to go off-road, do the kind of work trucks are designed to do or is never actually taken off asphalt or pavement. It is often used as a derogatory term by people who believe these trucks are too large, too dangerous, unnecessary and look bad. Appearing online as early as the 2000s, the term spread over the following years, becoming prominently featured in a number of memes and discussions on social media.

Origin

The term "Pavement Princess" likely predates the internet. Early uses of the term occurred on the Hummer Forums chatroom in 2006, referring to a Hummer with unnecessary "gadgets" added to it.^[1] The earliest Urban Dictionary definition came about in 2007 (seen below) and is derogatory in nature.^[2]

In the late 2010s, as American truck manufacturers produced higher-end luxury models that were increasingly larger, more expensive and higher off the ground, the term "pavement princess" saw more use. The term appears to have originated within communities involved in off-road trucking and was used to insult those who weren't using their work trucks for work.

For example, on May 16th, 2020, X user @Adam_Asmus posted a fairly typical trucker's criticism of the "pavement princess" (seen below), earning almost 200 likes in three years.^[5] The term also started to be used by critics of truck culture in general, who found overly large trucks to be dangerous (because of their massive blindspots) and environmentally irresponsible.

Spread

In the early 2020s, TikToker , an outspoken critic of American transit policy and car culture, posted a series of TikToks on the topic of "pavement princesses." For example, on October 4th, 2023, molesrcool posted a video titled "Pavement Princesses Pt. 3" (seen below, left), which earned over 137,000 likes in one week.^[3] On the other side of the issue, TikToker gabefarrelproductions defended his "pavement princess" against haters, earning almost 267,000 likes over a year and a half for a March 22nd, 2022, post about his truck (seen below, right).^[4]

On Reddit, posters frequently mock owners of pavement princesses in a number of subreddits and communities. On October 5th, 2023, Redditor /u/shinyhedgepig posted a picture (seen below) of a truck undergoing maintenance, receiving almost 58,000 upvotes over the course of five days.^[6] This led to a series of "comically large truck" postings on /r/pics over the following week.