Perpendicular Fueling

Submission 13,772

Part of a series on TikTok. [View Related Entries]

About

Perpendicular Fueling refers to a TikTok trend where people back their car up close to the gas station pump and then pump their gas with their trunk closest to the pump. Although the earliest instance of perpendicular fueling occurred on Instagram in 2014, the trend wasn't popularized until late September 2021 on TikTok. In October that year, the trend then spread to include additional perpendicular activities, such as shopping or learning, broadening the trend beyond fueling.

Origin

On July 28th, 2014, Instagram^[1] user @oghoul uploaded a photo of himself filling up his car with gas in a perpendicular way. This Instagram post (shown below) is the first known instance of someone doing perpendicular fueling.

Origin On TikTok

On September 23rd, 2021, TikToker^[2] @crunched.diff uploaded a video in which he'd backed his car up close to the gas station pump and pumped his gas that way. The video uses the text-to-speech feature, with the voice saying the overlaid text reading "Screw it, perpendicular fueling." The video (shown below) received roughly 350,000 plays and 50,200 likes over the course of roughly one month.

Spread

On October 11th, 2021, TikToker^[3] @rafikimemez posted a TikTok of perpendicular fueling, being the first one to add-on to the trend. The video (shown below, left) received roughly 2,800 plays and 168 likes over one week. TikToker^[4] @nick.bb2 also added to the trend three days later on October 14th, 2021. His video (shown below, right) had text overlay reading "Fuck it Perpendicular fueling" and received roughly 16,400 plays and 2900 likes over five days.

On October 17th, 2021, TikToker^[5] @cloutyyy posted his own version of perpendicular fueling, using a different sound than the prior videos. He also used text-to-speech like the original TikTok did but a rougher, more-masculine sounding voice reading "fuck it. perpendicular fueling." The TikTok (shown below) received roughly 3.4 million views and 585,200 likes over the course of two days.

More TikTokers began to hop onto the trend going into the rest of October. TikTokers like @theguyboss^[6] began coming up with other, strange ways of fueling like "tangent fueling" or "parallel fueling."^[7]

Perpendicular TikToks

In October 2021 following the perpendicular fueling trend on TikTok, the trend broadened to include a wide array of other perpendicular activities and memes. For example, on October 21st, TikToker^[8] @m4.rnr posted a video showing his car parked perpendicularly in a garage. The video (shown below) received roughly 1.1 million plays and 91,200 likes over the course of one week. This TikTok is the first known derivative, perpendicular action outside of fueling.

Also on October 21st, 2021, TikToker^[9] @nickpedersen__ uploaded a video of himself performing "Perpendicular Benching." The TikTok (shown below) received roughly 1.5 million plays and 207,500 likes over the course of one week and is the first known derivative action within the "perpendicular" trend to not include a car.

On October 24th, 2021, TikToker^[10] @timmyflutes23 posted a video of himself laying down sideways on the ground while still sitting at a school desk. Multiple people in the comments began to joke that he was performing "perpendicular reading," which prompted @timmyflutes23 to upload a second video^[11] following the perpendicular trend. This second video (shown below, left) received roughly 2 million plays and 336,700 likes over the course of four days. Then, inspired by @timmyflutes23's TikTok, another TikToker,^[12] @dr.wstn, uploaded a "Perpendicular Learning" video (shown below, right), which received roughly 7.5 million views and 1.8 million likes in only two days.

More TikTokers began to perform perpendicular actions going into the rest of October 2021, like "Perpendicular Gaming"^[13] and "Perpendicular Grocery Shopping,"^[14] among others.

Screenshots of "Perpendicular TikToks" also began to receive attention on other platforms like Twitter. For instance, on October 26th, 2021, Twitter^[15] user @bigestaban tweeted a screenshot of "Perpendicular Ordering" that received roughly 77,500 likes on Twitter over the course of two days.