I'm neither a complete degenerate nor a savage beast lacking in appreciation for civilized society's better angels. Like you were, I was shocked the first time I saw the new Tesla Cybertruck. Maybe even slightly offended. But almost immediately, I also saw presented to me a near-production fantasy truck with styling seemingly yanked from sci-fi books, movies, and the mindscapes of nerds like me. I liked it.

Worse, you might say, is the more I look at the Cybertruck, the more I like it still.

Perhaps one day not too distant, I'll look back on this and wonder what I was thinking. How I could have been so obviously wrong-headed (if, you know, it turns out I was wrong). Beyond freaking people out, the truck's edgy design appears to introduce enormous, untenable blindspots to the front and rear. But right now, all I see is a rad-looking space truck from the future that will do all kinds of truck stuff and is claimed to not cost an absolute fortune. And I like it.

Stop screaming, I can hear you just fine. This website doesn't allow readers to comment, either, so stop slapping your keyboard like a memeable cat. So maybe the Tesla is an affront to your senses, and not just the metaphysical ones like aesthetics: this thing hurts your actual eyes, you say. I know, change is hard. Hard like the Cybertruck's bulletproof stainless-steel coating. I like that, too.

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In fact, what's really not to like, once you get over yourself and look past the exterior? The truck was unveiled by the same Tesla that has caught the world's hair on fire with each new model release. Underneath its wedge cap, the Cybertruck uses pretty much the same Tesla hardware you're familiar with, except more robust and even more advanced. We're being promised the pickup will offer the longest driving range of any Tesla, it will seat six, and it has its own loading ramp (plus a matching ATV to drive up that ramp). I like all of that.

The windows seem to need some work still, sure, but you can't exactly shoot or throw large metal balls at any other pickup truck's windows without severe consequences, either.

But please, take a moment to reflect, and try to look at the Cybertruck not as a grossly nonconformist pickup truck of hideous proportions, but as a new thing that shatters the century-old pickup-truck mold. A thing foreseen by generations, imagined, hoped for, animated, and simulated. Not a truck. A Cybertruck.

I like it.