Perpendicular Fueling — Three-panel collage of perpendicular TikTok memes: Smoothie King drive-thru, gas station, and grocery store cart.

Perpendicular Fueling

2021viral videodeclining

Published October 8, 2026

Perpendicular Fueling is a TikTok trend where drivers back their car up to a gas pump and fill the tank with the trunk facing the nozzle instead of the side. A 2014 Instagram photo documented the first known case, but the format took off in late September 2021 on TikTok and quickly spawned a wave of 'perpendicular' spin-offs covering benching, learning, grocery shopping and more.

tiktok memes absurdist humor memes snowclone memes text to speech memes delayed virality memes

Overview

The joke works through flat visual absurdity: a car parked at a right angle to the pump line with the fuel nozzle stretched across the rear bumper, usually set to a robotic text-to-speech voice announcing 'Screw it, perpendicular fueling'2. Early clips kept the gag car-based, with riffs like 'tangent fueling' and 'parallel fueling' from TikTokers like @theguyboss and @ericktion3. The humor hinges on treating a basic spatial mistake as if it were a bold lifestyle choice, delivered deadpan.

By mid-October 2021 the format jumped off the gas pump entirely. Users started applying 'perpendicular' to anything with an orientation: lifting weights, sitting at a school desk, parking a car sideways in a garage, buying groceries3. Each video follows the same template, with a TTS voice narrating the sideways activity. Screenshots of the clips bounced over to Twitter, where the orientation gag worked without the audio10.

Origin & Background

Platform
Instagram (2014 precursor) / TikTok (viral spread)
Creator
@crunched.diff
Date
2021

The first known case of perpendicular fueling showed up on Instagram on July 28, 2014, when user @oghoul posted a photo of himself filling his car with gas while parked at a right angle to the pump at a Monroeville GetGo. The Pittsburgh-area blog YaJagoff picked up the image the same day and ran it under the headline 'Perpendicular Pumper,' razzing the driver for mixing up parallel and perpendicular1.

The TikTok version arrived more than seven years later. On September 23, 2021, @crunched.diff uploaded a video of his own perpendicular fueling attempt with a text-to-speech caption reading 'Screw it, perpendicular fueling'2. The clip pulled roughly 350,000 plays and 50,200 likes over the following month, setting the template that later TikTokers copied3.

How It Spread

The trend picked up on October 11, 2021, when TikToker @rafikimemez posted the first follow-up perpendicular fueling clip4. Three days later @nick.bb2 added his own version with a similar caption, pulling 16,400 plays and 2,900 likes in five days5. The format broke out on October 17 when @cloutyyy's take, voiced by a rougher TTS voice, hit roughly 3.4 million views and 585,200 likes in two days6.

By late October the gag had drifted off the gas station entirely. On October 21, @m4.rnr posted a video of his car parked sideways in a garage, the first non-fueling entry in the trend, and racked up around 1.1 million plays3. The same day @nickpedersen__ dropped 'Perpendicular Benching,' doing a bench press with his body rotated across the bar, which hit 1.5 million plays and 207,500 likes in a week7. On October 24, @timmyflutes23 posted a video of himself lying sideways at a school desk; commenters called it 'perpendicular reading,' and his follow-up clip reached 2 million plays in four days8. @dr.wstn's 'Perpendicular Learning' riff on the same idea went bigger, hitting 7.5 million views in two days9.

Screenshots jumped to Twitter later that week. On October 26, 2021, user @bigestaban tweeted a screenshot of 'Perpendicular Ordering' that got roughly 77,500 likes in two days, pushing the format in front of users who were not on TikTok10.

Timeline

2014-07-28

Instagram user @oghoul posts a photo of himself pumping gas while parked perpendicular to the pump at a Monroeville, PA GetGo; the Pittsburgh blog YaJagoff writes it up as 'Perpendicular Pumper.'

2021-09-23

TikToker @crunched.diff uploads the first TikTok of perpendicular fueling with a 'Screw it, perpendicular fueling' TTS caption.

2021-10-11

@rafikimemez posts the first copycat perpendicular fueling clip on TikTok.

2021-10-17

@cloutyyy's perpendicular fueling video hits roughly 3.4 million views and 585,200 likes in two days, breaking the trend out.

2021-10-21

@m4.rnr's perpendicular garage parking video and @nickpedersen__'s 'Perpendicular Benching' clip push the format beyond cars and gas pumps.

2021-10-24

@timmyflutes23's school-desk video and @dr.wstn's 'Perpendicular Learning' spin-off go viral, with the latter hitting 7.5 million views in two days.

2021-10-26

Twitter user @bigestaban tweets a screenshot of 'Perpendicular Ordering' that reaches 77,500 likes in two days, carrying the trend off TikTok.

How to Use This Meme

A typical Perpendicular Fueling video shows the creator doing an everyday activity rotated 90 degrees from how it is normally done, with a text-to-speech voiceover reading some variant of 'Screw it, perpendicular [activity].' The common convention is a deadpan single take, no setup, no punchline past the orientation itself. The 'perpendicular' part can swap for related geometry words like 'tangent' or 'parallel' when the creator wants to extend the bit3.

Frequently Asked Questions