Tesla’s new sports car flipped midair during its Oct. 15 reveal, and X users turned the demo into a running joke within minutes. The Tesla Roadster memes that spread follow a format agents can borrow.
How a flying Roadster became the internet’s punchline
Tesla’s second-generation Roadster drove up an inverted ramp, flipped midair and cleared a row of vehicles during its Oct. 15 reveal in Texas. Within minutes, the demo became material for a wave of memes on X, Business Insider reported.
The reveal came nine years after Tesla first showed the car, following delays in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024, TechCrunch reported. CEO Elon Musk said production will begin in 2028. That timeline mirrors Grand Theft Auto VI, which has also gone through a long development cycle and multiple delays, according to Military.com. Rockstar Games plans to release the game Nov. 19.
The White House joined on Oct. 16 with a Grand Theft Auto-styled image of President Donald Trump beside a hovering car, Military.com reported. The caption read, “We really got flying cars before GTA 6.”
The memes Business Insider collected placed the car in everyday situations. X users joked about freeway signs too low for an airborne car, a traffic stop interrupted by a takeoff, a commuter vaulting a slow driver in the left lane and car insurers reacting to the news.
What this means for real estate professionals: Agents who use humor on Instagram, TikTok or X can borrow the structure of these memes. The formats that traveled drop an impossible car into a familiar frustration, and homeownership supplies plenty of those: garage ceiling heights, HOA parking rules, the commute from a listing to downtown, a steep driveway apron that scrapes every low car.
A post built on that pattern can stand on its own without a Tesla logo or a screenshot from the livestream. Use original images or text, and link to other users’ memes instead of reposting them, since the rights belong to their creators.
What should be on your radar
Free Adobe look-alikes. Developer Brandon Thomas released ArtCraft, a suite of seven free, open-source apps that recreate the look and tools of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign and Acrobat Pro, Creative Boom reported. Thomas built the apps with Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 AI model after Adobe charged him an early termination fee for canceling his subscription, according to the outlet. Agents who want to cut Creative Cloud costs can test the apps on internal projects before moving listing marketing to them.
Meta’s Muse use cases. Meta shared examples of how small businesses use Muse for Small Business, its AI agent, Social Media Today reported. The most common request is an analysis of which Meta ads perform best and why, according to Meta. Businesses also use Muse to build campaigns from creative briefs and to link Meta Ads with apps such as Canva, Shopify and HighLevel for automated workflows. Agents who run Meta ads can put the same performance questions to Muse before their next listing campaign.
Paid advice on LinkedIn. LinkedIn launched Advice Sessions, which let verified Premium members in the U.S. offer free or paid one-on-one consultations from their profiles and collect payment on the platform, according to LinkedIn VP of Product Management Ora Levit. LinkedIn is also testing pre-roll ads that share revenue with creators, and it is bringing back pinned comments. Agents who plan to charge investors or relocation clients for consultations should check state licensing rules and brokerage policy first.
Pro tip
Make carousels part of your rotation (more than Reels). Instagram calls carousels a way to tell a story one slide at a time, and third-party data shows them holding their own. Socialinsider’s Q2 2026 data put carousels at 0.50 percent engagement against 0.48 percent for Reels. For a listing, a carousel can walk viewers through a home in sequence, from curb appeal to kitchen to backyard.
Building them just got easier. Instagram’s Edits app now creates carousels, with audio you can change later, captions on each slide and slide reordering after the post goes live, Instagram said. The feature is live on iOS, with Android coming soon.
Each week on Trending, Inman’s Jessi Healey dives into what’s buzzing in social media and why it matters for real estate professionals. From viral trends to platform changes, she’ll break it all down so you know what’s worth your time — and what’s not.
