A Lie About A24 Landed This TikToker and Her Dodge Lancer in Internet Controversy
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On August 13, 2023, a Montana-based multi-media artist named Mary Kate Teske posted a video sharing the lore and history of her daily driver, a 1961 Dodge Lancer.
Teske was already a locally known musician and artist and has been building an online presence for years, but telling the story of her '61 Lancer was one of her first viral moments. She garnered intrigue with her car wherever she went, and it was no different online. Seeing that others were interested in her and the car's stories, she continued to share tidbits and started working towards a movie.
Teske hopes to turn her car's saga into a feature film. Currently, the award-winning distribution company A24 knows nothing of Mary Kate Teske and The Lancer, but many online followers and members of her local Montana community were under a different impression.
A24, known for Best Picture Winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, Indie-Darling Lady Bird, and this current dystopian blockbuster Civil War, is currently slated with massive projects going into 2025 and 2026 as the entire entertainment industry continues to play catch-up after the 2023 writers strike.
"It's official, I'm going to be directing the next feature film with A24," Teske first announced on TikTok.
A few weeks ago, Teske started a series of TikTok videos saying that A24 had decided to pick up the story of 'The Lancer.' She filmed herself packing her bags for a big meeting in New York City and having her wife drop her off in the aforementioned classic Dodge at the Billings Logan International Airport. She even announced that the vast media production and disruption company would keep her at the helm of her creation as a first-time director.
Teske has since deleted those videos after online backlash, and the 30-year-old artist claims they were always made and presented in satire. The problem is, not everyone was in on the joke.
Nic Curcio, a screenwriter in the Writer's Guild of America and a newer TikTok contributor, saw the first of these announcement videos and, with his industry knowledge, felt the need to bring awareness to what he saw as a transparent farce.
Curcio's video went just as viral as Teske's first about her car. The two talked as the story grew, and while Teske reportedly blocked TikTok users who claimed that the A24 deal was a lie, as Curcio shared with Road & Track. She felt comfortable talking with Curcio because of how he handled his post.
After Curcio's video went viral, Teske made a few lighthearted posts calling herself out about the lie, one saying, "I may not be making an A24 film, but I am still working on 'The Lancer' That part wasn't a lie." And another saying, "Oops. Did I say A24? I meant B24. I am a first-time director, after all."
While deleted, the first of these posts can be seen in the background of Curcio's second video on the topic.
While her comments on social media stay off, Teske was willing to talk to Road & Track about the controversy and the ongoing film project.
"I did that satirically because I have actually been contacted by NBC," Teske explained. "That Hot Wheels thing was actually legitimate, and I have been contacted by Hallmark. I've been working on this story for years and have gotten noticed by different productions."
In earlier videos, among the ones deleted from TikTok, Teske informed her followers that NBC's Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge had reached out to her for the second season. Unfortunately, the car competition show was scrapped on March 18 before production began for a second season.
To this date, A24 has not been in contact with Teske in any manner. She still hopes to be discovered by the company or one of a similar caliber.
"I have been waiting for them [A24] to contact me because that is my ideal production company," Teske said. "I still, in the end, would love it if they would want to work with me. I just threw it out there because I was like, you know what, I'm just going to create this satire and see how it's taken."
A24 did not immediately respond to R&T's request for comment.
The Teske family story is compelling. It revolves around caring strangers, the '61 Lancer, love stories that started in a Seattle area gas station, and a multi-generational move to rural Montana.
"So many people prior when I posted the origin story about my car, and it took off and went viral at 1.5 million views. Literally there's like 8,000 comments of everyone wanting to see it turned into a movie. That is not a lie. The reception that it got and continues to get because I've driven that car for 15 years.
Over the 15 years, it's been a daily driver of mine. I've told that story literally thousands of times to everybody, and the beautiful thing about that car is it's such a good equalizer. I don't care if you're homeless. If you're Black, Native, or an old white guy, I don't care who you are. If you're curious about the car and you want me to tell you the story, I will tell you the story."
Teske tells a heartwarming rags to riches story sewed into the quilt of Americana. A young girl at 15 years old is told an epic tale of family history while fixing up a car with her grandfather and cousins.
It sparks a new tradition of all the kids fixing up classic cars for their first daily drivers, teaching the youth a needed, dying skill, similar to how the generation before learned to farm for the first time.
These moments also spark Teske's love of storytelling and travel. Fifteen years later, she still drives the Lancer daily, through breakdowns, break-ins, and long talks with strangers at gas pumps.
"It basically is the primary Keystone of my life," Teske said of the Lancer. "I see all those posts of 'My Roman Empire is...' and to me, the car is my Roman Empire. I feel like the story of my car was happening even before I was born, and it's crazy that I kinda just fell into it.
Teske talks about the Lancer like it's a character in her life, almost sentient and always the catalyst.
"The story behind it has really harnessed in me a love of sharing with people, and that creatively has urged me to write songs, or write a script, or to really try and document through photography everything that that car has shown me.
It, first of all, showed me patience because it is an old car and it breaks down. That has given me life lessons in patience but also, I've told the story thousands and thousands of times I feel like a broken record every time I retell it but I have the patience with people who don't know me and want to know about the car."
The story deserves to be told. It's an essential part of her legacy and creative life, and it's hard to argue that Teske is not a keen storyteller.
Hopefully, that isn't completely overshadowed by the A24 controversy.
"I think if you did a Control + F search in my comments, the number one word you would find is manifesting," Curcio said. "It's kinda this funny thing now; maybe it's a generational thing. There are a lot of comments I've gotten from Gen Z that are like, 'This basically is manifesting.'"
While the new age idea of manifesting is nothing new, in the digital world, people have put it to work online when they feel they've exhausted other avenues. Content creators have been repeatedly exposed for faking their first few brand deals to grow their notoriety and get noticed by bigger acts, as Taylor Lorenz reported for The Atlantic in 2022.
"It's really interesting; it's the difference in philosophy," Curcio continued. "I have met and talked with a lot of influences that are like, 'yeah, everyone lies on TikTok; you have to lie to get clicks. I believe that the degree of lie that you're saying matters.
I felt like I had to do it because there's not a lot of people on that app," Curcio said. "It's a young person's app, and there's a lot of older screenwriters. Not a lot of people on the app have the resources to check [claims]. I was watching the situation and thinking 'is no one going to call this out?"
The world's at our fingertips in this digital age; we're exposed to so much, and it's hard to see what's real, what's fake, and what's bent. With the rise of AI in creative fields, we're in search of authenticity around every corner of the web, and when something smells off, it's hard not to call it out.
Teske has proven that she is actively working towards making this movie, and any money that was made from her GoFundMe, which was started before the A24 claims, stayed up during the saga and has been taken down since, has gone directly into equipment, licenses or software needed for the film. Before being taken down, the GoFundMe collected $525 of a $1,000,000 goal for the movie's production.
Having the GoFundMe operational while misleading some followers with her 'satirical' videos' is the hardest pill for many to swallow. Teske wants to make it known that the GoFundMe was operational prior to the A24 videos.
"I did initially do that before I ever posted the A24 videos," Teske said on her donation campaign, "I am legitimately working on funding the film; I think that is getting misconstrued."
It helps that Curcio was the one first to gain widespread attention for exposing the 'ruse.' As a screenwriter, Curcio focused on breaking down what didn't make sense, which was more of an act of digital literacy than an act of malice. Curcio used his insider knowledge to lay out the situation in an extremely thoughtful and gentle way. Especially in his follow-up video when the comment section had already filled up with torches and pitchforks.
There is no bad blood between Teske and Curcio as the internet starts to move on; in their messages, Curcio claims that Teske told him she was waiting for someone to call her out and is happy that he was so nice about it.
Hopefully, one day soon, Teske can reopen her comments and continue to find an authentic way to share the story of the 1961 Lancer and the lives that it has touched.
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