On Monday we wrote about our fondness for pickup trucks. Subsequently they've become a "thing" with people asking reporters if they even know anyone who owns a pickup, see a Washington Examiner article for some of this, more at The Federalist.
Inasmuch as pickups are the most popular vehicles sold in the U.S. you'd hope a reporter who wishes to understand what's happening in our culture could answer "yes." Most answered very defensively, which is to say their accurate answer, if given, would have been "no."
The other DrC and I bought our first pickup early in 1983 and have owned a series of 5 of them continuously to this day. Actually, I'm sitting in my 2015 F-350 diesel 4x4 as I write this.
It is a sweetheart of a truck - comfy, powerful, relatively quiet, and semi-huge with seating for 5 and an 8' bed. It will pull our 35' fifth-wheel RV - a one-bedroom apartment on wheels - up a steep grade at 60 mph without breaking a sweat. And via some internal transmission magic it can take us down the other side of that grade at a reasonable pace without riding the brakes. Honestly, it's my favorite vehicle.
