Forecasting the impact of the viral ‘Kia Boys’ social media trend on car thefts to 2050

In 2022, Hyundai Sonatas became the most frequently stolen car model in Los Angeles, mirroring a nationwide trend. The sudden popularity of this mid-sized sedan among car thieves has, according to some, been linked to the viral spread of videos on TikTok and YouTube that showcased a security vulnerability that made certain Kia and Hyundai models easy to steal. These videos later acquired the moniker ‘Kia Boys’ or ‘Kia Challenge.’ In this work, we show that the surge in Hyundai Sonata thefts in Los Angeles was only weakly tied to the ‘Kia Boys’ trend, having begun much earlier during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Any lasting effects of the viral social media trend were fully absorbed into offline car theft dynamics by the time social media interest peaked in 2022. We use historical data on Honda Civics and Toyota Camrys, car models popular among pre-social media generations of car thieves, to develop a model for the offline temporal and spatial evolution of theft preferences. The model suggests that the effects of the ‘Kia Boys’ vulnerability are likely to persist for decades, irrespective of the role social media played in its inception, and that these effects will be increasingly concentrated in low-income communities over time.