People finally track down real-life location of viral truck stop that's impossible to visit
Working at the Celina 52 Truck Stop looks like it would put The Office's Dunder Mifflin to shame in terms of wacky workplace shenanigans. Boasting Civil War reenactments, armored PepsiCo trucks, and surprise appearances of Ozzy Osbourne, it’s the place to be. The Celina 52 Truck Stop even has its own mascot called P*ss Jug Man, who we'd sure would look adorable strapped to the front of your truck as a plushie.
While some 557,000 people are part of the Facebook group honoring Celina 52, there's a slight problem if you want to visit it. Unfortunately for those film crews wanting to capture a slice of Tennessee life for a viral documentary, the Celina 52 Truck Stop is at least partly an AI creation.
First posting in January 2021, the Celina 52 Truck Stop soon went viral when it posted a picture of a patron who looked like a dead ringer for Amy Schumer.
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The star posted about it, those behind Celina 52 did an interview with the New York Post, and still, it seems the world didn't realize it was some clever AI image manipulation.
Those behind Celina 52 regularly post on the truck stop's subreddit, but with only 6,000 subscribers, it seems it's still a well-kept secret.
The official site lists employees, including forklift truck driver 'Blind' Donny Day, temporary CEO Jebediah Yoder, and the ever-popular parking lot attendant, Nevaeh Petty. While the depths of the subreddit reveal that these might be based on real-life people, they're reportedly created using deepfake technology to keep their identities a secret.
Also on Reddit, eagle-eyed sleuths have tracked down the real Celina 52 Truck Stop.
The truck stop's Facebook page lists the following address: 1897 Genesis Road, Crossville, TN
For those in the area, you can stop by the 'real' Celina 52 Truck stop, which is an Eco Travel Plaza. The Google reviews from years ago complain about having to pay $15 for parking, but looking at more recent ones, it's hard to tell what's genuine and what's a Celina 52 joke.
Over on Reddit, someone explained how they deciphered that the Eco Travel Plaza was the backdrop for Celina 52, revealing methods that even Sherlock Holmes would be proud of.
It appears that those behind Celina 52 take actual pictures and then digitally alter them to create the madcap world we can't get enough of. The OP says how the owners are careful to remove identifying details from their photos, but someone messed up by leaving a 'DIESEL LIFE' sticker in one window. By looking up authorized 'DIESEL LIFE' distributors in Tennessee, they then compared Celina 52's posts to real truck stops and found the Eco Travel Plaza.
There have been numerous incidents of the Celina 52 going live to prove that at least some of them are real, with one showing a real P*ss Jug Man mascot standing outside the Eco Travel Plaza.
The truck stop's subreddit is just as meta as the Facebook page, and to be honest, at this point, we don't really know what to believe. Still, we're not convinced that Gary Busey was named their trucker of the month.