Diversity in the workplace is extremely important. It can save you a LOT of embarrassment.
Case in point:
If start-up ElectricBrands had employed just one—that's all it would have taken, just one!—gay man on their marketing team, they could have avoided calling their new product the eBussy. That's "bussy"—the portmanteau of "boy" and *ahem* "pu**y"—that thing the President of the United States bragged about grabbing.
Bussy is a common gay male slang term for, ya know, bumholes.
Now before you assume that, as the name suggests, the eBussy is some sort of very high-tech sex toy, please know that it is not.
It is, in fact, a motor vehicle.
Somebody in ElectricBrands' HR needs to go on the internet and find some LGBTQ people's resumes immediately.
season 11 drag GIF by NylonGiphy
So what is the eBussy actually—aside from a colossal marketing faux pas?
It's an electric vehicle that starts out as a flatbed truck and can be converted into 10 different vehicle types.
So, like many bussy owners out there, it's versatile.
my little pony rimshot GIFGiphy
But in all seriousness, it's a very cool idea.
You can convert it into a camper, a bus, a dump truck, a flat bed—all sorts of things! But unfortunately for ElectricBrands, it's also a vehicle for which the jokes write themselves.
Pink News demonstrated this with one, single, innuendo-laden paragraph:
"It's an electric vehicle that can take on 10 different body types. The eBussy is flexible. You can ride the eBussy for hours… with its 10 kWh battery pack. And, with its rounded doors, anyone of any size can enter the eBussy with ease."
Even this completely serious description in Hypebeast becomes the stuff of a gay sex club when put into the context of that sort of "bussy."
"As it is completely modular, components such as the driving position can be changed with ease by simply sliding the steering column across the dashboard, making for left, right, or even central-position driving."
"Central-position driving"?
Only if you buy me dinner first!
Anyway, as you might guess, Gay Twitter lost its collective mind.
So let this be a lesson to all you marketing teams out there. Please choose your words carefully, and for the love of God run them by a few gay people first!
