car sharing
Instead of Miles, “Milfs” are rolling through our cities – like a joke slowly becoming a problem
A car from the car sharing company Miles is parked on the side of the road. Some of the vehicles have obscene lettering on them. because a piece of the letter E is scratched off
© Rolf Vennenbernd / DPA
The perpetrators probably find it amusing to quickly turn the label for the car sharing provider Miles into an obscene abbreviation. The traveling “Milfs” are a nuisance for the company.
The idea is anything but new: by leaving out letters and painting over them, many Eastpak backpacks became “Asipak” in the 1990s. A new edition of this joke currently has to be done Car sharing provider Miles endure. In the big cities, more and more “milfs” are driving around because pranksters have taken a chunk out of the E. The rolling “Milfs” are available in all sizes, as Miles also offers vans with the company logo stuck in huge letters on the side of the vehicle. A great target for the vandals.
The trend is becoming a problem for the company, as spokeswoman Nora Goette told the “Picture” confirmed. When asked what Miles thinks about it, she explains: “We’ve all been silly once and don’t want to be a hindrance to fun, but ultimately rebranding on our own is at the expense of us and the users, because it means additional work and additional costs. And the message…well.”
Obscene writing and porn jargon
You may not understand the message straight away. While “Miles” stands for “miles” quite harmlessly, which can be understood as a reference to the provider’s billing system, because Miles does not calculate its prices for spontaneous trips based on time but rather based on distance, “Milfs” stands for something completely different.
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According to Duden, a “milf” is a “sexually attractive, mature, experienced woman”. Things get more vulgar when you look at the actual abbreviation, because “Milf” stands for “mom/mother I‘d like to fu..”, i.e. “Mother, whom I would like to fi…”.
Since the successful “American Pie” films, the abbreviation “Milfs” has probably become commonplace – at least among young people in the 1990s. In the film, actress Jennifer Coolidge, who played “Stifler’s Mom,” was titled this way.
Miles reviews ads whenever possible
Miles now speaks of hundreds of cases in which the lettering on the cars has been changed. Goette assures us that they are taking care of the re-foiling, but that they are probably no longer able to keep up with it. But sometimes that’s not enough. “In the past, improper removal has caused paint damage, which is particularly annoying,” she says.
If Miles catches the perpetrators in the act, the company will also report the vandalism, reports “Bild”. But this is only possible in a fraction of cases. In most cases, Miles is stuck with the costs if repairs are carried out at all.
The IT specialist magazine “Golem” brings a radical option into play as a way out for Miles: a new name is needed. If Miles continues to be on the cars, there will probably be countless “Milfs” on the streets of major German cities in the future.