The idea is anything but new: by leaving out letters and painting over them, many Eastpak backpacks became “Asipak” in the 1990s. The car sharing provider Miles is currently having to endure a new edition of this joke. 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 confirms to “Bild”. When asked what Miles thinks of it, she explains: “We’ve all been silly at some point 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 … Oh well.”
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.
According to Duden, a “milf” is a “sexually attractive, mature, experienced woman”. It gets more vulgar when you look at the actual abbreviation, because “Milf” stands for “mom/mother I’d like to fuck.”
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 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 trade magazine “Golem” is already bringing up a radical option 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.
