In this week’s episode of totally batshit crazy things some brands do to get attention, OnePlus (the maker of a new smartphone called The One) is kindly offering a bump on the waiting list for women who are willing to enter the equivalent of an online beauty contest.
Because I literally can’t bring myself to describe a contest that is so demeaning towards women and generally ignorant, and because you can’t write this shit, I’m including the entire text of the contest (emphasis mine):
As we close in on the 200K mark for the number of registered forum users, OnePlus wants to give a shout out to the few but beautiful female fans in our community with our Ladies First contest.
In true gentlemen fashion and because chivalry is not dead, we are giving the lovely ladies of OnePlus a chance to skip the invite line and introduce themselves to us.
Ladies (and only ladies, sorry guys, ladies first), the rules are simple:
Draw the OnePlus logo on a piece of paper or on your hand/face/wherever (so we know it’s really you)
Take a photo of yourself with the OnePlus logo clearly visible
Post the photo in this thread
The 50 most well-liked ladies will receive an invite and a Never Settle t-shirt. Additionally, we will be giving out another 100 invites at random to any lady who participates in the contest. The contest begins today and ends on Friday. We will announce the winners on Monday.Ladies, no nudity please.
Yes, please ladies, no nudity. If you can restrain yourselves from submitting pornography to the internet for the sake of winning an early invite to purchase this phone, the folks over at OnePlus would be mighty appreciative. After all, they’re a chivalrous bunch.
Young companies make dumb mistakes, but how this went from a drunken idea at a backyard barbecue to the home page of the company’s official website is truly beyond me. It’s far worse than hiring booth babes at CES or that one time HTC tried to build a purse-friendly lady phone called the Rhyme.
It’s so condescending and offensive to women, in fact, that I hope against hope that it’s sheer stupidity that brought this contest into existence.
The OnePlus contest actually has a few real submissions, but those are wildly outmeasured by dudes waiting to look at girls and folks who are mediocre at Photoshop. There are also a few ladies who are protesting the contest within the thread itself, like the young woman above.
To quote myself: No, OnePlus… Just, no.
Update: Contest cancelled.
[via The Verge]