Durex Trolls the Hell Out of the Internet With Eggplant-Flavored Condoms

eggplant condoms
Shutterstock
Shutterstock

There are some who forget the rich history of workers rights movements in the United States that led to the most everyone taking Monday off work. But there are few who confuse Labor Day with April Fool's Day like Durex just did. Or, at least, the condom giant decided to give a little more of the latter feel to the former.

Monday, they tweeted out the launch of a new line of eggplant-flavored condoms. Yup. Yuck, maybe. It's hard to remember what an eggplant tastes like when it's not grilled. Is it like a zucchini? What does a zucchini taste like? Rubber? Is this a condom flavored condom?

It's actually a joke. But it does make you realize that we don't have artificially flavored eggplant foodstuff. What would this taste like? What does an artificial eggplant taste like?!

There appears to be a reason behind the joke besides marketing, even though marketing is probably the main reason. The eggplant-flavored condoms, inspired by the inappropriately used eggplant emoji, are pretty hilarious, are Durex's attempt to talk about how we talk about safe sex. "Durex knows there is no place for an aubergine when it comes to safe sex," a spokesperson told the Mirror. "It's just as questionable, in fact, as a decision not to introduce a Safe Sex Emoji to empower young people to talk about sex, safely, in a language they are comfortable with."

It's not a bad point, even if there is a little self-interest at play. Safe sex is an important topic and emojis are a language used by millions. Why not make sure that the language is equipped to talk about important issues?

While it was all an expert troll by Durex, it definitely had many people going. It spawned a series of tweets that dovetailed awfully nicely with the curmudgeon-y hashtag takeover of #HowtoConfuseaMillennial over the weekend.

So, none of it is real, but maybe they should consider looking into eggplant-flavored condoms. They'd go perfectly with that the Emojibator -- an eggplant emoji-shaped vibrator --- that was just released. It's just one idea.

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Dustin Nelson is a News Writer with Thrillist. He holds a Guinness World Record, but has never met the fingernail lady. He’s written for Sports Illustrated, Men’s Journal, The Rumpus, and other digital wonderlands. Follow him @dlukenelson.