On Tuesday, German manufacturing startup ElectricBrands unveiled a van that transforms into 10 different frameworks. For up to $33,309 USD, you can turn a flatbed truck into a single-cab pickup or a camper. They called this real-life Transformer — ready for it? — the eBussy.
It’s an uninspiring name. Nothing about this build-a-car screams electronic. The only “E” you’ll see on the eBussy is an empty gas tank because this thing has a tiny 10 kWH battery pack, the equivalent of 124 miles.
The problem here? Bottom appropriation. The term “bussy” is a popular portmanteau in the queer community (specifically cis gay men) to mean “boy pussy” or, more generally, the anus. “‘Bussy’ belongs to the lexicon of queer vocabulary meant to deconstruct and reimagine the possibilities of gender, often with a playful nudge,” Mitchell Kuga previously wrote for MEL on the term’s origins.
As is the nature of online virality, the term “eBussy” quickly became a meme, giving free publicity by way of extremely online queers dunking on this sexually charged name.
What we have on our hands here is a booty burglary. The culture of taking it up the ass has been commodified by Big Tech and turned into a bulky load the color of Fleet water. (If you don’t know what that is, you’re likely not a bottom.)
So if the term “bussy” means queer asshole, what then is an “eBussy”? The word does not yet exist on Urban Dictionary or Know Your Meme, the unofficial encyclopedias of online idioms. So why not pop the hood and refigure that “eBussy” for our pleasure?
The term certainly connotes eroticism. “Something along the lines of ‘internet asshole’ or maybe ‘eBoy’s asshole,’” Fabien, a 19-year-old cis gay man, tells me. The only eBussies we’ll be acknowledging are eBoy bottoms on OnlyFans with a fat ass and a penchant for gold chains and black nail polish.
It’s hard to believe the euphemism of “eBussy” would go over the heads of the team at ElectricBrands. Even exceedingly straight YouTuber Casey Neistat tweeted, “Elon should just call it quits. Tesla doesn’t stand a chance against the… wait for it… eBussy!”
When taking the word literally, “eBussy” is still confounding. “I see that it’s supposed to be ‘electronic bus,’ I guess… but why the additional ‘sy’?” Matt Ortile, author of queer essay collection The Groom Will Keep His Name, tells me.
The suffix “-sy” is a diminutive of a base word often used ironically or self-consciously. So the etymology of an eBussy is a self-loathing, shape-shifting truck that can carry one hell of a load? In the community, we call those guys Equinox gays.
There’s a very real possibility that us extremely online bottoms aren’t eBussies. Maybe we ride the eBussy. Matt, a 30-year-old cis gay man, tells me it reminds him of a dating app, like Tinder for bottoms to meet other bottoms. “Bussy buddies. ‘Where’d y’all meet?’ ‘eBussy,’” he jokes.
Perhaps we’ve been thinking about this all wrong. The eBussy mobile adapts to what you need. You can live in her. You can eat in her and you can come with others in her. Hell, maybe the eBussy is vers representation.
ElectricBrands, expectedly, didn’t return my email requesting information of the origin of the “eBussy” name. Maybe someday we’ll meet the extremely online bottom sneaking great product names through the ranks of ElectricBrands.
Joseph Longo
Joseph Longo is a culture and entertainment journalist whose work has appeared in The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly and more. He's still trying to understand what it means to be a Gemini Rising.
