“We’re also openly sexist, anti-gay, anti-straight, anti-trans, anti-human, anti-serious, and anti- tyrannosaurus.”
When car enthusiast Donnell Brooks came across the fact that Broken Realmz, an online retailer of vinyl, tint, and other decals based in Torrance, CA, re-branded one of their most popular products with the N-Word spelled backwards, he was surprised and appalled.
Brooks took to Facebook and tagged Broken Realmz asking, “You guys want to explain why your BLACK MIRROR tint is just the N word backwards”
In two days, Brooks’s post has spread all over social media platforms among car enthusiasts sparking discussion and backlash aimed at Broken Realmz.
Check out Brooks’s post below.
According to Registered California Businesses database, Broken Realmz Inc is an online retailer, as mentioned, based in Torrance, CA (exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
Broken Realmz’s statement of information lists Arash Bagherabadi (@Asydia on IG) as CEO. His Instagram profile confirms as such.
Broken Realmz appears to be the online arm of The Wrap District, another similar business that shares the same address as Broken Realmz.
According to a statement we’ll get to in a moment, the reply says that Broken Realmz went through a rebranding phase as of late where they renamed some of their most popular products, giving them controversial names.
As this rebrand was obviously a harebrained decision, all said controversial products have been renamed.
But, the internet never forgets and there are plenty of screenshots, not to mention source code, that shows evidence of their buffoonery.
Here’s a screenshot of their edgy renames below.
Doodoo brown, Period Blood Red, Blue Balls Blue, Seggsy Silver and, of course (yeah, I’m not going to type that out.)
Here are screenshots of now deleted social media posts showing what their Black Chrome Mirror Tint was once named.
The original URL was brokenrealmz.com/products/reggin-black-mirror-tint.
Although renamed, some of their file names and even the source code still shows what they tried to hide.
Just as quickly as they back tracked from their asinine rebrand, Broken Realmz issued a statement.
If you were expecting any form of apology, this statement is not that, at all.
A screenshot is posted below, with the most important parts of their explanation copied verbatim.
“…The concept for our rebrand was to be as offensive and controversial as possible. That will NOT change!”
“…to accomplish this, we have to push some boundaries. Learning when and where to draw the line. … the overall response has been overwhelmingly positive and people understood the concept of “See You In Hell.”
“Yesterday, however, this FB post started going around to people not even within our community of car enthusiasts or offensive comedy lovers.“
“ Now that we’re aiming our tints at a more professional market we’re going to be giving them more generic names which will be complete by the end of today, July 29th.“
“Our goal is not to appear as actually racist or sexist. We do not target any one specific group of human beings.“
“We target everyone equally, no one is safe.”
Brooks had this to say in response.
“Why did you choose to be so safe with all the other ones and use a straight-up slur for ONLY black tint?…It’s just weird to me that you only chose to be offensive/racist with ONE item.”
“For saying you target everyone equally, you guys were REALLY selective with this choice, so IDK if I fully believe that. You can be offensive in a much more clever and much less directly racist way than what you guys chose, here.”
If their lack of Broken Realmz’s lack of self awareness wasn’t even more apparent, here’s one of their replies they shared on Instagram stories.
“We’re also openly sexist, anti-gay, anti-straight, anti-trans, anti-human, anti-serious, and anti-tyrannosaurus.”
Most are in agreement with Brooks, that this is reprehensible and should absolutely be called out.
“This is the dumbest idea for a company I think I’ve ever seen,” commented Mikey Walker
“This is actually so dismally stupid of a marketing scheme that it’s actually breathtaking…,” Rumy Pacston replied.
There were, however, a minority, Broken Realmz included, who think this is not a big of a deal, and Brooks is overreacting.
“Backwards words offend you now ! Hilarious!,” commented Rowdy Trickle
“Always wanna be the victim,” said Facebook user named Sicnarf Acuilgap
Broken Realmz themselves doubled down on their awful statement by bringing up how they “trolled” the LGBTQ community during pride month with a similar stunt.
Brooks summed up pretty good, there’s nothing wrong with a rebrand, but to stoop so low as to use slurs is ignorant and lazy.
Bagherabadi looks to be in his late 20s and presumably has been in the United States for more than a couple of years. To claim lack of awareness at that age in such a progressive part of California, like Brooks said, no one is buying.
It goes without saying, but, what a dumb, racist thing to do.
