As if we needed another reason to love Yelp….

I can assure you that my intent in highlighting the portion of the sentence which reads “we sometimes ride in and put some fun between your legs” WAS IN NO WAY an attempt to be humorous. Even though the context depicted above may not have been the statement the author intended to make, the first 5 times I read that email, those were the words which popped out at me. And as anyone who works in communications ought to know, you must be able to ensure that every potential combination of words pulled out from an official communication, even those which may be out of context, must be beyond reproach.

And this is not an isolated incident. The ‘Weekly Yelp’ has arrived in my inbox with such clever subjects as ‘Yelp Smokes the Meat,’ ‘Yelp’s A Cheap Date,’ and, of course, multiple times, ‘Make Me Yelp,’ and filled with innuendo that often border on the cusp of being excessively gratutious. And face it – the reason they do it is because it works: piques our interest, it gets us to open the emails, and draws interest to their site.

But when that’s the game you’re playing, you mustn’t take it too far… you must ensure that you don’t cross the line from being risque to being offensive and triggering an emotional response in someone who may have been the victim of sexual assault. Even if the sponsor of this particular mailing was not SF Women Against Rape – a very worthy, very professional organization, I might add, who should bear none of the blame in this matter – I would have found that it crossed that boundary.

Yelp needs to learn that if you’re mass communicating, you need to know how to play the game. Because in that world, intent means nothing. Perception is reality.

@”sane” voice: you’re funny. (note: comment removed due to its tasteless and totally inaccurate nature. I don’t support slander).

@funklord: you know my mom reads this, right? Looks like I need to get the funk out of you too :)

and @the rest of the dissenters: you do realize that I was an active member of yelp for years, and lived on the talk threads for ages, right? I have very little problem with innuendo – but only when the innuendo comes from somewhere I’m interested in receiving it from. And I do not wish to receive that kind of innuendo from a profit-seeking corporate entity.

Gentlemen, next time you’re walking down the street and see a woman with a bicycle, ask her if she’ll “put a little fun between your legs” and see how she reacts. (Oh god, I can just hear them saying this at the Matrix Fillmore now….)