Billboards: As Usual, Diesel Baffles Us

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Let's examine Diesel's billboard at Houston and Crosby panel by panel, shall we? In Panel 1, a model in a shiny leather jacket smiles shyly next to a stuffed bear (or is it a lion?) and the word "HAPPINESS." In Panel 2, we see the model unbuckle his belt. Over the lion-bear's fur, there are more words: "COMES FROM INSIDE." "I'M WORKING ON IT," the text continues in Panel 3, and we see that the fuzzy woodland creature is wearing a Diesel watch. Huh? It seems to be some sort of reference to furries, or, as the Copyranter puts it, to getting "a handjob from the (stuffed) bear bearing a Diesel wristwatch." Maybe we're naive, but we had no idea that was even a fetish.

· New DIESEL billboard. Please interpret. [Copyranter]