Microsoft Apologizes For Trying To Be Cool With Email Inviting “Bae” Interns For “Dranks”

There is perhaps nothing so cringeworthy as someone who is most definitely *not* cool trying to talk to the younger crowd in their own language. Microsoft is apologizing for such an effort after hitting a spectacularly uncool note this week in an email to its interns, calling them “bae” and inviting them to have a “lots of dranks” on a Monday night at a company event.

The company sent an email to Bay Area interns that starts out awful and goes downhill from there:

My roommate received this email from a Microsoft recruiter today. pic.twitter.com/90Qwr78eGO — Patrick Burtchaell (@pburtchaell) July 6, 2016

Here’s a quick translation of some of that lingo for the rest of us: “Bae” is a term that can mean one’s significant other or just someone cool; by her “crew” she means colleagues; “internapalooza” is a gathering of interns; “hella noms” would appear to mean “lots of food”; “beats” are music; and “Yammer beer pong tables” is, ostensibly, a beer pong table splashed with branding for Microsoft’s proprietary social network.

Basically, it’s not how many companies would choose to speak to employees, even if they are younger, something Microsoft realized shortly after the messages went viral on Twitter and elsewhere. The company apologized, saying the email was “poorly worded.”

“The email was poorly worded and not in keeping with our values as a company,” a spokesperson told Gizmodo. “We are looking into how this occurred and will take appropriate steps to address it.”