In 2018 we rebranded to GroobyGirls.com. It was something we’d been working on for two years. Nicky had joined us to do merchandise designs, and we’d been sending out ‘Grooby Girls’ or ‘Grooby’ shirts, hats, stickers, etc. The goal to associate ‘Grooby’ more with the sites, and it was Danny who’d coined ‘Grooby Girls’. The exposure of trans people into mainstream media, and adult content has changed a lot since we started. When I came up with ‘Shemale Yum’, at no point did I expect that to become a divisive and derogatory term. It’s what the girls called themselves (that or ‘Tranny’!). By 2016, we’d realised that despite all the other companies using ‘shemale, we had to move forward and take the lead. A lot of industry peers advised us not to kill off a brand that was so established, but we were determined … and in the end, when we finally made the switch overnight in 2018 (we didn’t announce it – one day it was Shemale Yum, the next Grooby Girls) it didn’t make any negative impact to our sales, and it made a lot of our current and future models a lot more comfortable. I’m happy to say, after we made that change, it forced a lot of other companies to do a rethink. We’re still changing things over the sites, and I believe we have to be open and fluid to change, if we’re going to do another 25 years.
I think we were back on track in 2018, but on model among all others, broke the internet that year. Daisy Taylor. Buddy worked at getting her in, and debuting her on GroobyGirls in December (shortly followed by her GroobyVR hardcore). Daisy has been a huge hit in every scenes she’s done for us, and the other companies she’s worked for. She’s unique and engaging, and I remain a huge fan – any chance Buddy has, I ask him to get more of her!