What is OnePlus up to now? A mysterious teaser has shown up on the OnePlus Europe Instagram page showing what could be a new special edition smartphone coming in the near future, but what makes this more perplexing than usual is OnePlus’s partner: Finnish metal band Lordi.
It’s OK if you haven’t heard of Lordi before, but once seen they won’t easily be forgotten. The hard rock band has been around since the early 90s, and is best known outside of metal fandom circles for two things — monster masks, and the Eurovision Song Contest. Lordi members wear horror-inspired monster masks and elaborate costumes when they perform, giving them a terrifying look, which is why they caused a considerable uproar during the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest.
Lordi was the Finnish entrant to the annual contest, known for its fun pop songs, and was likely many people’s introduction to monster-rock. The song, Hard Rock Hallelujah, was the ultimate anti-Eurovision entry, and Lordi’s look went in the absolute opposite direction of Eurovision’s more expected style. Finland and Lordi went on to win the 2006 contest, becoming not only Finland’s first Eurovision win, but also the first metal band to win too.
OnePlus needs no such introduction, and long-time fans will also know it has a history of launching exciting special edition phones, with its design and technology-led McLaren editions being the most well known, along with partnerships with Star Wars and Genshin Impact too. The Genshin Impact version of the OnePlus 12R in particular illustrates the lengths it will go to to please fans with these special editions.
So what’s it doing with Lordi? The poster published on Instagram shows a smartphone with a member of Lordi behind it, along with the tagline, “Made of Metal” and the promise that whatever it is, will be out this summer. It does seem to suggest OnePlus is going to release a OnePlus X Lordi special edition smartphone, which is probably the last partnership any of us would have expected. Like the bizarre mix of Lordi and Eurovision, any smartphone collaboration between OnePlus and Lordi will be the opposite of Samsung’s varied collaborations with K-pop group BTS.
What’s more, the Instagram image shows a real poster, which can apparently be seen in London, which may mean there’s a Lordi and OnePlus concert behind all this too. Whatever OnePlus and Lordi are up to, it’s all very unexpected, and we can’t wait to hear more.