Ask the Box

25 aug 06

"What is the origin of 'barnacle' ?"

i've been asked this question before, outside of "ask the box".

some time in 1999, i was using AOL as a temporary solution between internet providers, and i had to choose a username. just to be dorky, i decided to go with the "death something" theme (eg: "death penis", the much-underrated metal band). you might see the "death x" form in a cultural product aimed at junior high school-ers -- it's easy to imagine a post-apocalyptic warrior, heavy metal band, or comic-book villain called "death vulture", or something like that. so, i took this silliness one step further into obvious, pedestrian irony, and made my "death x" into "death barnacle", only because barnacles are so non-deadly.

later, i learned that they actually are. mariners consider them a "fouling organism" -- barnacles can irrepairably damage equipment by sticking to and clustering on it.

so, i was "death barnacle" on AOL for a long time, as well as on other areas of the internet that required a username. at some point, "death barnacle" turned into "dead barnacle". i'm not sure why this happened -- perhaps i wanted something less violent-sounding and more angsty/existential, or maybe i simply made a mistake once and it stuck. it turned out to be more meaningful, though, because what we think of as barnacles are indeed dead -- the empty shells of formerly living crustaceans, bonded to surfaces in the water.

finally, i registered the domain "teeheehee.net".

.net? am i a network provider?

i sort of regret the choice of .net as my TLD, and wish i'd gone with .org. at the time, .org sounded too much like a "save the whales" club, and .com sounded like i was selling teeheehee bath mats. but in retrospect, i should have gone with .org. damn. anyway, at that point there was no turning back -- i had become teeheehee.

when i created my first account on SDF, naturally i tried to choose "teeheehee" for my username. however, unix doesn't like usernames longer than eight characters, so i went with "barnacle", which is exactly eight. this happened to at least one other user i can remember (necessary truncation of handle).

at times i've gotten tired of my name, and no longer wanted to be "teeheehee". now that i consider it again, i find myself in agreement with those negative sentiments -- who would name their child "dead barnacle"?

analogies are inevitable, and it must be noted that barnacles stay in the same place for their entire lives. also, a barnacle has a penis that is ten times its body length; seriously -- look it up.