What's in a Name?
Once I decided to share my trashy pictures with the world on social media, I knew I needed a name that described what I do but not be blatantly obvious either. I wanted it to be just vague enough to pique interest. I wanted it to address my efforts but not be about me personally. And, most importantly, it had to be catchy! The goal for the account is to highlight the trash problem in our waterways rather than be an attempt at a social media personality. I feel like there are plenty of those to go around.
I started playing around with typical clean up terminology. I considered words and phrases like "pickin up", "clean up", etc. They were ok, but were still missing the mark. Eventually, after enough thesaurus searches, the word "garbage" came up. Almost immediately my brain when to "garbageman." "Aha! That's it!", I exclaimed "SUP Garbageman!" Ok, I didn't really exclaim anything but I did know that "SUP Garbageman" was the name I needed...well, almost.
Why "almost"? What was wrong? Well, "SUP" was definitely staying. It speaks to where I do my trash collecting (i.e.: from my paddleboard). So, what was wrong with "garbageman"? It speaks to the trash collecting that I do and it was definitely something that was catchy. It was something that most people try to avoid calling themselves. But it wasn't quite right yet. I still felt like there was another layer of meaning that I was missing. Then it hit me; I would separate "garbageman" into two words: "garbage" and "man."
Wait, why does that have a second layer of meaning? On the surface, the primary meaning is the most obvious, it gives my social media account a title for the work I do. It calls out that I’m essentially working as a garbageman. The second layer is a bit more obscure and involves a bit of wordplay. By splitting "garbageman" into two words you could read it as if there were a comma between “garbage” and “man." Doing so would make it would read as if I’m addressing someone specifically about "SUP garbage." It’s a nod to my social media efforts to raise awareness in the SUP community and show that trash on your board is just "SUP garbage," man.
