2.08.2013

Krispy's Origin Story

This Friday, I present to you an origin story. Specifically, the story of how I came to be known as Krispy.

Not very accurate depiction of me, courtesy of Alz.
To do this we must go back in time to the late 90s, the heyday of music dominated by pop princesses and girl/boy bands...

Spice Girls: best girl band everrrr.
Krispy was a tween then, navigating the often treacherous waters of middle school with relative success. It helped that she had a relatively stable group of friends by then, and that despite going into a bigger school and becoming a tweenager, they all still had mostly the same taste.

Mostly, this meant they shared the same hyperactive tendencies, weird humor, and love of pop music - particularly boy bands. (This is relavent, I promise.)

This boy band in particular.
Anyway, in tween!Krispy's group of friends, there was another girl who shared the same real name with her. Since it was confusing to have so many same-named people in one group (they already had 2 Ginas), they called the other girl "Chewy" - a nickname based on the sound of Chewy's last name. From there, it evolved. Krispy's friends thought it would be funny to give Krispy a nickname that complemented Chewy's, so they called her "Crispy". Then one of the other girls wanted in on the funny names too. She came up with one based on the first letter of her real name and became known as Melted.

Through one thing or another, during a conversation that neither Krispy nor Chewy were a part of, Melted and yet another of the girls thought it would be funny to make a fake band where all the members had food related names. (See, even back then, we were all about the foodage.) We already had Chewy, Crispy, and Melted, and it was not unusual for pop music groups in the late 90s to have names that were sort of acronyms of the members' names (I'm looking at you N'SYNC*). Using their excess of creativity (and time), they came up with a viable and catchy sounding word: SMACK**

So two more girls were named Sugar and Artificial (like I said, weird sense of humor) since we wanted a candy theme. And thus CRISPY became KRISPY with a K (that was totally my tag line) to satisfy the whole acronym thing. We were Sugar, Melted, Artificial, Chewy, and Krispy, and we were a fake girl group.

And like many pop groups, girl or otherwise, we eventually broke up, leaving only KMA.

Had to dig into my archives for this. Yes, it's a photoshoot.

We went on to have a very short "career," in which we actually did some singing but mostly just hung out and ate Melted's wonderful cooking.

So there you have it. That's why my nickname is Krispy, and yes, my friends did and some still do call me that in real life.

Happy Friday! I'll be gone most of this weekend to attend a Bachelorette party (for one of my former "bandmates" actually), leaving poor Alz to fend for herself. I trust you'll keep her entertained. :)


Q4U: Have you ever done anything this weird or have an interesting nickname/origin story?


* N SYNC comes from the last letter of each member's first name. Lance was apparently "Lansten" or something???
** We were not fully aware of the slang connections to heroin, though that quickly became an in-joke.

11 comments:

Sarah Goldberg said...

Boy bands! Tasty business! Especially: that photo-shoot picture! I'm so glad you shared this story.

My middle school friends and I used to do choreographed dance routines to Shania Twain, but I don't think we ever made our own girl group. Sadly.

The only nickname I have from that period that has stuck is "Sahara Desert," from a friend's younger sister. She was the only one who ever called me that, but she still does.

Connie Keller said...

Loved seeing pictures of the photo shoot and the hearing the story of the nickname.

My friends and I did choreographed dance routines too. (They were very kind to me--I'm not especially coordinated.)

Ariana Ferrone said...

My friends took all the "a"s out of my name and made me Rin. A couple of my oldest friends still call me that. We thought it was super cool and original at the time.

Unknown said...

A fascinating story! I'm super jealous that you got a nickname. My friends and I tried giving each other nicknames, but nothing stuck. I guess it just wasn't meant to be...

Angela Brown said...

OMG...okay, so yeah, I'll share the dirt lol!

A bit after I graduated HS - let's not discuss how long ago that was, though I'm about to date myself - Lil' Kim and the Dogg Pound were kind of the it thing, along with the up and coming Foxy Brown and the Rough Ridin' E.V.E. So, with my group of all dudes who liked to rap and sing, I became known as China Doll because I used to always where a Chinese cut bang and because of other things that are also Asian stereotypes. That didn't last long because it didn't really fit me so they just called me BG (Baby Girl).

Not exactly the wisest time of my life. Yeah... le sigh.

Yahong Chi said...

Aaah, this is such a great story! I love that you guys actually went for a photoshoot too. Also, did not know that N*SYNC was composed of the guys' last names -- and I totally dig "SMACK" as a an acronym/band name. :D

Golden Eagle said...

That's an awesome origin story!

Love the picture from the photoshoot.

Ali Cross said...

This is so awesome!!! I'm so happy I didn't miss this post! That is such a fun story! :)

Anonymous said...

Ha! This is so great! :)

Lydia Kang said...

So that's where Krispy comes from! It has nothing to do with your puffed rice personality? ;)

So cool. My brother occasionally calls me Squid cuz it kinda rhymes with my name.

I should probably not have told you that.

Lori M. Lee said...

LOOOL you guys are awesome. Loved this story.

My sis wanted to be a singer around the Spice Girls time too, and she would make me sing harmony for her. We were terrible lol.