What's in a name?

RECENTLY, the topic of our name has been brought up a quick couple of times. In the interests of getting this down on record and to a lesser extent, to track how the perception might change over time, I thought I would run through what is in our name.

HEAVY METAL WANAKA At the surface level, it's a very simple descriptive name. It's matter of fact- the podcast topic is that of the Heavy Metal music and I am based in the South Island New Zealand town of Wanaka. These are tangible entities- you can physically visit the town of Wanaka while listening to music of the Heavy Metal genre.

WANAKA IS METAL? Wanaka and the surrounding area is know for many things, but music, let alone heavy metal is certainly not on anyone's list for the area. Following this logic, the podcast name now works in a type of clean joke humour. In this, the joke is at the same level as referring to your town as 'sunny', when it is most clearly, and very obviously not. A clean Dad-joke type, opposite-is-actually-true type thing.

WANAKA'S NOT RUDE... is it? This area of the world is heavy in tourist traffic, which includes a high number of  tourists, backpackers, hitchhikers etc. So, way back when I was new to town I happened to notice a hitchhikers card with a slight spelling mistake (i.e. omission of the central 'a' on the word 'WANAKA'.) This particular spelling error is rude to a country like New Zealand, so at the innuendo level the podcast name works.

That is it, I've explained the joke....

Like I mentioned, I want this down as a matter of record, as I foresee time coming again and again where someone will point something out to me, be they genuine or more troll-like in intent, I can point to an old, time stamped, blog article.