The story of a man named after a Japanese snack
Many people have asked me why my nickname is “Pocky”. It’s a semi-long story, which I’ll go into here.
When I was a kid, my mother went shopping at the local (well, as local as it could be at the time, it was a forty minute drive from what I remember) Korean grocery store. I think that I had asked her for some cookies or something, and when she came back, she gave me a box of this stuff called “Pocky”.
Being a kid, I gleefully devoured the mostly sweet contents. (The chocolate is Japanese chocolate, which is generally not as sweet as American chocolate) I loved it, and asked my mom to buy more next time.
Fast forward to 1995.
I was going to my first anime convention, Katsucon. I had been to sci-fi and gaming cons previous to this, but this was the first time I’d be meeting people who liked anime, and the first time in a while that I wasn’t staffing a convention.
I figured that since I would probably be socializing for the most part, I wouldn’t have much time to eat. So I decided to bring snacks with me that were portable, a good burst of energy, and Japanese. So I brought a ton (20 boxes, I think?) with me.
By Friday evening, I hadn’t touched a box.
So I decided to give it out to my friends, who ranged from curious (oh, neat!) to frightened (what the heck is Pocky?). Eventually I had hit all of my friends, and still had a ton left. So I started to give it out to random strangers.
Pocky turned out to be a hit, and by Saturday afternoon, people who remembered me from the night before were asking for more.
It went:
“Hey, you, with the Pocky!”
to
“Hey, you! Pocky!”
to
“Hey, Pocky!”
By Sunday, the name had stuck. At the Closing Ceremonies, they had a raffle. I ended up with a winning ticket, and when I stood up, the crowd started to chant, “Seig Pocky! Seig Pocky!” (in reference to Gundam, not Nazi Germany, mind)
After that, I decided to maintain the tradition by buying Pocky and giving it away at the cons I attended/staffed. Before it became widely available from online stores and dealers, I was (apparently) the only source for it on the east coast.
I haven’t given any away in years - there’s no need anymore. But the nickname has stuck.