Luckily for our friends on the east coast, Hurricane Irene didn’t pack quite the wallop she was expected to have. Still, there wasn’t a lot of love for Irene as evidenced by the numerous posts online including this tweet that we, ourselves, are guilty of (oh, don’t forget to follow us on twitter):

All this hate for anything named Irene made me ponder the names given to hurricanes and the impact that they have (can anyone hear the name Katrina anymore without thinking of New Orleans?). Contrary to popular belief, hurricanes are given male names as well as female ones. However, it does seem the most “popular” (i.e. most destructive) ones are named after females, but I’m sure that’s purely coincidental. But what I did notice as I looked up the list of past hurricanes was that we’re quickly using up the available Western names and we’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel soon. So in an effort to prevent future hurricanes from being stuck with douche-y names like Hurricane Paris or Hurricane The Situation, I offer an alternative…

Start naming hurricanes after Korean women.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking and shame on you! You’re thinking I’m making this suggestion to reinforce the stereotype of Korean women as destructive and forceful and frightening and volatile and senseless and crazy and unstable and explosive and soul-destroying and…well, you get the point so I’ll put my thesaurus away now.

No, that is not it at all and couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I am recommending naming hurricanes after my beautiful Korean sistas as a way to show that I respect and honor them.

Yes, hurricanes can be utterly destructive; wiping out everything in their path, but there’s also something majestic about them. To put it simply, they’re awe-inspiring. Just the sheer force of a hurricane is a testament to God or Mother Nature’s power. And I may be biased, but I think there’s nothing on this earth that even comes close to being as majestic and awe-inspiring as a hurricane than the Korean woman. 

And furthermore, nothing is as majestic and awe-inspiring as Korean names. Hurricane Yuna or Hurricane Hae Sook already sounds much better than Hurricane Irene. What kind of name is Irene for a hurricane anyway? That’s a name more suited to a repressed hairdresser in Gardena who won’t put out until after the fifth date. (Hi Irene! Hope everything’s going well in Gardena.)

In addition, there’s a cleansing quality to hurricanes, which mirrors the Korean women’s ability to…ah, fuck it! I just can’t do it anymore! I just can’t! All of this is bullshit and I can’t continue lying. Let’s be honest, there’s one and only one reason why hurricanes should be named after Korean women…

Korean women are hella scary!

If it had been Hurricane Hae Sook threatening the east coast this past weekend instead of Irene, there wouldn’t have been any wimpy “downgrading”. Instead, the hurricane would’ve been a million times stronger than even the smartest eggheads at the Weather Channel could’ve predicted. New York City would’ve been completely demolished and left in ruins looking like it did back in the old days before Disney came in and cleaned up Times Square. And not only would Hurricane Hae Sook have destroyed New York and left carrying away all the city’s Prada handbags and shards of broken masculinity in its funnel, it would’ve come back a day later with even more fury just to fuck with folk some more. Let’s see your Caucasian hurricanes do that! I think the Ancient Greeks said it best when they proclaimed, “Hell hath no fury like a Korean woman.” Or a hurricane named after a Korean woman.

But, of course, none of this takes away from the natural majesty and awe-inspiration of the Korean woman because, well, uh…don’t hurt me.