Hello Ant lovers!
The Dark Side? Harambe Nation? The Black Empire? The Earth Kingdom? We gathered together your top 20 name suggestions for our Black Crazy Ant colony, and this week, we ask for your help in voting for their name! Hope you enjoy this interactive video! Ant love forever!
VOTE NOW! Name Our Black Crazy Ant Colony [Interactive Video]
Oh my god, I just came back to my Manila home after spending almost 4 weeks in the US, and as expected, my ant colonies have grown so much since I left. Look at this—there are just ants everywhere now! As some of you may have noticed, most of my recent videos have been about my red tropical fire ants, a colony which you guys named the Fire Nation. And because of you, our AC family, the Fire Nation is now a worldwide hit, having appeared on National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, and having been shared by celebrities like Joe Rogan. The Fire Nation has been featured on blogs all over the world. High-five to us, AC fam!
So now, it’s time to give the spotlight to our beloved black crazy ant colony on this channel. I’m calling on all of you, AC family, to gather around so we can finally grant this Paratrechina longicornis colony an official name. In a previous video, I asked you to leave name suggestions and also asked you to give a thumbs up on any suggestions that you particularly liked. I’ve gone through them, chosen the most popular ones, and a few that I found particularly good. Today, we shall finally cast our votes in Phase 2 of naming this black crazy ant colony whose workers multiply by the day, move with blinding speed, have multiple queens capable of double cloning, and are completely adorable and harmless.
I’ll also announce the winner of last week’s Question of the Week as well as this week’s AC Question of the Week for a very exciting prize. AC Voting Council, gather around—it’s time for us to cast our votes to bestow a name upon our black crazy ants here at the AntsCanada Ant Channel.
Okay, so here’s how Phase 2 of name voting will work. I’ve chosen 20 name suggestions, and you guys will be voting on them in four rounds. Before each round, I will go over and give an assessment of each name, then ask you to vote for your one favorite per round. In other words, by the end of this video, you will have voted for a total of four names—one name for each round. To vote, I have placed I-card polls, which will pop up when it’s time to vote. If you want, you can simply vote right away for all four rounds, but I think it might be more fun to vote together, round by round. Plus, something I might say might make you change your mind, so my suggestion is that you wait until I say to vote before actually voting for each round. Also, hopefully, you guys vote at each round and not skip rounds to get the most accurate results possible. Please note that these I-cards work when viewing on both mobile and desktop, but may not be viewable on some players. In that case, feel free to make noise and let your vote count by leaving your picks in the comments section. From the results of this video, I will choose the winning name from each of the four rounds, as well as one wildcard, and we shall vote again on a final name in a future video.
So, are you guys ready? Okay, here we go, guys.
This first set of names is interesting. I’ve grouped together the top five names that are references to other things.
The Dark Side. This name received so many upvotes. Obviously, it’s a reference to Star Wars, the aspect of the Force, a metaphysical and ubiquitous power in the Star Wars fictional universe, and I’m a Star Wars fan, so I really like this name. It’s fitting because of the dark black crazy ants—good connection! Now, one reason I might not vote for this name, though, is because in Star Wars, Dark Siders allegedly draw power from raw emotions and feelings such as anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, fear, aggression, megalomania, and unrestrained passion. I’m not sure if that would fit the personality of these ants. Either way, just having them named after such a huge and well-known Star Wars reference might be pretty cool.
Next, we go from Star Wars to another favorite of mine—Star Trek!
The Borg was suggested as a name for these black crazy ants, and it made me smile a bit. In the Trekkie universe, the Borg are an alien race, a collection of species that have been turned into cybernetic organisms functioning under a hive mind called The Collective or The Hive. I find this super fitting, guys, for a name for these ants, and for any ants really, because the colony is an ant colony, and they act collectively to benefit the whole. I find The Borg to also be a fitting name, particularly for these black crazy ants because, if you saw our past video, you see that black crazy ants can recruit an outsider queen into the colony, which is exactly what The Borg do to recruit outsiders, turning them into The Borg. One reason this name might not be fitting is because The Borg are made up of assimilated individuals of many different species, and in our black crazy ant colony, they’re all one species. But again, cool reference for a very cool and well-known franchise!
Moving on from the world of spaceships to the world of superheroes, The Dark Knights was a cool suggested name—of course, a reference to famous DC superhero Batman. Besides having a lot of cool instruments and weapons, Batman was a skilled fighter, very strong, moved around swiftly and almost invisibly, and was black—all definite qualities of our black crazy ants here. Batman also appeared when needed, just at the right times, in the same way that the ants do when I drop a roach. He’s also a good guy, and well, black crazy ants don’t sting or bite me when I’m working around them. One reason that this name might not be fitting, though, is that Batman seemed to come out mostly at night, and these ants are active both day and night.
Okay, so now we logically move on from the world of comics and superheroes to the world of anime. The Earth Kingdom was one of the names you guys suggested, and it was a reference to Avatar: The Last Airbender, an American animated television series aired on Nickelodeon. This, of course, was suggested because the Fire Nation is also a reference to the same series. For those of you who know the series, the Earth Kingdom is super fitting because, in the series, they are enemies of the Fire Nation, having engaged in a ten-year war, which perfectly mirrors the relationship between my red tropical fire ants and these black crazy ants, who are natural enemies. One reason that I foresee The Earth Kingdom may not be a suitable name is because it operates under the rule of one king or queen, and well, these black crazy ants have multiple queens. But still, if you wanted to be consistent with the whole theme of Avatar: The Last Airbender, you would vote for this name.
And now we move on from these fictional universes to our real universe. Harambee Nation was suggested, which, of course, is a reference to the truly unfortunate event which took place on May 28 earlier this year, where a male gorilla named Harambee was shot in a zoo after a three-year-old boy had fallen into his enclosure. Thankfully, the boy was saved, but Harambee lost his life. It was a huge issue and sparked so much controversy on social media, giving rise to a vast array of mostly negative reactions and mostly in support of Harambee. I feel if we vote for Harambee Nation as the name for our black crazy ants, it would be a cool tribute to Harambee, whom we love and miss, and still somehow lives on forever in our hearts, in the same way that these black crazy ants will continue to self-perpetuate and live on forever in this setup if provided for. Now, to be honest, I can’t think of any reason right now why Harambee Nation might not be a suitable name for our black crazy ants, except of course if we look at Harambee representing why wild animals should not be held captive. And well, this colony came from a queen that was wild-caught and is now being held captive in this setup by me, so naming them Harambee Nation would just make me feel real sad. So that would be one reason why we shouldn’t name this colony Harambee Nation. And as a disclaimer, I usually always release my ants back into the wild where they came from when I feel I can’t care for them anymore, so it’s not the same as Harambee.
Okay, AC council, these are the names in our first round of voting. It’s time to vote! I will give you guys a few seconds to click the I-card that will pop up here and cast your votes on your favorite name in this round. Remember to choose one name, and don’t not vote. Go!