Edgar Valdez Villarreal, the tall, blond, blue-eyed druglord nicknamed “The Barbie” was apprehended today. It turns out that most of Mexico’s top players in the drug war have pretty girl-ass nicknames.
His crimes, aside from smuggling tons (literally) of cocaine into the US, include a gruesome list of murders by decapatation and hanging and causing the line for the girls room at New York clubs to be intolerably long.
Besides his height and hair color, the handle “Barbie” really doesn’t make sense for such a diabolical dude. Barbie liked to pursue various careers, hang out with her little sister, Skipper, and go on dates with Ken, not cut off heads.
Though, from an anatomical perspective, Barbie must have done a lot of coke to stay that skinny, so perhaps the homage is, in some small way, justifiable.
The handle “The Barbie” is actually part of a much larger trend among Mexican drug lords where they pick inappropriately cute nicknames for each other. I guess you have to keep a sense of humor if your entire life is devoted to killing people to making money off something that kills people.
Here are a few of our favorite druglord nicknames:
El Guero (“Blondie”):
In “Youth Nabbed as Sniper,” Debbie Harry sang, “I would like to kill for love, but I don’t know how.”
Hector Luis Palma Salazar, the ex-leader to the Sinaloa clan who was nicknamed “Blondie” did know how to kill. And he made a lot of cash doing it before he was finally arrested after surviving a plane crash in ‘95.
“Nacho”:
“Nacho” actually isn’t an entirely innocuous nickname, what with the obesity epidemic and everything. Technically they can kill you, but only after many embarrassing decades of smelling like cheese and not having a girlfriend.
Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, one of the most powerful players in the Sinaloa Cartel, would rather murder you with a machine gun or a machete than force feed you cheese and sour cream over time. Thankfully, he was killed by the Mexican army during a drug raid in June.
El Fresa (“The Strawberry”):
“Strawberry” is a cumbersome word for anyone’s nickname although it worked really well as a proper first name for the magical Ms. Shortcake.
Alberto Espinoza “The Strawberry” Barron ran the Michoacan Family Cartel. He was arrested in 2008 after setting off two grenades at a public festiva killing 8 and wounding over 100.
The greatest shame of the event is for the guys who were wounded. Surviving a grenade wound makes you seem badass. Being hurt by a guy called Strawberry washes all of that away and makes you a bit of pussy.
El Chapo (“Shorty”):
Like all culturally aware people know, “Shorty” means girlfriend. Jay-Z and R. Kelly have a song called “Shorty,” and it’s goes “Shorty, I got something for you, Wouldn’t give a chick a dime before, but now I wanna spoil you.” (slant the word “spoil” for best effect).
Saying “Shorty” is a supper affectionate, flirty way to refer to your girl.
That’s why it’s weird that Joaquín Guzmán Loera, leader of the biggest drug clan in Mexico, and the only drug dealer to make “Forbes”’s “Most Powerful People in the World” list is called the same thing. When I hear “Shorty” I want to see Beyonce, not a maniacal, billionaire killing machine.
