Pocket Sand

About

Pocket Sand is when sand or other granular objects are kept in the pockets for use in self-defense. If a person using pocket sand is in a confrontation, they can draw the sand from their pockets and use it to temporarily blind or distract their opponent. There is an online community of people interested in uses and deployments of Pocket Sand.

Origin

Pocket Sand was the invention of Dale Gribble, an amateur survivalist character on the popular television show King of the Hill. In the 2001 episode titled “Soldier of Misfortune,” (Season 6, Episode 106) Dale is fighting with a man and yells “Pocket Sand!” before taking sand from his pockets, throwing it in the man’s eyes, and running out of the room.^[1]

Spread

In 2004, the term was defined on urbandictionary.com.^[3]

In 2005, the web site pocketsand.com^[2] was registered as a place “for those who are dedicated to pocket sand.” The site featured only a GIF of the King of the Hill scene and a link to potential merchandise about pocket sand.

On Dec 1, 2008, user jamminjelly117 uploaded a Youtube Poop video remixing Pocket Sand with myriad cultural references. As of April 2015, the video has over 7,000 views.

In 2010, several more remixes were uploaded, including “I Ran Out of Pocket Sand For 10 Minutes” by user BestofNerf, which acquired 12,000 views as of April 2015, and “Pocket Sand – Insane Edition” by user ILiekT0ast, which garnered 36,000 views by April 2015.

On August 2nd, 2012, redditor tofumac created the subreddit /r/pocketsand^[4], devoted to all things Pocket Sand related. The community of over 22,000 subscribers find and investigate uses of pocket sand in the world at large, as well as creating new remixed content of the original clip and other user created content. “Glamour pocket sand materials” such as glitter, dust, and flour are discouraged.