A Brief History of Snow Dicks

When a blizzard strikes, there are those who cower in their homes with canned foods, and those who make gigantic penises out of snow.

by Peter Lawrence Kane

January 28, 2015, 10:41pm

Earlier this week the upper right corner of the United States lost its shit as a "crippling, potentially historic" blizzard headed toward the Northeast. While the national media covered that underwhelming storm with a gusto previously reserved for missing airliners and Middle Eastern crises, just a week earlier a less publicized—but perhaps equally important—snow event occurred in Lubbock, Texas.

It doesn't snow very much in Lubbock, so when a thin blanket of the white powder covered the Texas Tech University campus, it was reassuring to see students respond, as if by instinct, in the only way students should when their campus is covered in a light dusting—by building a massive snow penis at a highly visible spot on campus. It lasted for about a day before the university bulldozed it.

The video is pretty hilarious. The driver of that backhoe shows real determination. He doesn't just topple it; he lowers the plow straight down and then steamrolls the nuts for good measure. Why not seed that patch of earth with road salt to make sure no snow phalluses ever grow there again?

Though the mighty womb broom is gone, its legacy lives on in Twitter form at @TechSnowDick. I spoke to the guy behind it, a sophomore bio major who was kind enough to DM me from class. According to him, "none of the students complained, at least while we were making it. Most students would walk by and take a picture and laugh."

Freezing my balls off out here. Literally, they're gone.

— Texas Tech Snow Dick (@TechSnowDick)January 24, 2015

There was nothing political about it, either, he said. "The snow dick was not meant to be disrespectful to anyone. It was just for fun."

Of course it was meant to be fun—when life gives you a blizzard, you make a dick. Snow rods belong to a venerable tradition of phallic, site-specific sculpture. What makes a better Instagram post than a little snow beej, a throbbing snow erection, or a snow cock that's peeing out little snowflakes?

Below is a brief roundup of some of the best examples of frozen dicks that exist online. Take note, and try to top them next time it snows in your town.