After a certain movie hit our screens in 1975, the world was overwhelmed by sharks. The relationship has not always been smooth: sharks are not ashamed to stun a couple of people, while humans slaughter sharks at a shell-fall rate and drive many species to near extinction. You know, just like humans.
Thanks to this, in recent years, the public perception of sharks seems to be flexible. Nowadays, sharks can be the stars of Twitter celebrities, children’s entertainment, and even Super Bowl halftime shows. And thanks to OCR, a nonprofit marine research team that tracks and monitors marine life in real-time, you can now chat with them on your smartphone. Nat, a self-described “shark obsessed” Twitter user, saw himself go viral this week when he uploaded some screen grabs from OCRchir’s Shark Tracker app. But it wasn’t just his sharks that caught his eye – it was a fan comment.
“He’s in the Bermuda Triangle,” wrote one early shark-keeper, Lexie, an adult tiger shark weighing 120 kilograms (2,263 pounds), 2.7 meters long (8.86 feet), “the kids went home.”
“Where are you going Le Xi girl!” Another comment, But Lexie is not the only underwater celebrity, and other tweeters soon made their own discoveries from the app – like Dr. Brent:
“Congratulations to the Queen,” one user wrote to Young Animal Seal. “It’s okay with his medical license, Dr. Brent,” commented another fan. One well-wisher wrote, “Travel safely, eat [fish] and remember that no white simple shark will let you down”.
And it seems that after all the damage done by the Javanese; people finally started forgiving the sharks, with more than one man offering to cover the pitcher in the event of an attack. “If Martha kills me, don’t sue her,” Linnéa B wrote. “She wanted me to slip.”
After initially a wave of popularity, commentators have raised some concerns after noticing OCRC’s links to Sea World, the controversial theme park chain that has come under intense criticism for its treatment of orchards and other marine life. Knut explains, “I’ve seen some people say that this app is powered by She * World is an app driven upset for it.” Their annual report is also available on their website.
