Hot Naked Chick Performs Fellatio On Great White Shark!!!

That makes no sense whatsoever...

Ok, the title is a little misleading because this hasn't actually happened...Yet. It's probably only a matter of time though as the gaggle of girlies jostling for the limelight, attempt to outdo each other with yet more stupid and pointless publicity stunts.

Disclaimer: I'm currently infected with some kind of mystery illness which is making me feel truly, truly awful and I have an awful lot on my mind, so my threshold of patience is pretty low at the moment...

Ocean Ramsey - Nobody had heard of her until she did this

If you're interested in sharks then you will have seen this, yet another video of another "hot chick who is like, so at one with sharks and just, ya know, like, so in love and respectful of them, that she just has to like, ya know, ride them and use them as underwater scooters and stuff so she can spread her conservation message to the masses..."

 

Of course the mainstream press have picked up on it, why wouldn't they, it's still a very striking image but the fact that when you watch the video, there is a pro photographer making sure to get the stills, alongside the person filming it and that the story appeared in the press all pretty much on the same day, points to this being nothing more than yet another cynical, predictable and completely unoriginal publicity stunt because someone is after a TV series. They'll probably call it "Shark Girl" or something because it's not like there's already dozens of others who've given themselves that title, along with the countless self proclaimed "Shark Men."

You know the shtick all too well, "Hey, she may be a girl but she's an ass kickin' girl 'cos she has attitude and girl power and shares this unbreakable bond with the killers of the deep and she's got a message too, she's just so cool and different."

It's all so fucking boring.

News flash, it's 2013, the age of greater equality than ever, a time when people earn respect for what they do, not merely because they have a vagina and do cool "man stuff". The Shark world is swarming with all manner of girlies elbowing each other to ensure they get their slice of the media pie and part of the routine is to find the biggest, most badass shark you can and climb all over it, capture it on film and send it to the world's media.

When Andre Hartman and Mike Rutzen (Get well soon Mike!) started doing this all those years ago, it was quite something to see, a case of two highly experienced water men trying something simply to see if it could be done, so how's that different to this? Simple, it wasn't passed off as some high brow "conservation" message and the TV went to them, not the other way around. Neither man saw it as anything other than what it was, an experiment in boundaries and courage.

Nowadays, it's just a lazy way to get some attention and nothing more and the relevance of women doing it doesn't break down any gender barriers either, it's just that you saw someone else do it and you want a piece of the limelight too and as each new strumpet appearing on the scene gets more attractive than the last, it's only a matter of time before this new breed of fame hungry charisma voids attempts to actually have full sexual intercourse with a large, dangerous shark in a bid to get pregnant with a shark-human hybrid, televise the birth then have a series dedicated to how sharkchild adapts to life in a world where he can never be fully accepted....Maybe.

 

Why am I so bothered? Well, a few reasons really, firstly that we now live in a world where actually doing something worthwhile, with merit, either social, artistic or both is now secondary to just fast-tracking your way into the limelight and because of that, most stuff, in any sphere, just isn't as good as it used to be. In other words, the bar has lowered. A lot.

Secondly, people see you doing this and then think they can do it too. That means that next time they see a shark, the chances of them trying to climb all over it are greatly increased but worse than that, it means more people with more money than sense, offering operators cash incentives to let them do something they are in no way qualified to do. In the event that person gets bitten, that's the entire shark diving industry in that location in jeopardy of being closed down and no eco-toursim means the fishermen arrive and wipe out the sharks in the area. I see that Shark Angels are offering to take complete beginners free diving in the open ocean with Oceanic Whitetip Sharks...Talk about a complete loss of perspective.

Thirdly, no you don't have a special bond with sharks. You may like them a lot but they don't like you, in fact, they couldn't give a shit about you. They may tolerate you but that's as far as it goes and I know that to all the narcissists out there that may come as a shock but I hate to break it to you, you're just not that special.

When these images are used, it paints a completely inaccurate picture of sharks, it's yet more dolphinisation and if you respected them as much as you say you do then you'd want to give them the respect of celebrating sharks for being sharks, not what you or the media think is a more palatable, conservation friendly animal. It's the same with everyone claiming that "sharks don't attack people" they do, get over it.

Also, remember this that infuriated all the sharktivists last year (over thirty years after it was taken no less)...

 We love a bit of retrospective anger 30 years too late

What's the difference? Could it be that this image is easier to forgive than all the modern day shark riders?! We know better nowadays and this is a posed image with a dead shark so it could be argued that no harm is being done to the shark because it's already dead.

There were an awful lot of frothy mouthed "OMG!! That makes me so angry I wanna cry :'( " type comments for about a week before everyone moved on to the next thing when the image resurfaced after more than thirty years gathering dust in Google Image so where's the difference? A woman is climbing all over a shark or does your moral and ethical compass depend entirely on whether the people doing this stuff are on "your team" or not?

When did everything become so vacuous and cynical? It's really not that hard to actually do something worthwhile, granted it requires work and takes longer, so is that why all this crap is so prevalent these days? Because it's easier? You get into the Shark world in one of three ways in the 21st century, you buy your way in because you are rich (easily the most common way), through shameless publicity stunts or through talent and it seems that whichever of these currencies you have available, will dictate how likely you are to succeed. If it's talent alone, good luck, you're gonna need it.

I also worry that these kind of images of women exploiting their femininity, because that's exactly what they're doing, will negatively influence the young girls who want to work with sharks one day themselves, making them think this is the way to do things. It isn't.

Women have influenced how the world sees sharks and how much we have learnt enormously, not only that, but many incredible, strong, articulate and intelligent women have actually saved sharks, as in stopped sharks being killed (!!) and they did that without relying on tits, ass and riding sharks. This blog isn't a direct assault on Ocean Ramsey, far from it, she's probably very nice, what I'm talking about is the modern day concept of shark interaction which is more and more commonly becoming associated with women, women who are so desperate to be seen as ballsy chicks who are so at one with big dangerous sharks, that they forget that the supposed "message" is about sharks, not them.

I implore all you budding shark girls out there to take your cues from some of the shark world's greatest and most influential people, Valerie Taylor, Eugenie Clark, Stefanie Brendl, Brenda Adkison, Cristina Zenato, Marie Levine and the countless others slogging away in conservation who nobody has heard of because they're too busy to invite a camera crew out to film them climbing on sharks.

Mike's take

Martin's take

Read them and take them on board, these people work with big dangerous sharks everyday and have active roles in shark conservation.

On the subject of shark girls, I have recently had a bit of correspondence with Sara Brenes and her mother Dori and I'm impressed! She's clearly a go getter, is driven, ambitious and intelligent and is definitely benefiting from the mentoring from some stellar, shark legends. Not only that but she certainly seems to have her head screwed on and long may that last, we need a new crop of inspirational young ladies on the scene!

On a slightly related note, at least in regards to shark media, I have a meeting with the TV this week after having been asked to put forward some concepts for shark related shows and series and I am very excited to do so. I have four solid concepts I have had for a while, years in one particular instance and which are all intended to put a different spin on the shark story, to show sharks as sharks, to inject some new ideas and to freshen things up a bit so fingers crossed it goes well. We'll see...

Edit: I just realised I completely forgot to include one of the main points I wanted to make in the blog and would like to thank Austin Gallagher for bringing it up and reminding me and Jillian Morris Brake for reminding me of the context in which I wanted to make the point so here goes...

Shark diving is traditionally seen as a very macho thing, despite the major leaps forward in shark study and conservation being first made by women like Eugenie Clark and Valerie Taylor. The importance of women as the movement progresses cannot be underestimated as it is they who can help smash the image of the macho, ego-driven shark diver and help replace it with a more sympathetic and respectful kind of interaction. By climbing over and riding sharks, a human is excercising a form of imperialism, of dominance, over that animal and for a human to do that to an animal like a Great White Shark is arrogant in the extreme.

It's not necessarily just the act of riding sharks that is the issue here, it's using it as a tool for self promotion and hiding it behind a veneer of "conservation" because that person is, essentially, treating you and I as though we are too stupid to see through it.