Shock Horror Metrics

In the wake of a million gormless posts about sharks on the Internet, I am feeling ‘conflicted'. Call it a sense of emotional 'entanglement’ at all the contradictory outpourings from shark huggers and haters.

I might need to test the many theories, and views, about what constitutes a shark 'attack'. Perhaps I should loiter for a long time around a random person in the street with my scary laptop (the pen is after all mightier than the sword, right?), then pretend to ‘attack’. I might spin around, jump and down, and then run away from the ‘encounter’ with my (metaphoric and not very shark-like) tail between my legs.

How my ‘victim’ would analyse my innocent behaviour, especially if they had klapped me during our brief ‘contact’, is no longer moot. Memes might abound about how the mugger was mugged, and that Sharks rarely make it into finals.

There has so much puerile nonsense being bandied about after Mick Fanning's ‘romantic tryst’ with a boisterous young great white, fact has blurred with fiction. And that’s on both sides of the debate.

The levels of shrill vapidity to which many people have stooped provide ample incentive to chuck in the towel and set sail for a deserted island. I'd rather risk ‘rubbing shoulders’ with a great white there than get caught in this histrionic feeding frenzy.

The only wave in the final. Fanning & Wilson shared the bucks and points. Photo WSL / Cestari

The irony of course is that all of us in the media were victim to the hype, and guilty of amplifying it. Bad news sells newspapers. Shark ... er … 'incidents' ... trigger rapid spikes in Internet traffic. But the public have a right to know, right? If your metric is the instant interest by random websites with previously no concern for sharks or surfing, then yes.

The irony of course is that all of us in the media were victim to the hype, and guilty of amplifying it. Bad news sells newspapers. Shark ... er … 'incidents' ... trigger rapid spikes in Internet traffic. But the public have a right to know, right? If your metric is the instant interest by random websites with previously no concern for sharks or surfing, then yes.

The media cried foul when brands cynically exploited, they allege, the situation with prominent product placement during Julian Wilson and Mick’s press conference after the drama. Is this the same media milking the drama for all its worth? One overseas site has had more than TWENTY posts about the shark ‘moment’. Really? Overkill. A bit. You think?

The media areas at the JBay Open had exploded with chaos after stunned silence marked the bizarre live moment. It was after all the world's most high profile TV broadcast of a shark-human 'get-together'. Still doesn’t sound right. Scuffle? Entanglement? Dalliance? Contact? Fracas? Scrap? Clash? Standoff? Meet and greet? How about: board meeting with man in grey suit on long leash?

One surf media representative told me he watched in stereo: live on TV, and live out the window. As journalists scrambled, Web geeks geeked, and media spokespeople spoke the first words in a speaking marathon, he quietly walked outside. As a surfer, it left him shaken and emotional, and despite his job, he could not bring himself to join the hype.

Outside, he smoked a couple of ciggies, ruminating the myriad ramifications of the whole thing. Inside the media centre, panicked posting ensued as everyone tried to out-scoop each other. That rabid jostle of journos with mics and cords, cameras and chaos is no longer confined to the physical presence of the next big story outside a courthouse, next to a stadium or at the scene of a bank robbery. That chaos is digitally produced now - it's virtual.

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At last glance, the WSL video on the shark had surpassed 20 million views on Youtube, and keeps climbing. Inertia Managing Editor Alexander Haro has cynically pointed out: "I’d wager dollars to donuts that someone somewhere deep within the World Surf League offices is silently celebrating". He said that CEO Paul Speaker and big bucks funder Dirk Ziff (real name) were "telepathically high-fiving" after a moment of "Television Gold".

Speaker was quick to downplay these perceptions. "We do want to emphasize that we respect sharks as remarkable animals. Our sport’s playing field is the ocean and the WSL is an advocate of healthy oceans. Apex predators, like sharks, are a part of any healthy ecosystem and we very much understand that our events take place in their home."

Well said Paul. Well done PR consultant.

Even Charlize Theron auditioned for a role in the Theatre of the Absurd. On the Jimmy Kimmel show her mind was jolted by a childhood memory of swimming at Jeffreys Bay and regularly getting whistled out the sea by lifeguards. Afterwards, she would "watch the sharks go by". And on the six hour journey home? They told stories about shark attacks of course.

I think her memory may be a little hazy. Google Maps says the trip to Benoni from JBay takes 11 hours and 13 minutes.

A comment on her YouTube interview was more specific: "What whistles? What lifeguards? JBay only got our first life guard system in the 1990s. I've lived in JBay my whole life, as have my parents. Ask any local from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. She's totally milking this and I think she made every word up, in my opinion at least. Most species of sharks don't even swim in schools. Hollywood is so lame."

Either way, somewhere deep in a metaphoric ocean, another man in a grey suit flashes a gold tooth while counting his bucks.

This won’t be the first time for both kinds of sharks. Nor will it be the last.