How ocean myths and conspiracies are flooding the internet

Conspiracies submerged in the deep sea reached their peak with the implosion of the Titanic submarine. Today, with the wreckage of the maritime tragedy still recovering, and sea levels rising at a frantic pace, Internet users are surfing the web to project increasingly unrealistic and absurd narratives about dramas played out and/or staged in the ocean.

According to Dazed, viral reports of killer whales sinking yachts in the Atlantic are already a ‘fact’ that the Reddit conspiracy community links to theories of alien wreckage found on the seabed, while others believe it is the result of U.S. military training. ‘On an anarcho-communist meme page, there is an image of two killer whales circling the submarine, and another comparing the OceanGate rescue efforts to the capsized migrant ship off the coast of Greece.’

The memeification of the ocean seems to be a constant that can now be followed by scrolling through social feeds; as a movement that generates an extreme folklore that does not cease to be part of this strange reality that seems to be framed in permanent fiction. At the end of the day, underlying all these theories and conspiracies is the creation of alternative realities, as well as the collective desire to create myths with which to escape that reality.

As the polar ice melts and the planet warms, memes proliferate about stories of mass exodus, resembling a Simpsons episode highlight, sea beast attacks and a future life at the bottom of the sea. Be that as it may, the only real thing among all this is the climate emergency.