Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Shark Chick - curiouser and curiouser!


Wow wow wow!

But first.
Andrew Scerbo feels slighted.
As per my reply here, apologies. I thought that in my last post, it was clear that I was linking to this thread containing the picture - but obviously, this has led to confusion which I regret. It is Andrew who has first pointed out the discrepancies in the posted picture of the Shark bite, and all credit for that belongs to him alone.

Anyway.
I've woken up to a myriad of e-mails, the story keeps evolving, and this is what I read.
  • On Sunday = before  the pic was outed as being a fake, the privileged Shark chick states.
    Clean bite refers to quote a minor injury relatively speaking and anyone who knows me in person knows I am barely 5foot3 and any injury does look mammoth.
    Meaning that the picture is legit, but that the injury looks bigger than it is.
  • Yesterday = after questions are being asked, she states.
    A picture was used that I posted to Instagram with no caption and no explanation.
    The caption and explanation being...?
  • On her website, under Corrections and Retractions, this is what she had posted. The page is currently "in maintenance" - let's see if afterwards, even that statement will be corrected and retracted! :)
    Pictures of alleged injuries vary site to site and may have not been vetted by Elissa. 
    No they don't vary. There is only one. So, has it been vetted, or not?
  • Then Andrew notices that several and not only two pairs of staples are identical.
  • Then David reports that more than 80% of her Twitter followers are fake.
I'm done with this.
By now it should be clear to everybody that this is, for lack of a better word, highly bizarre. That Corrections and Retractions link on her website alone (read it when it's back up!) is a red flag for pathological behavior - and I can certainly leave it at that.

Just this.
These things don't happen in isolation, or like I said a while ago.
The Heroes and heroines, warriors, whisperers, experts, specialists and whatnot are all legit if the moniker is being assigned by others - but when it is self promotion and really nothing more than branding, it becomes irritating.
Does sharktivism really need its own version of the Kardashians and the associated frothy adulation and gossip? Maybe – but like in real life, I don’t like it one bit!
Think about it please.
We really got to stop adulating those self promoting frauds, narcissists and media whores.
Seriously!

PS:



And here.
I don't seek out the spotlight like a number of other scientists
Hahahahahaha 

PPS
the take home message for today is that the old eco-tactic of fabricating events to boost your cause is no longer viable

PPPS: David as always (well, mostly...) brilliant
It's all very well rounding on Elissa, getting the pitchforks and flaming torches out but maybe we might want to start looking at the more uncomfortable truths, that the people looked upon as bastions of Shark Conservation because they ride sharks ("for the sharks"), wear bikinis ("for the sharks"), make crappy TV ("for the sharks"), get you to donate your hard earned money to their projects which don't actually do anything ("for the sharks") or simply spend all their time on Facebook telling you how brilliant they are ("for the sharks") aren't actually doing it "for the sharks," at all but instead, are doing it solely for themselves and that these narcissists are merely creating more narcissists who do nothing other than push their brand at people who believe they are helping by supporting them in doing so?
PPPPS: Christine Haines
Last summer I joined the nosharkcull movement because I was appalled that sharks were being killed and maligned for being sharks.
Over the course of the trial I learned alot about the politics in environmental groups. And it's not nice. I was shocked to find that these groups were just as hypocritical as the wrongs they were fighting. They used misinformation, sex, phsychic connections and other questionable practises with as much abandon as the wrong they were fighting. I was sure that the tactics used by some people and groups were not right. I have unliked and unfollowed some organisations because I think that while the cause is right the methods were wrong and only served to reinforce the stereotype of the cosmic, tree hugging, hippie type of activist that would stop at nothing (including deliberate false and misleading information). I want a group whose ideals agree with mine and who deals in scientific fact. My illusions were shattered but at least I'm wiser.
P5S: Have you seen this?
Now she is a bloody "PETA Celebrity" = more fucking branding even whilst trying to make that totally insincere retraction?

NO NO NO NO NO!
There's only ONE (1) Shark celebrity in Australia, and her name is Valerie Taylor - this for 50 years of pioneering diving with Sharks, for countless equally pioneering Shark documentaries, for having been instrumental in having the Cod Hole, the Gray Nurse, the GWS, Ningaloo protected.
Not the home schooled brat that keeps re-editing the footage daddy took of her whilst they were vacationing in the Bahamas. Definitely not this forgettable calculating self-obsessed chick that has ZERO ACHIEVEMENTS apart from volunteering on a SSCS boat like dozens upon dozens of other volunteers.

GO AWAY!

5 comments:

Vee said...

She is a disgrace for all trying hard to get something done for sharks ! Shark conservation does not need people like that. A pity many are being put in the same category of lunatics, because some are really trying their best and deserve better than this kind of exposure in newspapers !

DaShark said...

Hahahahaha...

Remember your comment on the old post I linked?
Still think simply "not friending them" will work?

Anyway, this is but a particularly glaring, and frankly quite sad example of somebody with obvious issues and an agenda of fame - which judging by the quite astounding bulk of self promoting media she has so far generated might be more slick and calculating than is being generally assumed!

But in this particular case, Sursara is merely one more Johnny-come-lately copycat.
The real problem are all those narcissist "Shark personalities" that pollute the media with images & branding of themselves whilst really achieving nothing on the ground, and the adulation that is being heaped upon them.
Yes I'm talking about the likes of the 2 Stewarts, Andersen & Co, ABC4, Rochat, Thomas and all those adolescent chicks that are being pushed along by their stage moms and dads etc etc.

Compare that to the legions of nameless people who are the ones actually doing the heavy lifting - not because of the perceived fame and riches but because they get their satisfaction in achieving something tangible, and you know where I'm going with this.

"We" really got to stop providing a platform for that shit and start judging those folks by their actual track record and not by their own propaganda.

Anyway, this has been a good exercise - the next dozen copycats will have to think hard b4 trying to pull off another cheap stunt like this.

Lurker said...

Hey, since when did Stephen Hawking start doing VO work for Channel 5 News Online?

Too soon?

Grumpy Bastardo said...

I take great umbrage at the fact David Shiffman is cribbing the same industry shark quotes I used back in 2003.

Back then I was accused of being an out of touch asshole for my remarks.

Today Shiffman is considered as some sort of prescient shark seer...get your own quotes Sir!

Mine were hard fought with years of observation and a peer review process that involved this hallowed blog;)

DaShark said...

Aaaah but back then, David was a junior blogger on your blog - so this is merely the pupil emulating the master!

Good to see that much of what we fought for is now permeating the mainstream - isn't that why we posted it in the first place?