Nature documentaries are my thing. Its how I fall asleep sometimes. There is something so peaceful about putting on a well-crafted documentary and just letting go of the day. Try it sometime.
I have learned all about ants, spiders, rabbits, lions, and so on over the years, with David Attenborough providing his soothing tones as the close-up camera work does its thing. If I had to choose, "Nature" would be my program of choice as usually - it cuts out humans and human interaction to provide a greater focus onthe actual content. National Geographic can be interesting as well, but there are far more of those human interactions as it tends to focus on how we, as a species manage to capture wildlife and the world around us. Movies are also my thing. I have a weird love of researching the topic of a great movie, where I spend hours looking up cast profiles, Wikipedia entries, and so on, trying to fill my head with knowledge I will never use in order to better understand the media I just consumed.One kind of follows into the other, and that is just one of the ways I intake entertainment as a whole.
To better understand...
I want to focus on that statement for a moment. A couple of weeks ago, a submarine went missing in the Atlantic. I am not going to post the whole story on here as it's everywhere. Long story short, five people went down in a submarine that went missing, with news eventually surfacing that it imploded and killed all participants of the expedition. As the submarine was being searched for, the internet did its thing making assumptions, creating "hot context" in order to gain clicks for the story which was already a viral goldmine for all "journalists" and "influencers" alike. On one side, you had users on Twitter saying that these participants were stupid billionaires who paid $250,000 in order to go down and gawk at the remains of an old ship. The latter part of that is somewhat true. There was a billionaire involved who brought his son on board to adventure down below. The other side of the viral crowd were of course looking for conspiracies, claiming this was some sort of media created distraction in order to shift focus from "the bigger story, man". I think that's the narrative, but there are hundreds if not thousands of different takes.
The real story is more complicated, and far more realistic for the events that actually occurred.
The above photo is of Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who was on board the vessel that was lost. You see, when the story broke I initially read it as a literal tin can went down to the ocean with a bunch of uneducated rich men and got lost, because that is what was all over social media. Somehow, that is the first take we sort of all followed, which lead to jokes and memes. A video of the CEO of ocean gate showing off an old video game controller that was used to control the ship went viral as well, making that story seem like the ideal notion to follow that these men were idiots and deserved their fate, and rescue efforts were ridiculous as these people put themselves in this position, so why should be even care? Well, when I was trying to sleep about a night into this story I thought a lot about the Titanic, so I went and put on a documentary that was on Youtube from National Geographic titled "Draining the Oceans: Investigating the Titanic".
I'll post it here as its a free watch.
I somehow have watched this before this second viewing, as it basically followed the technology we can use today to understand the ship's demise, which is being decimated at a rapid rate by rust and bacteria. The ship is deteriorating at a rapid rate, and scientists are trying to find out why as eventually, it will completely collapse on itself at the bottom of the ocean and cease to exist as it is eaten by living organisms. The doc also goes into detail about how the ship sank, as OceanGate (yes, the company with the sub) have discovered new information on how the ship broke apart and landed at the bottom of the ocean. Its a decent documentary, if not a bit repetitive with the whole "DRAINING THE OCEAN" gimmickry that seems to play every three minutes or so.
Anyway, back on topic. Paul-Henri Nargeolet instantly was someone I recognized from other documentaries, and it turns out he is an expert of the ship, even being dubbed "Mr. Titanic" for discovering and raising precious artifacts so we, as curious humans can learn more about who the people were that boarded this vessel. It turns out he was a genius of the sea and utilized OceanGate in order to continue his own research. He is in this documentary a lot and seems to be highly passionate and careful due to the controversies that come with exploring what is essentially a grave for hundreds of people. Was he a good person? I don't think we know that, but it doesn't really matter for this topic. He was a person who knew what he was doing, and compared the risks of his expeditions to that of climbing Mount Everest or going to the moon. Nargeolet wasn't just a billionaire. He was a guy who dedicated his life to research on one subject, and seemed eager to share it with the world.
OceanGate were not some amateur business either, with a high number of expeditions already taken place during the past two decades. Stockton Rush was the CEO of the company created the submersible for exploration, and even though there is a narrative floating around that he was stupid or careless, it seems that safety was his priority (despite what you may have read or seen in sensationalized, out of context clips). OceanGate messed up by opening up these submarines for tours in order to fund their continued work down below. There is a lot wrong with that in and of itself, but at least understanding it from that angle kind of leads where we are today. There are a lot of videos on OceanGate's expeditions, including the high number of safety protocols they follow, along with many participant testimonials. When they went down, they were simply bringing aboard a few tourists with them to have a look and be a part of the research, almost as if they were renting space to those with a bankroll and enough interest. Its a controversial, if not polarizing concept, but one that is no different to space travel, or Amazon rain-forest tours, and so on. Humans have done this type of thing for centuries, so the tour thing was nothing new.
So now the morality comes into play. Its really none of my business and none of your business, or anyone's worry whatsoever of why they went into the water that day. This was a tragedy. Five people died, and all we hear about right now are comparisons to other recent tragedies, as we should be built in with some kind of gauge to determine what we should all care about. Empathy doesn't work that way, though. One life ending is tragic. People are not fucking monsters. They are human, capable of compassion and love - as well as mistakes, and we need to understand that. I don't care about what those men believed on a day to day basis, nor do I care about what some random internet user thinks about the safety of the vessel as the one James Cameron went down in was just as dangerous (if not more-so) to make his movie...that grossed over a billion dollars...and not one person seems to care about that either.
If I was a billionaire, I would be bored and my money would probably be spent exploring this world to find out more myself. That is why I love documentaries on nature and odd subjects. It feels exciting to learn something new and no gift is greater than knowledge. We lose lives every single day and every life lost is tragic. Losing someone hurts, and these people had families who loved them. That said, almost every video or interview I have seen highlighted the risks, and those risks were mostly known to the experts aboard the sub, as well as their families.
This isn't about "eating the rich". This is a loss of human life in a rare accident that just kind of happens. The story doesn't need to be altered to be interesting, and your social media profile doesn't need to share the jokes and memes, as it makes you look uneducated and cruel when you share or post them. I am not perfect. There is something about bringing humor into tragedy that is just natural for all of humanity, but there is also a line.When audiences are now turning their little jabs into vitriol, its sickening.
"THEY DESERVED TO DIE" or "WHO CARES! THEY COULD HAVE DONATED THEIR MONEY TO _____________ AND STILL BE ALIVE" are just two of the common posts coming from random users on Facebook, Twitter, and so on, and its kind of embarrassing. The full story isn't that exciting. Its just another accident, involving mistakes, which we all make. This one came at a cost of five lives, and their contributions should be the focus before assumptions, as empathy is not just about caring, but taking the time to learn the "why" behind it so we can grow and understand. The internet is a sea of accessible information, and news outlets have been so irresponsible by turning this into a witch hunt, when there is nothing really of the sort to attack. As users beg for empathy and understanding for their own problems, its ironic to see the same people laugh and shake their fists at this entire story. I want to believe there is good in all people. That is what I was taught, but sometimes I just don't know anymore. The internet is broken as we rely on TikTok and Youtube users for self-created news so we can see the world at one viewpoint, whether it is accurate or not.
Don't take this post out of context either. This isn't a tribute to the men who died. I empathize and feel terrible for what happened, but that is not what made me care enough to write this long post. I wrote it because I don't think we see how cruel we have become. How hypocritical we all can be. We are better than that, so why do we feed this machine of hate and discourse? All I can say is "hey, I remember that guy! He made a pretty cool documentary I watched and I feel I gained a new viewpoint". For that, I am grateful. If you don't know something, Google it. Do your research. There is always more to the story and it usually isn't as interesting when you learn the full thing, but before this blows over like every other tragedy, maybe one person can hopefully get that same experience I did in all of this and realize that shit kind of happens sometimes, but we don't need to try to comment if we don't understand. Tragedy shouldn't be used for attention or monetization (and that goes for the OceanGate tours as well, despite the intentions of science). Research and learn something. I think that's what the purpose of those expeditions were, after all.
Still not diving in a submarine to see a dirt floor, but alas, I did learn something during all of this. Anyone is capable of being good, but a lot more are capable of ignorance.
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