Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: Difference between revisions

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(Cool as they are, there are still ways to [[Frickin' Laser Beams|enhance]] [[Deep Blue Sea|them]].)
(Cool as they are, there are still ways to [[Frickin' Laser Beams|enhance]] [[Deep Blue Sea|them]].)


In [[Real Life]], it's a little different. Like most predators, [[Not Evil, Just Misunderstood|they're misunderstood]] and [[Animal Stereotypes|not mindless killing machines]]. There are only a few species who have a reputation for attacking humans unprovoked (in fact, basically four species, and three will leave you alone when they taste you and realize you're not their usual food -- stay out of [[wikipedia:Bull shark|bull shark]] territory, and ''especially'' open water with [[wikipedia:Oceanic whitetip shark|Whitetip Sharks]]), and recent studies of their behavior have shown many shark species to be very intelligent, social, curious, and even playful. Others are too small to be terribly frightening, avoid humans, or have teeth which are about as sharp as sandpaper and feed exclusively on things too small to see. Also, a shark will rarely be interested in a boat or raft provided nobody is throwing fish overboard. Ironically, the ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'' depiction of a Great White sinking small boats has some grounding in truth: Great Whites tend to 'test bite' things to determine if they're food...kinda like how infants try and eat everything they find. They are attracted to the appearance of their prey (a surfer swimming out with arms and legs in the water around the board looks like a seal) or blood. Their remarkably aquatic forms and resistance to disease are of great interest to science. [[Rule of Cool|Don't expect to see this come up in fiction, though.]] Also, like every other fish in the world, they are completely helpless and practically immobile on land, which for all that sharks are misunderstood and fascinating creatures is probably a mercy...
In [[Real Life]], it's a little different. Like most predators, [[Not Evil, Just Misunderstood|they're misunderstood]] and [[Animal Stereotypes|not mindless killing machines]]. There are only a few species who have a reputation for attacking humans unprovoked (in fact, basically four species, and three will leave you alone when they taste you and realize you're not their usual food - stay out of [[wikipedia:Bull shark|bull shark]] territory, and ''especially'' open water with [[wikipedia:Oceanic whitetip shark|Whitetip Sharks]]), and recent studies of their behavior have shown many shark species to be very intelligent, social, curious, and even playful. Others are too small to be terribly frightening, avoid humans, or have teeth which are about as sharp as sandpaper and feed exclusively on things too small to see. Also, a shark will rarely be interested in a boat or raft provided nobody is throwing fish overboard. Ironically, the ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'' depiction of a Great White sinking small boats has some grounding in truth: Great Whites tend to 'test bite' things to determine if they're food... kinda like how infants try and eat everything they find. They are attracted to the appearance of their prey (a surfer swimming out with arms and legs in the water around the board looks like a seal) or blood. The bad reputation of sharks is not completely erroneous, but it's based mostly on most observed sharks being already attracted to food thrown overboard and on a variety of strange objects often found in a caught shark's stomach. Like many other large predators (such as [[Everything's Worse with Bears|bears]]), some sharks are prone to feeding frenzy - short periods of intense eating that ends in long sated inactivity. Thus, a very hungry shark may indeed indiscriminately bite and even swallow just about anything that fits in its mouth, up to and including an old tire, and later the same shark may be so overfed it will completely ignore a bleeding helplessly splashing swimmer in plain sight, or more conveniently sized fish, for that matter. This gave them reputation of both all-devouring ''and'' acting incomprehensibly erratic.

Their remarkably aquatic forms and resistance to disease are of great interest to science. [[Rule of Cool|Don't expect to see this come up in fiction, though.]] Also, like every other fish in the world, they are completely helpless and practically immobile on land, which for all that sharks are misunderstood and fascinating creatures is probably a mercy...


[[Megalodon]] is a recently popular prehistoric variant. [[Shark Man]] is a subtrope, caused by crossing them with humans into bipedal land monsters. See [[Sea Monster]] for other scary things in the ocean. You can relax if there are [[Heroic Dolphin|Heroic Dolphins]], though. See [[Never Smile At a Crocodile]] for the rivers-and-lakes variant. Contrast [[Shamu Fu]], the one situation where things may legitimately get ''better'' when you add a shark. See also [[Jump the Shark]], in which this trope proved very true for the trope namer, and not in a fictional context.
[[Megalodon]] is a recently popular prehistoric variant. [[Shark Man]] is a subtrope, caused by crossing them with humans into bipedal land monsters. See [[Sea Monster]] for other scary things in the ocean. You can relax if there are [[Heroic Dolphin|Heroic Dolphins]], though. See [[Never Smile At a Crocodile]] for the rivers-and-lakes variant. Contrast [[Shamu Fu]], the one situation where things may legitimately get ''better'' when you add a shark. See also [[Jump the Shark]], in which this trope proved very true for the trope namer, and not in a fictional context.
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== Advertising ==
== Advertising ==
* Sharks go from even worse to hilarious in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOgJnFQFeFE this ad] for Nicorette lozenges.
* Sharks go from even worse to hilarious in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOgJnFQFeFE this ad] for Nicorette lozenges.
* There's also a Snickers Peanut Butter Squared [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpyyXTywNek commercial].
* There's also this [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=video&cd=1&ved=0CEcQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6e0Gsn4khss&rct=j&q=snickers%20peanut%20butter&ei=O_5GTdrzI8OBlAe2x5TrDw&usg=AFQjCNF9t2KgAuNkYlPD0YBo1jqMCFK5hA&cad=rja Snickers Peanut Butter Squared] commercial.




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* The ''[[Hero Clix]]'' miniatures game set of Arkham Asylum had a figure of Black Manta, who while being a decent playing piece, was pushed into the category of awesome by having his sculpt feature him surfing on the head of a shark with frikkin' laser beam on it's head.
* The ''[[Hero Clix]]'' miniatures game set of Arkham Asylum had a figure of Black Manta, who while being a decent playing piece, was pushed into the category of awesome by having his sculpt feature him surfing on the head of a shark with frikkin' laser beam on it's head.
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''
** The monster called the Bulette... better known as the "land shark". (Complete with fin cutting through the surface of the ''ground'' as it burrows toward you...)
** The monster called the Bulette... better known as the "land shark". (Complete with [[Worm Sign|fin cutting through the surface]] of the ''ground'' as it burrows toward you...)
** ''D&D'' also has sharks that live in acid and lava. Because even when you're drowning in acid or lava, sometimes it's just too easy. The monster entry for the Acid Shark sums it up pretty well: "What's worse than a pit full of acid? A pit full of acid with a shark in it."
** ''D&D'' also has sharks that live in acid and lava. Because even when you're drowning in acid or lava, sometimes it's just too easy. The monster entry for the Acid Shark sums it up pretty well: "What's worse than a pit full of acid? A pit full of acid with a shark in it."
** It also has regular sharks, the megalodon (giant prehistoric shark) and weresharks as well as Sekolah, the sahuagin deity in the form of a giant shark.
** It also has regular sharks, the megalodon (giant prehistoric shark) and weresharks as well as Sekolah, the sahuagin deity in the form of a giant shark.
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* Ragged tooth sharks bear live young... which eat each other while still in their mother's womb. Out of the original 15 fetuses, only two generally survive until birth, and even that is only because the womb is split in two sections.
* Ragged tooth sharks bear live young... which eat each other while still in their mother's womb. Out of the original 15 fetuses, only two generally survive until birth, and even that is only because the womb is split in two sections.
* There is a certain South African tourist spot where you can ''feed great whites by hand'' from a boat. [[Nightmare Fetishist|They act like big, aquatic, tooth-filled puppies!]]
* There is a certain South African tourist spot where you can ''feed great whites by hand'' from a boat. [[Nightmare Fetishist|They act like big, aquatic, tooth-filled puppies!]]
* The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as Cracked.com tells us in its "[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html Top 6 Real Islands Way More Terrifying than the One on] ''[[Lost]]''" article, is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|a great big patch of garbage floating in the Pacific]], formed from garbage that gets into the ocean and pushed by currents to this one spot. The writer starts with how this means that fish from there are probably eating more plastic than plankton. Which means that if you eat fish from there, you're probably eating plastic, too. He then goes on to describe what would probably happen if you stepped on the island, involving falling through and either being buried by garbage that fills in the hole, or being left to tread water as the sharks circle. (Still not sure why that places it above the Ilha de Queimada Grande, Ranree Island, or even the Izu Islands, which sounds like something out of the old ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' series. But hey, subjectivity.)
* The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as Cracked.com tells us in its "[http://www.cracked.com/article_17379_6-real-islands-way-more-terrifying-than-one-on-lost.html Top 6 Real Islands Way More Terrifying than the One on] ''[[Lost]]''" article, is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|a great big patch of garbage floating in the Pacific]], formed from garbage that gets into the ocean and pushed by currents to this one spot. The writer starts with how this means that fish from there are probably eating more plastic than plankton. He then goes on to describe what would probably happen if you stepped on the island, involving falling through and either being buried by garbage that fills in the hole, or being left to tread water as the sharks circle. (Still not sure why that places it above the Ilha de Queimada Grande, Ranree Island, or even the Izu Islands, which sounds like something out of the old ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' series. But hey, subjectivity.)
{{quote| ''Oh, right, also there are sharks. We should've opened with that before we told you to go stand on the garbage island.''}}
{{quote| ''Oh, right, also there are sharks. We should've opened with that before we told you to go stand on the garbage island.''}}
* [http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=45960 Shark Knife]. That is all.
* [http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=45960 Shark Knife]. That is all.
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