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PhelpsShark.JPG

'Phelps vs. Shark' Continues The Discovery Channel's Streak Of Straight Up Lying To Us

By Emily Cutler | Social Media | July 24, 2017 |

By Emily Cutler | Social Media | July 24, 2017 |


Oh, it was the Great White. Of course it was the Great White.

But also, of course, as with other instances of the Discovery Channel blatantly lying to us, no one was upset that Phelps lost to a shark. What everyone was super pissed about was the terrible CGI used to have Phelps digitally “race” the Great White.


And they were super pissed that The Discovery Channel didn’t disclose the simulated nature of the race until 57 minutes into the program.

But once that was all over, literally no one was pissed that Phelps lost to a shark because of course he did.

And I guess maybe some of the prep work going into the fake race was worth it.



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But most mostly, I don’t understand why we keep insisting that animals engage in competition with us when they clearly don’t understand what is going on. Maybe that Great White would have concentrated harder had he known this one was timed. Did he even know he was racing? Because that’s the first rule of races. And even when shows do actually race the animal next to the athlete, it’s pretty clear the animal is just fucking around. So why do humans keep doing this? Why do we subject ourselves to this humiliation when science can already tell us that you’re no faster than your cat?

Because we’ve dominated too easily. We’re at the top of the food chain, and if we can’t beat an animal in a foot race, we’ll just build a car to outrun them. We can’t really find anything that animals can do better. We’ve gotten too cocky. Which is why for Discovery Channel’s next man vs beast challenge, I suggest they go in a slightly different direction. Lochte vs. Pigeon: The Basic Arithmetic Challenge.