The Twitter World’s Reactions to Michael Phelps Racing a Fake Shark
People were excited on Sunday night, looking forward to seeing Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps race a great white shark. Unfortunately, the event didn’t pan out quite the way eager viewers expected.
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For Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, the 23-time gold medalist was due to race a great white in the feature “Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White.” Turns out, this “shark” was actually just a computer-generated image — and folks weren’t happy.
Not only that, but it wasn’t until 57 minutes into the hour-long program that viewers caught wind of the shark stimulation, when featured ecologist Tristan Gutteridge said, “Clearly, we can’t put Michael in one lane and a white shark on the far lane. We’re gonna have to do a simulation.”
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Completing the race in 36.1 seconds, the “shark” ended up beating Phelps, who had a time of 38.1 seconds. But people weren’t upset by the outcome; they were disappointed that the shark was a fraud. While Discovery successfully drummed up anticipation for Shark Week for the 30th year in the week’s history, avid viewers felt betrayed.
Unsurprisingly, they took to Twitter to voice their disappointment. Here are some of the responses:
Me pretending to be ok with Michael Phelps not racing a real shark pic.twitter.com/QnCF98NfBB
— Gabi Palamone (@Yo_Gabi_Gabi__) July 24, 2017
Michael Phelps not PHYSICALLY racing a shark but still having a tv special is equal to having a meeting when it coulda been an email :/
— MacKenzie Huneke (@Huenke) July 24, 2017
Kind of feel like we could’ve built some shark-cage style lanes and really pit the two against each other. Need to shoot higher next year
— Alyssa Lang (@AlyssaLang) July 24, 2017
When Michael Phelps said he was gonna race a shark this is how I pictured it happening #SharkWeek pic.twitter.com/GiEfJssNhL
— Ryan Homler (@RHomler) July 24, 2017
When u realize Phelps isn’t actually racing side by side with a great white shark… #SharkWeek pic.twitter.com/popKv38jba
— Michael Pezzetta (@mpezzetta13) July 24, 2017
Call me crazy but I thought they were gonna put Phelps up against a real shark not a simulation. I feel robbed. #SharkWeek #PhelpsVsShark pic.twitter.com/XgdEphkl6m
— Meg Conley (@MegDownSouth) July 24, 2017
Michael Phelps race against a computer generated shark will go down as one of TV’s most hyped flops. #gullibleTVviewers
— PhantomAcct (@phantomacct) July 24, 2017
I love Shark Week, but I feel cheated with that Michael Phelps “race” against a shark. I wanted to see him try to outswim it for real. pic.twitter.com/xU5d4tSukW
— BillySS (@BillySS) July 24, 2017
