{"id":108417805,"date":"2023-03-15T12:31:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T12:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=108417805"},"modified":"2023-03-15T12:31:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T12:31:04","slug":"did-you-want-to-be-a-marine-biologist-when-you-grew-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=108417805","title":{"rendered":"Did You Want To Be A Marine Biologist When You Grew Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.” Herman Melville, ‘Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale’<\/h2>

You know how people title essays something cheeky like this, but it\u2019s secretly about whether or not you have a [pseudoscientific thing] that leads to [random coincidence] and then you [have a cool icebreaker for parties]? About four paragraphs down, Malcolm Gladwell kicks in the doors with some blow-your-mind quasi-epiphany like \u201cand that\u2019s why every President is left-handed\u201d or \u201cand that\u2019s why every basketball player is Nigerian?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>

Well, I\u2019m not Malcolm Gladwell, and not just because I don\u2019t have six-figure book advances or my name on the Epstein flight logs<\/a>. I genuinely want to know. <\/p>

Did you want to be a marine biologist when you grew up? <\/p>

It felt like everyone when I was a kid, everyone in TV shows and movies and a lot of people in my elementary schools wanted to be a marine biologist. It feels<\/em> like a fallback job 10-year-old me would\u2019ve had if \u201cstarting guard for the Chicago Bulls\u201d didn\u2019t work out. It\u2019s definitely a job I have thought to give to fictional characters when I want them to have a job that\u2019s shorthand for \u201ccool person.\u201d <\/p>

\"File:Swirling<\/figure>

Not to become a parody of myself, but I think Ashley (Schuyler Fisk\u2019s character from Orange County<\/em> (2002)<\/em>) wanted to be a marine biologist. Before you go jumping to conclusions, though, my love for <\/a>Orange County (2002)<\/a><\/em> did not include a 13-year-old crush on Schuyler Fisk. Fine performer, heard she had a singer-songwriter career. But this isn\u2019t me working out some \u201cfirst crush\u201d thing. I think everyone in pop culture from like 1990-2006 wanted to be a marine biologist. <\/p>

\"File:Lophius<\/figure>

Did you want to be a marine biologist? What would you study? It\u2019s between rivers and oceans for me. My love for lakes notwithstanding<\/a>. I grew up on a river, and rivers are just so cool. Lotta bugs, though. Lotta mosquito bites come with studying rivers, I\u2019d imagine. Swamps, tributaries, the like. <\/p>

\"File:Arapaima<\/figure>

The other big problem with rivers is persistent murkiness. Listen, I really love rivers, but the murkiness would bum me out after a while. That\u2019s part of why lakes got eliminated so quickly. <\/p>

\"File:Larger<\/figure>

Anyway, that\u2019s a tangent: turns out I\u2019m not the only person who thinks everyone wanted to be a marine biologist. Here\u2019s a Reddit thread from r\/AskHistorians<\/a> where the OP wonders this same thing. A lot of people in the comments claim their parents were fans of Jacques Cousteau or that Free Willy<\/em> inspired them. Totally believable! Anecdotal, but believable!<\/p>

\"File:Humpback<\/figure>

The moderator scolds at r\/AskHistorians have some interesting theories, too, like \u201cmarine biologist is gender neutral if stereotypes are science = boys and animals = girls,\u201d and \u201cmarine biologist sounds like a cool job.\u201d Which, sure and yes, respectively. I\u2019m being reductive, of course, there is some interesting stuff in there. Marine biologists make for great subjects elementary school-level picture books, for instance (which this article is only barely above that reading level). If it\u2019s a book both boys and girls are clamoring to check out, you\u2019re going to order more of them. They also mention \u201ckids thought marine biologists were cool,\u201d which is different from \u201cmarine biologist sounds like a cool job,\u201d even though both headers strongly hint at a correlation between \u201cmarine biologist\u201d and \u201ccool.\u201d<\/p>

\"File:Scientists<\/figure>

Let me know if you wanted to be a marine biologist when you grew up. Or if you wanna go kayaking sometime. Or if you\u2019ve ever been on a whale watching cruise and actually seen whales. Or if you\u2019re Boris Diaw. <\/p>

Sorry you got an email, <\/p>

Chris<\/p>

Thanks for reading shipwrecked sailor! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.<\/p><\/div>

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