Language misunderstanding causes anger from Japanese TikTok users over “beached whale shark”

Paying attention is important, both online and in English class.

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the world, and are popular for tourists to swim with due to their slow-moving and docile nature.

Even though they are not native to Japanese waters, they’re very popular, probably due to many aquariums in the country featuring the notoriously-difficult-to-maintain animal, most famously the Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa.

Which is likely why, when one Australian posted a video of themself on TikTok with a whale shark, Japanese netizens were a little too quick to judge: (reposted here on Twitter by @pianoATjapan)

▼ The comments are very upset at seeing the “abuse” in the image.
Can you see what’s really wrong, though? (Translation below)

“I couldn’t help but laugh at all these comments screaming ‘Abuse! Abuse!’ not knowing that it’s an incredibly well-made sand sculpture of a whale shark.”

Yup, that’s right! If you click on the images above, you can see the screenshot of the video clearly having the caption “Amazing sand sculpture.”

However, since the Japanese commenters either couldn’t read the English or zoomed past it, they ended up making comments like this:

“Stop flicking sand on it and playing around and put it back in the water. If you can’t do it yourself, then how about you call the police or contact the coast guard? If their number is on the Internet then I’d urge you to call them and save it.”

“So sad, put it back in the ocean….”

“Abuse. Pathetic.”

“Abuse buttom (press).”

Others were quick to point out that if the commenters had actually watched the video, then they probably should have clearly seen that it wasn’t a real whale shark. And even if they didn’t know the word “sculpture,” the word “sand” is right there too, which is pretty common in Japan with the popularity of some amazing sand art.

It’s just a classic case of anger overriding reason!

I think we can all learn two things from this: one, jumping to conclusions is never a good idea and will make you look silly on the Internet. And two, the best use for TikTok isn’t whale shark videos, but incredible One Piece papercraft videos instead.

Source: Twitter/@pianoATjapan via My Game News Flash
Top image: Pakutaso
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