Nia'wen'ki'wahi. After being gaslit the other day extra hard by colonizers... This shady tea you brewed here was greatly appreciated. The quote by Adams was especially painfully on point. As not only are we ignored outright... But we are erased to such a degree that the majority of people don't even believe that we still exist. And not existing is an arduous existence. A wonderful video, as always.
the quote made me feel bittersweet. it can be hard to feel positively about white people coming to realizations like adams did, when indigenous people have been speaking on this knowledge for centuries.
Fun fact: I'm a language teacher in Brazil and I've never seen any classes on yoruba. There's fucking german and greek classes,but not a language where many terms we use daily come from, that many countries speak and that many communities in Brazil speak.
Thinking about Adams just makes me cry. I was gonna say something pithy about comedians speaking truth to power, but Douglas was so, so much more than a comedian. There are some people, rare people that because of their creativity fundamentally change the world. Perhaps only the slightest bit, but change they do. That's Adams. He is missed so much, we needed more of him. However, even though he is no longer here, he left the world changed. Oh, and listening to Adams quotes by anyone other than him or Stephen Fry makes me feel weird :)
I saw the trailer for that movie and decided it looked too boring for me to bother with. Your comparison makes me happy I didn't waste my time with it.
Super spoopy! I was chilled to my invertebrae. Hey Maggie, I saw you in a commercial recently! It was just a commonplace ad, perhaps for a cleaning agent (I forget), but it was cool to see you getting a gig!!
@@bbrbbr-on2gd She has near human intelligence, the ability to regenerate, can breath water and swim super well, plus that ink thing!? She's such a Mary Suephalapod.
It's worth noting that Basque fishing communities may have made it to North America a century or so before 1492 by tracking cod schools across the North Atlantic.
@@nathaniellindner313 Not necessarily related to tracking things underwater, but it's interesting and relates to contact between humans in the Americas with the rest of the world and is fascinating and not well known, so here goes: So there's evidence that there were Japanese people who probably made it to North America a little bit before Europeans did, but not on purpose (and I mean even less on purpose than Christobal Colon). During Japan's self-isolation period, there was some legislation that basically made sure that ships would easily break should they venture too far away from the island, to stop people from going away and coming back and to maintain the isolation. Most of the time this just limited ships to near the coast where they functioned fine, doing fishing and stuff, but occasionally there would be big storms that would break those ships, making them rudderless and generally out of control. Sometimes, though, they did survive that ordeal without sinking. Some of these ships, it seems, were then brought by ocean currents over to the Americas, especially the coast of North America. At the very least this introduced some Japanese objects into the material culture of North America, and if I remember correctly some iron objects were found that would fit this very well. And of course, those ships most likely to go through this would also be most likely to be either fishing ships or transferring goods - such as food - from one place to another, and thus somewhat equipped to make the long journey. It is very possible that some of these shipcrews, or parts of them, survived the journey to the coast of the Americas and if they then continued to survive on the continent would probably have become integrated into the local population.
i was thinking about how "Documentary Maker unable to connect to people, loses himself in a narrative he can control" could be an interesting character both for comedy and drama. Then i realised that's literary Abed from community.
@@tatehildyard5332 I would _never_. but the show repeatedly showed how him filtering the world through media analysis can be positive (like the early episode with his dad, or how he communicates anxieties through roleplay) as well as the negative (he can be very manipulative, needs to put people into tropes he can work with)
"If she dreams, what does she dream of?" Not being stalked by a colossus who attracts sharks and won't leave her alone, if I had to guess.
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If you put this comment "being staked by a colossus who attracts sharks and won't leave her alone" word for word on tumblr it'd be reblogged a million times by women and gay men with a hashtag goals.
@@FromTheFens219 as a wildlife biologist, i am very interested in nature, but if i learned anything about dealing with nature, its to be respectful and leave animals alone. its not stalking if you stop to quietly observe a bird while its singing, or to look into a stream or lake to watch some fish and snails do things. you can definitely be interested in nature without being obnoxious and irritating to animals and their habitat. what this man was doing is definitely being 'too interested' in nature. he doesnt know where to stop and he doesnt understand boundaries. i am sure you see the difference?
@@WildChildZero Nice sentiment, but I know too many wildlife biologists whose job is to directly interfere with nature. Animals are, after all, merely a resource to manage by humans. Invasive monitor tagging and predator culling to protect another species are all conducted under the guise of conservation. This documentary filmmaker's anthropomorphizing of an octopus aside, I don't see how "stalking" an animal with a film camera is any more intrusive or problematic than what a lot of biologists do in their studies of nature.
@@ryansilke well i would say there is a difference in managing wildlife (including invasive species et cetera) and leisure activities by random humans, wouldnt you agree? these points are two very different discussions to be had, and your argument kinda scratches the surface of 'whataboutism'. in this instance it doesnt matter what other biologists do, because this man is not a biologist, nor is he doing anything even remotely related to conservation of species. this is a documentary by a human who invades an animals space for nothing but a feelgood 'documentary' that is perpetuating a false view of wildlife for an average viewer that wont be able to distinguish what is ok to do and what isnt. as a wildlife biologist myself, i am often worried about portrayal of animals, because if not done properly, there will be hundreds of people who watch it and think its ok to touch and annoy wildlife. and that simply is not cool and i really wish that would be clarified a lot more often. i dont disagree on your statement about the problematic aspects of management, but imho thats not the discussion here. this movie isnt about conservation. i am criticising the wrongdoings of all non-biologists who dont know any better and still decide to do things they have no clue about and cause harm in doing so, do you know what i mean?
I used to take care of octopuses for a living, so I spent most of this "documentary" rolling my eyes and heaving deep beleaguered sighs and shouting at the TV, "TAKE THE HINT MAN. LEAVE HER ALONE." But the ending caught me totally off guard and made me angry cry so hard. A relief. He said it was a relief when she died. Because going to visit her every day was a burden. How horrible that must have been for him. To wake up every morning, neglect his family, not have to worry about having to pay his bills, and fuck off down to the ocean where he spent his days free diving in a beautiful kelp forest, harassing and stalking a wild animal. It was never a relief when one of the octopuses in my care died. NEVER. What a horrible thing to say. What a cruel and terrible and SELF-CENTERED thing to say.
@@thedragondemands5186 As someone who used to raise rats, it doesn't matter. Rats will live 2 years normally. I had one miracle rat that refused to go down for 5. The short time they have doesn't make them any less intelligent or social, and it still sucks when they die. The main reason I don't keep them anymore is the constant roller coaster of getting attached and watching them die.
You can just call it Hentai. The anime part is implied. Or do what you want to. You're probably really smart and cool, and don't need my help with expressing yourself.
You nailed it. What soured me on the film was Craig daily working to gain the octopus's trust where it would expose itself to risk from sharks - he made a friendship pact with the animal. Then in a moment when his "friend" needed him during a shark attack and he could have saved the animal from injury, he sanctimoniously declares he doesn't want to interfere with nature. He already did that by methodically gaining the animals trust. If viewed dispassionately, the film really portrays him as a weak, selfish man willing to use an unsuspecting animal to fulfill his sense of importance because his life topside is so miserable. Right. I love what you said about him taking a break for a year from documentary making so he could... make a documentary.
Thanks for succinctly putting into words what made me so physically uncomfortable about the film. Craig seemed like a selfishly unaware man with very little insight and watching the effects of that play out while he made illogical justifications for every self-serving action was not an enjoyable cinematic experience.
Did he truly attract the sharks though? I don’t see any evidence of that. And having enough empathy to personify an animal and save them is very irresponsible. He knew that he shouldn’t let his emotions interfere with nature
Who needs responsibility for a family when you can co-opt your own from the sea, while still having the exact same amount of respect and reverence for your co-opted family as you did your actual family?
Exactly. Personally, I'm not sure how I can be expected to carve out time for my children while a squirrel desperately tries to communicate with me by digging holes in the backyard. What does it want? What is it trying to say? Only time will tell. At night, I watch it sleep via a live video feed, distracted only by the quiet sobs of my children as they cry themselves to sleep.
@@pkmcburroughs It truly sounds like that squirrel needs you as much as you need it. I wonder, what nutty wisdoms might you exchange, if only the children would be silent...
@@robertgiles9124 If you complain about having a bad relationship in your self centered crappy movie and do nothing to fix it you should be made fun of.
@@0.-.0 You sure are short-sighted and self centered, aren’t you? Seems like too much projection going on. And yes, you can make films and stories about yourself to connect with others, it’s not being self centered. Pretty much every filmmaker has done it in some way.
I tried to watch this “documentary” last weekend because I think octopuses are really interesting, but I turned it off after 10 minutes when I realized the film was about the film maker and not really about octopuses. In contrast, this review is exactly what I wanted to watch!
the "but what about me, let's talk about me" type of documentary is totally unbearable! you're basically pointing a camera at whatever going "how can i make this about me?"
OK, as an astrobiologist, the fact that this dude doesn't realize the true wonder of octopus is how *different* their cognitive processes are from us is mind-boggling to me. It's the closest we've gotten to meeting an intelligent alien on our own planet, and he's all like, clearly, this octopus is just like me, a human member of a clade so evolutionarily removed from her own it's not funny.
I've been forcing myself into the daily lives of the Earthworms, in their natural habitat, in my backyard, for years. Now, all I have to do is step outside and I can literally hear the sound of them frantically burrowing deeper into the ground, almost as one. It's a strange, squishy sound. I'm convinced this is a form of greeting. Oh, and also that they worship me as a God.
@Alex JG no, it's a connexion between compulsive privileged self-centeredness (like in the case of Octopus Guy) and the so-called "intellectualism movement" championed by pseudo-intellectuals like PragerU who at best like to _think_ they are wise and profound despite all evidence to the contrary. That's the reference.
@@claynorth964 True that. They both suffered from the same fantasy though, which is that if you run away and love a wild animal hard enough, it will reciprocate. Check out "The Non Companion Species Manifesto: Humans, Wild Animals and the Pain of Anthropomorphism," by June Dwyer. She has some sympathy for Treadwell (unlike Maggie who has zero tolerance for men who want their love objects to smile) and while describing how crazy he is, say that we all kind of want the same thing, but ethically, once we grow up, we need to acknowledge that we can't have it.. "We understand why Timothy Treadwell is killed and can lay out any number of reasons pointing to its inevitability, yet part of us wishes that he had succeeded. We don't wish him well because he is an appealing character, because he is not. We wish him well because we want what he wants: we want wild animals both to like
Are you seriously this deranged and psychopathic? Did he do anything wrong? Did he destroy her life? Did he cause her harm? Do you think a person deserves bad things just for their innate curiosity and search for meaning to their lives? Shut up.
@@claynorth964 Also, Treadwell wasn't an idiot, he just got unlucky. He clearly understood very well when the bears were and were not safe to approach, which is why he managed to go nearly a decade without being hurt; the reason why he got killed is that weather delayed his exit from the area and the male bears returned. His final recordings are all of him being extremely worried because he knows it is not safe to still be where he is. He wasn't some dipshit who thought it would be neat to hang out with bears, he understood exactly what the boundaries of his interactions with the bears were, and anticipated the possibility of his imminent death. If the standard for somebody being a dipshit is "he thought he could ever be safe around animals ever", then literally every animal farmer or zookeeper is a dipshit
Just because octopuses can regrow arms and live doesn't mean that they are fine. The majority of an octopuses nerves are found in their arms. Loosing an arm is loosing a significant portion of their brain.
But...what is the fear and pain of this anthropomorphic homunculus he created in his mind compared to his very real White male privilege? Does she REEEEALLY have feelings if he didn't GIVE her feelings? --Craig's new film, "I Created the Ultimate Octopus and She Loves Me"
@@DerpsGW The movie basically tries to create drama where there is none. Whether you realize it or not, how information is presented and the way it's shown can drastically impact how you view the events happening. If you took any shot of this guy following the octopus and you, say, played Jaws music over it while splicing in people talking about how octopusses ink when they're threatened, then that would change the emotional context of the scene because it would make you think the swimmer is way more dangerous than he seems. Make sense so far? What's basically going on with the leg regrowing scene is that there is no real danger to the animal. But that doesn't work for the story because if you played it straight then there would be no emotional connection, you'd just be watching this random guy chase a small animal around the entire run. For the story they want to tell, they need to show something to make people think that there's a connection there when there really isn't one. So they need you to think it's not a one-sided relationship by doing everything they can to edit the narration and music together with the footage to try to sell this idea that this man nursed the octopus back to health. He didn't, of course, he just kind-of fed it and it would be alright either way. But the documentary needs to make you THINK it's happened because nursing something back to health is a common trope to show that there's a connection between two characters. It's a trope used to try to make the helping character seem way more kind than they would seem otherwise. So in the narrative of this movie, it's meant to be the turning point where he wins this octopus over instead of the reality of the situation, where he's responsible for it getting hurt and the thing doesn't really want to be around him because it's physically dangerous for the octopus.
in an alternate timeline this would be a much better documentary wherein Steven Hillenberg went underwater and explains about marine biology and how Spongebob came to be
Yes! I really don’t understand the hatred of basic anthromophisation of animals when it’s a common way for people to connect with things on a basic level.
You can be compassionate without anthropomorphizing animals. They are not humans and falsely projecting human emotions and reactions on them or assuming you know what they are feeling can be dangerous. Granted this is mostly a problem with pets but it’s also a great frustration for conservationists. You should be able to enjoy and and love the amazing animals of our planet as they are.
@@anabarber4337 He never once interferes with the life of this octopus, he observed her behavior and tried to understand it, there’s nothing wrong with it.
@@laserfan17 he scared her away from a den then attracted sharks to her causing an attack. You can tell by the way he lacks effort in his family relationships that he has a hard time understanding he isn't doing anything very productive. He is just doing stuff to satisfy himself. In essence, he is selfish and only bothered the octopus for a year to fill an emotional hole that could've been fixed by just talking with those around him. You know, like normal people.
Oh, that classic "I can't be a perfect father, so I'll just stop being one at all". It might not have been so infuriating to hear in this video, if I haven't heard it so many times before, both in media and in real life. It's just pathetic. "If I make a mistake and mess up my child, that's on me. But if I leave (or just become indifferent and emotionally unavailable) and that messes up my child, that's not my fault, it kinda just happens. So, whether or not my child ends up happy is ultimately not important. What is important is whether or not I get to feel guilt, which I, an adult individual, am unable to handle." People like that should look up the term "omission bias", because it's exactly what they're displaining.
Yes but a father can counteract the fact that he is absent by occasionally sending a birthday card with a five dollar bill. The band Everclear wrote a song about it.
My only problem is that he didn't save the octopus from being attacked because he didn't want to interfere with nature or whatever but he was already there interfering with nature! The octopus might not have been attacked if he wasn't there distracting it and calling attention to it.
If you took that approach then anyone filming in Africa would have to stop filming every time the lion/cheetah/leopard is about to catch something and drive their jeep through the scene to break up the hunt. You can't help your presence having some impact, but you can certainly try and mitigate it and not escalate it further.
@@irkendragon Not generally the same - a pro on land can sit in the same area for a long period of time and not disturb the animals, thus having way less interference with their daily life so the antelope isn't going to piss bolt and put itself in needless danger. I'm not saying that's always the case but generally it is.
@@selty no you’re not but you’re mitigating his point to justify your own when in fact even in your assessment of the circumstance he presented he’s still correct. You just assumed a lesser level of impact. An assumption I’d venture to say you have ZERO qualification to make as you don’t strike me as someone whose ever sat on an African landscape still for hours with a camera or know someone personally who has. Please correct me if I’m in accurate in my assumption.
@@deggree it's funny how no one ever counter argued that his presence could've actually avoided more limbs being torn by the sharks. As in his presence possibly scaring away some amount of predators.
When you told me it was about you and Halloween the whole time i realized it was really about me and youtube the whole time which made me wonder what it all means? Why? Stop!
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man-for precisely the same reasons". My favorite quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
just think about it you could give full hugs to four people at once or half hugs to a whopping eight or full to three and half to two or full to two and half to four or one humongous quadruple-hug to one person gosh, wouldn't that feel special? edit: oh but hey wait one of those hugs would always include one arm filled with spermatophores ay yo miss me with that hectocotylus son
And each of the tentacles has basically a mind on its own! (2/3 of all nerves of octopi are in the arms and they act without input from the brain) So it's like being hugged by a collective of 8 different people.
TH-cam recommended this video and I can't thank the almightly algorithm enough for it. I saw this movie as a preview on Netflix and initially thought it might be about someone who realises that we're not the only intelligent species on this blue earth and becomes humbled by the experience. Apparently that was overly optimistic of me and I am grateful to be cured of that optimism forever.
As a SAfer who has been recommended this Netflix documentary more times than I could count, thank you. A thousand times, thank you. I found the whole thing so self-serving and narcissistic, but I couldn't pur it into words. Your video was spot on! Thank you!
I suppose the argument could be made that all relationships are self-serving insofar that they provide a benefit for each each member of that relationship. No conditional relationship exists long if one member feels they are not getting enough perceived value out of that relationship. Reading all these comments I'm amazed at how negative people feel about the story. It's about a man who clearly was going through an incredibly rough time in his life, emotionally and existentially, and how he rediscovered his love for his craft through the beauty and splendor of this underwater creature and his relationship with her. Indeed, in a world that has grown increasingly self-isolated and distant (doubly so for all of us who lived through the 2020 pandemic quarantine), I would think most viewers would identify easily with this man's struggle and how he found salvation and a newfound appreciation for the interconnectedness of all creatures and of all of life through his relationship with this octopus. Also your label of Craig as a "narcissist" is patently false. A narcissist is defined as someone who has a disregard for others' feelings. In stark contrast, it's clear through the film that Craig cares very much about this animal.
@@RedShipsofSpainAgain He "deeply cares about the animal" because he's projecting his own emotions on it. He's acting like it has whatever exact way of thinking he wants it to, when it doesn't. Ironically, the only emotion it has that's easily understandable to humans is the obvious ridiculous fear it has for him, hence why it's almost always running away from him.
I loved how the Lolita imagery was placed. The whole time he sexualized this poor octopus and saying she had no parents to teach her or care for her and stuff, he seemed to think of himself as Edward from Pretty Woman, but he’s more like Humbert Humbert.
2:00 So, basically, it's Grizzly Man without Werner Herzog practically screaming the subtext into the viewer's ear. It's one of my favourite documentaries, but it's not subtle about the dangers of treating wildlife as your pet project for self-actualisation (pun very much intended).
We need a term for this kind of "mock essay" that geniunely makes fantastic points while having a sarcastic/facetious approach. The fact that this absolute masterpiece of a video might be looked passed and not get the hundreds of thousands of views it deserves is a great injustice. What a totally unexpected rollercoaster ride, Maggie, very well done.
If only she had stuck to relevant criticism and not attacked utterly unrelated elements in a messy illogical way with in that cringy fake intellectual and sarcastic tone it may have been good. But her whole vibe is just too angry highschool girl..as for those lame top or bottom jokes. She just comes off really toxic and insecure.
i think we have one. it’s called irony. also, she is guilty of the main criticism she levels against the film. she’s projecting motions of personal and private space onto animals
n w not only that, but her main criticism is that he is applying male colonial logic and projecting it onto the non human world.... while she projects human ideas of personal space and stalking and invasions of privacy onto the nonhuman world lol
I always wonder what would happen if octopodes did raise their children and therefore were able to pass along information from generation to generation. Probably take over the world. I welcome our future cephalopod overlords. They can't do worse than humans...
Iirc this is actually happening. In some environments, thanks to human alterations, octopuses have thrived to the point they're basically obligated to live in small communities, in turn sharing knowledge.
I completely understand you mean this as humor, so I mean zero implications to you personally, but that anecdote kind of reminds me of statements from grifters like Ben Shapiro that love to state nuclear family statistics as a way to dodge admitting poor education in communities of color are systemic while lamenting that they could be just as intelligent if they shared their values ignoring their own access to resources. Sorry, anxious lefty rant over. Really the octopi await their eldritch lord C'thulu's return.
@@marreco6347 If by "thrived" you mean their habitat was destroyed and due to lack of good real estate octopi are forced to congregate into less solitary lifestyles, then yeah, humans made them thrive so good
An interesting thought, but it's still possible that they might be highly intelligent in non-social ways. Like, the opposite of dolphins. And they've been around so long that if they could do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation because Octo Sapiens would have conquered the galaxy millions of years ago.
I watched about 5 minutes of the octopus teacher and just couldn't get over the fact that there are people who can just, like, do this stuff, on a whim, while most of us are living paycheque to paycheque and can't even leave our houses bc of pandemic. I think I'm burnt out on affluence. I didn't even get to anything with octopus in it.
Ahhh thanks for watching the whole thing so I don't have to. Clearly this masterpiece would have been too scary for me to watch even if I got past the affluence jump scares at the beginning.
I live in the same city as this guy but I live in a way poorer area. I have often marveled at other members of his tribe's lack of understanding of the economic reality of us common folk. They normally wear fairly practical outdoorsy clothing and so forth so you won't think they are rich when you first meet them. But then you realise they are wearing a rain coat that cost more than my household's monthly food and transport bill combined and the scruffy backpack they are always toting around retails for my monthly net salary. They will be the first to tell you that material goods are "just not that important to them" while almost never having to worry about money. I was at university with a lot of them. One studied art history and was going to move to Italy after graduation to basically just absorb the culture or some such BS for a few years. Another had a sister who took a gap year to bicycle accross Asia.
@@nataschavisser573 Kinda funny that you are taking about them being more privalaged than you while you were at University with them, for most in the world attending university is a huge privalage in itself.
I have deep issues with projection due to being on autism spectrum and the "Last Chance to See" part the video hit me really hard because of it. While I really don't want to compare my struggles to that of an animal, hearing about the huge communication gap between humans and gorillas made me think hard about my own communication issues and how I interact with neurotypical people. There are really no easy answers for dealing with such gaps and the best we can do is accept that fact.
I'm a scuba diver and this movie made me cry so much. The relationship with the animals and documentary ethics is always something to question and analyze however, which was something it had me thinking about after I was done with it.
Jokes on you MY FURSONA IS EXTINCT. (Seriously though, I wonder how anthropomorphism evolves when you associate that strongly with the CONCEPT of an animal. It's important to note that the furry community has its own set of stereotypes for specific fursona species, many of which are vastly removed from the animal itself and have the only slimmest of links to their actual real life behavior.)
Yeah, as a furry this hits different. That said, most members of the community that I know are fully aware that our identification with and assignment of arbitrary personality traits to various animal species is a complete fantasy. In fact many if not most furries go out of their way to learn about animal biology and behavior (at least when it comes to their favorite species), and the community as a whole has been quite active in supporting charities benefitying animals and conservation efforts. Honestly I think more broadly that people's tendency to anthropomorphize and relate to animals is probably a driving force behind a lot of efforts to protecting species and habitats, though I can see how that may lead to efforts being focused on more "lovable" species to the detriment of others and of the ecosystem in general. ...I dunno man, I mostly just want to hug a cartoon character.
Yeah some generic white woman who’s never suffered in her life and is not even a real fish sure makes a wonderful teacher. At least maybe to other middle aged privileged white woman.
Studying a completely different species is fascinating and the only way to truly experience it is through direct observation. This man did nothing wrong. You ignorant, sensitive baby.
@@laserfan17 you think this guy was studying the octopus? He’s no scientist, he never even asks any questions or investigates anything about the octopus. We learn nothing about the octopus.
@@TrueHimbo Speak for yourself, but from what I could see, he learns quite a bit about its behavior, intelligence, skills, physiological capabilities, reproduction, and life cicle. He’s no scientist, but he’s curious like one. He gets to experience it all firsthand, which is why I like how it’s all portrayed so much.
That moment of meeting the eye of a dolphin while "swimming with dolphins" inside a chlorinated tank in a glorified amusement park and feeling full-body horror at human self-involvement ..... relatable.
A friend linked me to this and I'm so grateful she did, this is a wonderful piece. I'm really glad you brought up the point of how we perceive intelligence as a human is a crappy way to judge complex animals who have an entirely unique way of experiencing the world. Every time I see a comparison of animal intelligence with "as smart as a 3 year old child" my head feels like it's gonna spin all the way around.
“I couldn’t be a good husband or father to my adolescent son, because those relationships involved giving them autonomy and respect. So, I went out for a year and attached emotionally to an animal that functioned entirely different from me. The difference in internal functioning made it so I could personify it’s actions in any way that fit my set narrative, giving me a level of control I’ve always craved.”
25:07 this observation really drove it home for me how weirdly Pepe LePew-esque this whole set of interactions is-when things run away from you they generally don't want you to chase after them, you horrible, horrible self-aggrandizing father. And that's not even getting into those awful other documentaries he did that completely override actual native peoples' and biologists' concerns
A lot of that footage is from when the octopus is already trying to evade a predator and not related to his presence, except for when he scared it with the camera once
"Just look at any medical text claiming that a woman's uterus could be floating above her head, haha! -- when really it's in her feet." - Finally some real goddamn science, thank you
This is some classic, rich people, existential crisis bullshit right here. I took an entire year off my dream job to spend time with my family. But then I realised what I REALLY needed was to form a delusional, one-sided soul bond with a wild animal onto which I could project whatever feelings, emotions and desires I wished. Something I can't do with my Wife and child because they always ruin it with their speech and actions.
Wait are you implying that his race made him do this? What does his race have to do with this? Apparently, there is no correlation between his phenotype and his behavior.
You make a good point about anthropomorphization, but I think the point is way exaggerated. I don't think the octopus really suffered from his presence. Why would it come up to him and lie on his chest if it felt threatened by him? That's not projecting human logic onto an octopus, that's just universal logic. Animals don't come close, let alone come into physical contact with animals they're scared of and don't trust. Of course the guy is still projecting his own emotions onto the animal and it's pretentious, but imo it's relatively harmless. (As long as it won't become a trend to do this kind of thing and next year we'll have My Crab Teacher etc.)
"The Soul of an Octopus" is a really great book that I think would be a nice palate cleanser after this wild horror. I have to admit that it does some anthropomorphizing, but the perspective it takes is one much more of empathy and true scientific understanding. The author speaks of her relationships with various octopi residents in an aquarium, and she writes with an intense respect for the often overlooked physical power they have. The commonalities she finds between herself and the octopi are drawn not from narcissistic bullshit like here, but from actually analyzing and processing their behavior. She also makes a pretty clear distinction between aquarium-raised octopi (who are brought in from a young age so as to more easily acclimate to captivity, btw) and wild octopi, and has a responsible take on interference.
Finally, a movie for people who thought Grizzly Man was too subtle and defended the actions of that white colonizing missionary that got killed by native Pacific Islanders last year.
You mean the Asian-American guy that was definitely not really white? Man, you sjw people surely want to make everything about race, don’t you? It’s clear that people so far-gone into your ideology become extremely hypocritical.
@@laserfan17 Which ideology would that be, since you can apparently gleam everything about me from one 6-month old comment on a TH-cam channel? And please, be original.
@@theoneandonlygrod Trying to tie race into everything, with the whole “white colonialist” lots of people do that. Also, don’t tell me what to do. I can be unoriginal if I please.
I always assumed octopuses lived for something like 5-10 years. Maggie Mae is right apparently they commonly only live for 1-2 years, while larger ones may live for up to 5. This dude harassed this octopus for most of its life
Got to see this creature live its life, from its early days, hunting, surviving and solving problems until it reproduced and passed on. The octopus wasn’t harmed in any way. People are just so sensitive with their false sense of “empathy” nowadays.
Him: "my stressful job strained my relationship with my son, so i'm taking a year off" Son: "that's great dad! Now we can hang out, play catch, you can come to my recital..." Him: "Nah, change of plans, i'm gonna stalk an octopus for a year"
I don’t mind anthropomorphising animals somewhat in documentaries, because it’s one way to convince idiotic people that they SHOULD CARE about non-human creatures. But yeah what made the movie weird was that he took a basic experience of gaining the trust of a wild animal (which many wildlife documentaries have done) and made it into this weirdly fetishised ‘unique’ experience. Sure it was a special experience for him, but it’s just called empathy and friendship my dude.
Deserting his family to make contact with another species: he is Roy Neary at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (without a scintilla of Richard Dreyfus' charisma).
In Roy's defense, the aliens in Close Encounters actually *wanted* to make contact with humans, which is more than we can say for this dude and the octopus.
@@theresafisher8781 I do question the alien's motive for their invitation. Maybe they assumed all earthlings had the same musical ability as the keyboard player who communicated with the mothership. What if they brought him back for a jam session? Or a lounge bar residency? Oh! Roy. Poor Roy.
Yeah the plight of the white boy. He's having such a hard time that he can take a year off a very very good paying job to play octopus whisper.😍😍😍😍🐙🐙🐙🐙
This film is another great example of how horror film makers don't need to rely on special effects or gore to make the viewer feel a deep sense of disgust and aversion...
The narcissism of this guy was so off putting. He really thinks he's making something powerful when a lesson he needed to learn was how to have empathy for others. So happy you explained why this movie gave me such a weird feeling.
A good video, but I will admit I am still disappointed that this wasn’t a movie about an octopus using its camouflage ability to pose as a human school teacher.
When he described what he was feeling for the octopus when it got hurt I was like: So this is the first time you feel empathy? ....... Interesting. Like the act of feeling empathy was this profound magical rare experience.
Smh miserable people will do anything to make something negative I swear. How about he as he mentioned throughout the film was surprised by the fact that he felt a similar level of empathy for a sea creature as he has and could for a human being. And THAT is what was shocking to him. It was pretty clear that he wasn’t an octopus specialist but rather became Much more knowledgeable about them through his experience leading to more empathy due to realizing how incredibly intelligent they are. Also a FEMALE octopus life cycle is 2-2 and a half years not one. I’m certain this chick purposely said one for dramatic effect to make her point seem more potent. Funny how she’s criticizing his so called over dramatization of his behavior and USING the octopus for his own selfish gain when she literally did just that. And if you wanna say maybe she’s not that knowledgeable about octopi, then she shouldn’t be speaking in such a critical manner about someone who clearly is. Also IF one thinks her mishap of quoting their life cycle as one instead of two years, consider the fact that she herself cut off a whole HALF of the octopuses life span just to condense her point for more impact. That’d be like you dying at 50 and she gave a speech at your funeral and said gone too soon he was only 25...Makes it CONSIDERABLY more dramatic as well as inaccurate and IMO disingenuous. But go ahead eat it up. Let her stir up that self righteousness you got buried deep in there looking for a chance to spill out through the unfounded negative criticism of others any chance it gets.
Lots of neurodivergent people don't feel empathy. That doesn't make them bad people or people not willing to help or care for others. First the claim is made him talking about his empathy is bad, "making it about himself", now him not feeling empathy is bad? I'm neurodivergent myself, and often needed to learn when I was younger to not mention my own experiences when trying to show concern to someone because I was miscommunicating, some people want to know they are not alone in their pain, some just want to be held and quietly listened to, and I needed to learn to ask. You cannot ask an octopus how she is feeling. How is showing and talking about how pale and slow she was after the injury, worrying about her, wondering how she will eat for the next few days, making it all about himself? Goodness, the bullying the overempathy or lack of empathy I and undiagnosed or once undiagnosed friends of mine got us comes to mind quick looking over this comment section.
@@sightired4590 "ackshually making fun of people who lack empathy is ableist cuz some disabled people are unfeeling robots" please...STOP empathy is LEARNED behavior. FOR EVERYONE. if you don't have it you need to do something about it and stop blaming it on autism. being able to look at someone and try to ascertain if they want advice or just for you to listen IS EMPATHY. YOU GET BETTER AT IT OVER TIME. If you can't use verbal communication you find other ways to communicate and you get better. Like with EVERYTHING. I get along better with animals than I do people so I'm not sure what you mean that autistic people can't understand animals cuz they're non-verbal. you know A LOT OF AUTISTIC PEOPLE ARE NON-VERBAL?! If anything we rely LESS on verbal communication than most people because of this! maybe you're a sociopath and were misdiagnosed, but even if you are autistic, you're perpetuating a stereotype and bigotry that people use to justify killing us. STOP.
One thing to remember is that Douglas Adams answered, when asked to go on the trip that would become Last Chance To See, that he knows nothing as a biologist, so why choose him? The BBC producer smiled and replied: That's why I want you! And yes, his untrained eyes and ears could then go past the usual trappings of nature-documentarians. And as he was a british sci fi writer and humorist he also had a very peculiar tendency/ability to poke holes at assumptions that complacent minds jump to. And his retelling of the plights of the New Zeeland Krakapo Parrots dating-life explains so much of human evolution. m.th-cam.com/video/_ZG8HBuDjgc/w-d-xo.html
Persistence is what has led the human species toward success. You always have to make something about yourselves and your sense of persecution. This isn’t about feminism.
This movie was such a massive let down as a documentary, let alone as a nature documentary. The footage was amazing for sure, but I learned more respect and wonder towards the ocean and ocean life from spongebob.
@@0.-.0 do you even realize the hypocrisy in your reply? Smh....Maybe YOU THOUGHT it was a documentary and got upset that it wasn’t even though it NEVER WAS a documentary and now you need a reason to justify your anger. Nobody duped you cut it out yo lol. Either you enjoyed it or you didn’t do be a sheet to this ladies opinion.
There's a lot of violence towards the indigenous peoples in my home province of Nova Scotia. This video about asshole settlers made me think of that throughout.
This new TH-cam standard of advertising videos to you before they come out means you get to see pre-screening comments from people who loved the documentary, and post-screaming comments from people who despise the documentary, both with confidence and yearning to hear My Fish Teacher validate their worldview. Thanks, I hate it.
Wow, when I saw the trailer for this on Netflix I was tempted to watch it. I had assumed that it was going to be about a friendly octopus who followed him around while he swam and became a sort of companion. It seemed kind of pretentious but I thought it might be a good laugh, I just hadn't gotten around to it. The fact that he actively pursued this poor creature over and over again when it was clearly running away from him and didn't even stop when his meddling got the poor things tentacle ripped off sure says something. The parallels to how some men will pursue human women and referring to the octopus as his lover sure put this in an entirely different light
16:47 is a sign of whats to come. He did it. Now more will wanna do the same. Who remembers the "into the wild bus"? How many tourist got injured, lost or died? Yea!
I’ve been home schooling my 11 year old god daughter. She was diagnosed with cancer just at the beginning of the pandemic. I used this video as an example of using satire to support arguments. We had been talking before that about the concept of intelligence and how what is intelligent for a human isn’t necessarily intelligent for other animals and that reminded me of this video. She loved it and it led to some really interesting conversations. Thanks for being so insightful and funny!
This was really good! We need to reconsider our entire relationship with nature, and this starts with how we treat animals.... A lot of science has good intentions in trying to understand things, but when we abuse the subject, it no longer is objective.... I had no idea this film would portray things this way.... I think I can refrain from watching it now, because as an animal lover, I cannot condone this intrusion... It's certainly not the worst example of how we destroy nature, but it's definitely a sign of our narcissism in our modern view.... The quotes at the end were spot on! Thank you for sharing this perspective!
You’re thanking someone you don’t know for preventing you from watching a film you didn’t see about animals, which you by admission DO love? I hope my point was received. Like another person said. Watch the film for yourself.
@@deggree I did, and immediately was thinking about the same issues presented in the review.... There's certainly beautiful footage, but the line gets crossed.... The intrusion into her life results in harm, that's the issue I had....
This made me think a lot about the puppy I got at the beginning of quarantine and the relationship we’ve developed. But mostly about me. Thank you, Daddy Mae Fish. Save Martha.
I was disgusted by this film and was shocked to see this is the only video that I can find that echos my point of view. Thanks for keeping me sane that there are human who are still doing critical thinking and not just accepting the norm. This is a disgusting movie about a man obsessed with an octopus and stalking her. How can this win an Oscar?!?? Thank you for your only rational reasoning online. The world has gone mad.
The whole idea of humans projecting their ideals onto animals reminded me about an anthropology class I took once. I remember my professor taking issue with the "march of progress" illustration (you know, the one with the ape gradually evolving into a man), for two reasons: 1. The illustration has led many to believe that chimps evolved into humans and 2. It assumes that human, or man specifically, is the end goal, as the word "progress" suggests. It's as if they thought humans are the perfect, most intelligent organism or something. I'm glad she brought this up to us. She even mentioned how western/colonial the whole idea was. Anyways I really love this video it was so fun to listen to lmao
Interesting point. I would argue that the problem stems from what you mentioned being incompatible with the materialist Neo-Darwininian conception of nature. I am uncertain why such thinking is western. Is it intrinsic? Certainly not, westernism is not as monolithic as you appear to believe.
Billions, literally billions of humans communicate with plants and animals everyday. There is no "telepathy" involved. Telempathy, yes. Animals and plants, like humans, feel stuff. Their feelings are experienced by a sentient human in the vicinity. Simple. I said sentient. Everything is vibes. Even "physical life in the physical universe". Everything is vibes.
Your reference to creepy fingers and the documentary's own footage at 7:02 did a really good job of making one of the most familiar sights a human experiences (their own hands) look alien and upsetting.
I watched it and cried. The ending was so bittersweet. I can't wait to see what you'll have to say about it. Edit: OH WOW the ending of that damn documentary blew my thoughts out of my mind (slaps forehead). I kept looking for the scary bits and you got the weird gendering and stalking on point. When he was worried about the octopus, I was confused how he didn't know about the regeneration or why he didn't stop once he knew. His focus on his own family just disappeared and I kept waiting to hear more about his personal development. But no.
Though the limbs regenerate, they won't be the same, because a part of their brain is in their tentacles. The skills are learned on a tentacle-by-tentacle basis, and only those tentacles know how to do that thing. If they're lost, the octopus will have to re-learn the skill.
@@dragoniraflameblade this doesn’t change how hard you went on using his “lack of knowledge” about their tentacle regeneration as your main point of contention. I see this lady has a lot of people in these comments riled up and coming off sarcastically self righteous in their agreement with her criticism of him. I guess that’s a thing though. Also fun fact, A the guy never claimed to KNOW much about octopi previous to his real time experience with the one in the film. B. Their life cycle is 2 and a half years for females. Her saying 1 year was a gross misleading for dramatic effect to intensify the demonization of this FILM MAKER. The part everyone seems to forget because of the WAY he chose to tell his story. He’s not some privileged guy who jumped in the water with nothing better to do than be rich and neglect his family. Netflix PAYS people for content. Him already being a film maker he could have even been paid BEFORE hand to make the film. That’s typically how Netflix deals go. I know first hand.
In the wild, their lifespan is only around 1 year, even if they don't mate and lay eggs. Depending on where they live, their bodies actually start to break down and weaken due to stress from predators, varying water conditions or temperatures, or having to use so much energy to regenerate limbs. In captivity they can live slightly longer in very specific conditions. But they certainly aren't living to be 2.5 years old in the wild.
Nia'wen'ki'wahi.
After being gaslit the other day extra hard by colonizers... This shady tea you brewed here was greatly appreciated.
The quote by Adams was especially painfully on point. As not only are we ignored outright... But we are erased to such a degree that the majority of people don't even believe that we still exist.
And not existing is an arduous existence.
A wonderful video, as always.
the quote made me feel bittersweet. it can be hard to feel positively about white people coming to realizations like adams did, when indigenous people have been speaking on this knowledge for centuries.
Fun fact: I'm a language teacher in Brazil and I've never seen any classes on yoruba. There's fucking german and greek classes,but not a language where many terms we use daily come from, that many countries speak and that many communities in Brazil speak.
Thinking about Adams just makes me cry. I was gonna say something pithy about comedians speaking truth to power, but Douglas was so, so much more than a comedian. There are some people, rare people that because of their creativity fundamentally change the world. Perhaps only the slightest bit, but change they do. That's Adams. He is missed so much, we needed more of him. However, even though he is no longer here, he left the world changed.
Oh, and listening to Adams quotes by anyone other than him or Stephen Fry makes me feel weird :)
I haven't watched the whole video yet to understand this conversation, but it sounds so interisting, I hope I get it soon.
Thank you good friend for that explanation.
This was eat pray love but with octopi
Eat prey, love
@@L0U_ZER you just nailed the octopus manifesto!
I saw the trailer for that movie and decided it looked too boring for me to bother with. Your comparison makes me happy I didn't waste my time with it.
Ink, Pray, Love
The octopus would be cuter if she smiled more.
Right? Not very likeable..
There wasn't even a training montage, how did it learn to swim so well?
Super spoopy! I was chilled to my invertebrae.
Hey Maggie, I saw you in a commercial recently! It was just a commonplace ad, perhaps for a cleaning agent (I forget), but it was cool to see you getting a gig!!
@@bbrbbr-on2gd She has near human intelligence, the ability to regenerate, can breath water and swim super well, plus that ink thing!? She's such a Mary Suephalapod.
This made me feel uncomfortable. Well played.
'I wonder if anybody could ever track anything underwater'
indigenous people from literally every coastline: stares in disdain.
It's worth noting that Basque fishing communities may have made it to North America a century or so before 1492 by tracking cod schools across the North Atlantic.
@@nathaniellindner313 That sounds fascinating. Where can I read about that?
@@manospondylus I'm not 100% sure, but I believe I read about it in Mark Kurlansky's Cod, which is of course about halibut.
@@nathaniellindner313 Not necessarily related to tracking things underwater, but it's interesting and relates to contact between humans in the Americas with the rest of the world and is fascinating and not well known, so here goes: So there's evidence that there were Japanese people who probably made it to North America a little bit before Europeans did, but not on purpose (and I mean even less on purpose than Christobal Colon). During Japan's self-isolation period, there was some legislation that basically made sure that ships would easily break should they venture too far away from the island, to stop people from going away and coming back and to maintain the isolation. Most of the time this just limited ships to near the coast where they functioned fine, doing fishing and stuff, but occasionally there would be big storms that would break those ships, making them rudderless and generally out of control. Sometimes, though, they did survive that ordeal without sinking. Some of these ships, it seems, were then brought by ocean currents over to the Americas, especially the coast of North America. At the very least this introduced some Japanese objects into the material culture of North America, and if I remember correctly some iron objects were found that would fit this very well. And of course, those ships most likely to go through this would also be most likely to be either fishing ships or transferring goods - such as food - from one place to another, and thus somewhat equipped to make the long journey. It is very possible that some of these shipcrews, or parts of them, survived the journey to the coast of the Americas and if they then continued to survive on the continent would probably have become integrated into the local population.
Me: “I wonder whether you've ever in your life done a simple Google search, buddy.”
i was thinking about how "Documentary Maker unable to connect to people, loses himself in a narrative he can control" could be an interesting character both for comedy and drama. Then i realised that's literary Abed from community.
You better not be insulting Abed.
@@tatehildyard5332 I would _never_. but the show repeatedly showed how him filtering the world through media analysis can be positive (like the early episode with his dad, or how he communicates anxieties through roleplay) as well as the negative (he can be very manipulative, needs to put people into tropes he can work with)
@@vanilloia7479 great analysis 👌🏽
Also Chronicle to some extent?
lol check out my parody: th-cam.com/video/4REe7VRqXWM/w-d-xo.html
"If she dreams, what does she dream of?"
Not being stalked by a colossus who attracts sharks and won't leave her alone, if I had to guess.
If you put this comment "being staked by a colossus who attracts sharks and won't leave her alone" word for word on tumblr it'd be reblogged a million times by women and gay men with a hashtag goals.
Today I learned, being interested in nature makes you a "stalker."
@@FromTheFens219 as a wildlife biologist, i am very interested in nature, but if i learned anything about dealing with nature, its to be respectful and leave animals alone. its not stalking if you stop to quietly observe a bird while its singing, or to look into a stream or lake to watch some fish and snails do things. you can definitely be interested in nature without being obnoxious and irritating to animals and their habitat. what this man was doing is definitely being 'too interested' in nature. he doesnt know where to stop and he doesnt understand boundaries. i am sure you see the difference?
@@WildChildZero Nice sentiment, but I know too many wildlife biologists whose job is to directly interfere with nature. Animals are, after all, merely a resource to manage by humans. Invasive monitor tagging and predator culling to protect another species are all conducted under the guise of conservation. This documentary filmmaker's anthropomorphizing of an octopus aside, I don't see how "stalking" an animal with a film camera is any more intrusive or problematic than what a lot of biologists do in their studies of nature.
@@ryansilke well i would say there is a difference in managing wildlife (including invasive species et cetera) and leisure activities by random humans, wouldnt you agree? these points are two very different discussions to be had, and your argument kinda scratches the surface of 'whataboutism'. in this instance it doesnt matter what other biologists do, because this man is not a biologist, nor is he doing anything even remotely related to conservation of species. this is a documentary by a human who invades an animals space for nothing but a feelgood 'documentary' that is perpetuating a false view of wildlife for an average viewer that wont be able to distinguish what is ok to do and what isnt. as a wildlife biologist myself, i am often worried about portrayal of animals, because if not done properly, there will be hundreds of people who watch it and think its ok to touch and annoy wildlife. and that simply is not cool and i really wish that would be clarified a lot more often. i dont disagree on your statement about the problematic aspects of management, but imho thats not the discussion here. this movie isnt about conservation. i am criticising the wrongdoings of all non-biologists who dont know any better and still decide to do things they have no clue about and cause harm in doing so, do you know what i mean?
I used to take care of octopuses for a living, so I spent most of this "documentary" rolling my eyes and heaving deep beleaguered sighs and shouting at the TV, "TAKE THE HINT MAN. LEAVE HER ALONE." But the ending caught me totally off guard and made me angry cry so hard. A relief. He said it was a relief when she died. Because going to visit her every day was a burden. How horrible that must have been for him. To wake up every morning, neglect his family, not have to worry about having to pay his bills, and fuck off down to the ocean where he spent his days free diving in a beautiful kelp forest, harassing and stalking a wild animal.
It was never a relief when one of the octopuses in my care died. NEVER. What a horrible thing to say. What a cruel and terrible and SELF-CENTERED thing to say.
Don’t cephalopods have a surprisingly short life span?
@@thedragondemands5186 As someone who used to raise rats, it doesn't matter. Rats will live 2 years normally. I had one miracle rat that refused to go down for 5. The short time they have doesn't make them any less intelligent or social, and it still sucks when they die. The main reason I don't keep them anymore is the constant roller coaster of getting attached and watching them die.
@@thedragondemands5186and yet this dude felt the need to obsess for it’s entirety
Based on the title this is %100 a hentai anime
You can just call it Hentai. The anime part is implied.
Or do what you want to. You're probably really smart and cool, and don't need my help with expressing yourself.
Octopi are anime protagonist boys, change my mind.
Assassination classroom?
You nailed it. What soured me on the film was Craig daily working to gain the octopus's trust where it would expose itself to risk from sharks - he made a friendship pact with the animal. Then in a moment when his "friend" needed him during a shark attack and he could have saved the animal from injury, he sanctimoniously declares he doesn't want to interfere with nature. He already did that by methodically gaining the animals trust. If viewed dispassionately, the film really portrays him as a weak, selfish man willing to use an unsuspecting animal to fulfill his sense of importance because his life topside is so miserable. Right. I love what you said about him taking a break for a year from documentary making so he could... make a documentary.
Thanks for succinctly putting into words what made me so physically uncomfortable about the film.
Craig seemed like a selfishly unaware man with very little insight and watching the effects of that play out while he made illogical justifications for every self-serving action was not an enjoyable cinematic experience.
Exactly how I felt too! He didn’t care about the octopus.
Did he truly attract the sharks though? I don’t see any evidence of that. And having enough empathy to personify an animal and save them is very irresponsible. He knew that he shouldn’t let his emotions interfere with nature
Who needs responsibility for a family when you can co-opt your own from the sea, while still having the exact same amount of respect and reverence for your co-opted family as you did your actual family?
Exactly. Personally, I'm not sure how I can be expected to carve out time for my children while a squirrel desperately tries to communicate with me by digging holes in the backyard. What does it want? What is it trying to say? Only time will tell. At night, I watch it sleep via a live video feed, distracted only by the quiet sobs of my children as they cry themselves to sleep.
@@pkmcburroughs 😂 oh god....for real though.
Lol you might enjoy my parody of it: th-cam.com/video/4REe7VRqXWM/w-d-xo.html
@@pkmcburroughs It truly sounds like that squirrel needs you as much as you need it. I wonder, what nutty wisdoms might you exchange, if only the children would be silent...
@@pkmcburroughs this made me ugly laugh, I just wanted you to know
“how much sarcasm should be in this video?”
maggie: “yes”
The reason people think Americans can't sarcasm is because Maggie drained the last of the USA's strategic sarcasm reserves.
makes me gag
sad you left out the last act, where it showed that this was in fact the sequel to *Tusk*. i mean, super exploitative, but it was pretty vindicating
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit
"I dressed as an octopus so my father would love me"
Today I learned how furries are made
When Dr Phil needs ratings quickly
Hey it worked for Peterson's daughter when she dressed like a Lobster
"Humans are hard bc they can talk back and have different thoughts than the ones I project on them, so I'll just pretend this octopus is my soul mate"
Lol check out my parody of it: th-cam.com/video/4REe7VRqXWM/w-d-xo.html
Your brains are really tiny and shallow, this comment section is rotten to the core.
@@laserfan17 no u
@@fpedrosa2076 No u
@@laserfan17 Their brains are technically good, but they hate life and themselves
Craig "I alienated my son by never listening to him, well time to go harass some sea creatures" Foster
😂
God. I am so glad someone else picked up on that. I laughed at first at the start of the film, but then I realized it was serious.
@@robertgiles9124 If you complain about having a bad relationship in your self centered crappy movie and do nothing to fix it you should be made fun of.
@@0.-.0 Wow, a human with a perfect life and able to judge people, like a God. Such arrogance and ignorance coupled....said the Octopus.
@@0.-.0 You sure are short-sighted and self centered, aren’t you? Seems like too much projection going on.
And yes, you can make films and stories about yourself to connect with others, it’s not being self centered. Pretty much every filmmaker has done it in some way.
I tried to watch this “documentary” last weekend because I think octopuses are really interesting, but I turned it off after 10 minutes when I realized the film was about the film maker and not really about octopuses. In contrast, this review is exactly what I wanted to watch!
Yeah, it's "my octopus teacher" not "I watch octopus for a year "
the "but what about me, let's talk about me" type of documentary is totally unbearable! you're basically pointing a camera at whatever going "how can i make this about me?"
There's a vanity project, and then there's this shit.
Jesus that sounds awful
@Samanja Chowdhury I just wanted to learn about octopuses, dude.
OK, as an astrobiologist, the fact that this dude doesn't realize the true wonder of octopus is how *different* their cognitive processes are from us is mind-boggling to me. It's the closest we've gotten to meeting an intelligent alien on our own planet, and he's all like, clearly, this octopus is just like me, a human member of a clade so evolutionarily removed from her own it's not funny.
Astrobiology sounds interesting, where should someone who doesn't know anything look to learn about that field?
@@kaemonbonet4931 Naw, its mostly a tardigrade genocide. /s (genetics and Zebra Fish gives a side eye) 😂😂😆😂
@@xxprizefighterxx I do keep hearing about the amazing stuff water bears can do in space
@@kaemonbonet4931 I wish I could say more but I’m a RNA whore. I’m more a coder.
@@xxprizefighterxx it's ok, not everyone can be a train doctor
I've been forcing myself into the daily lives of the Earthworms, in their natural habitat, in my backyard, for years. Now, all I have to do is step outside and I can literally hear the sound of them frantically burrowing deeper into the ground, almost as one. It's a strange, squishy sound.
I'm convinced this is a form of greeting. Oh, and also that they worship me as a God.
He didn't even learn how to be an octopus
He did a better job being a shark, apparently.
This movie should have been called "Adult is amazed by basic octopus facts."
Hahahahhahaahhahahahahahahaha
This guy is clearly a part of that ever spreading White Male "Intellectualism movement".
Soon he'll have a spot on Prager U
Did you learn something new, or you already know everything?
Shut up
@Alex JG no, it's a connexion between compulsive privileged self-centeredness (like in the case of Octopus Guy) and the so-called "intellectualism movement" championed by pseudo-intellectuals like PragerU who at best like to _think_ they are wise and profound despite all evidence to the contrary. That's the reference.
Interspecies harassment is real.
all the cats sigh "...of course..."😹
As you most likely reach for the peanut butter...you god damn go!
Lol you might enjoy my parody of the movie: th-cam.com/video/4REe7VRqXWM/w-d-xo.html
Speciesism is way way more systemic and comprehensive than racism. Sure you want to go there ?
It’s called studying nature and other species.
Man, at least the bears got to eat that grizzly dude. That octopus got no kickbacks whatsoever
Next time let's hope it's a giant squid instead
@@claynorth964 True that. They both suffered from the same fantasy though, which is that if you run away and love a wild animal hard enough, it will reciprocate. Check out "The Non Companion Species Manifesto: Humans, Wild Animals and the Pain of Anthropomorphism," by June Dwyer. She has some sympathy for Treadwell (unlike Maggie who has zero tolerance for men who want their love objects to smile) and while describing how crazy he is, say that we all kind of want the same thing, but ethically, once we grow up, we need to acknowledge that we can't have it..
"We understand why Timothy Treadwell is killed and can lay out any number of reasons pointing to its inevitability, yet part of us wishes that he had succeeded. We don't wish him well because he is an appealing character, because he is not. We wish him well because we want what he wants: we want wild animals both to like
She did figure out how to use him to help block off prey.
Are you seriously this deranged and psychopathic? Did he do anything wrong? Did he destroy her life? Did he cause her harm? Do you think a person deserves bad things just for their innate curiosity and search for meaning to their lives? Shut up.
@@claynorth964 Also, Treadwell wasn't an idiot, he just got unlucky. He clearly understood very well when the bears were and were not safe to approach, which is why he managed to go nearly a decade without being hurt; the reason why he got killed is that weather delayed his exit from the area and the male bears returned. His final recordings are all of him being extremely worried because he knows it is not safe to still be where he is. He wasn't some dipshit who thought it would be neat to hang out with bears, he understood exactly what the boundaries of his interactions with the bears were, and anticipated the possibility of his imminent death.
If the standard for somebody being a dipshit is "he thought he could ever be safe around animals ever", then literally every animal farmer or zookeeper is a dipshit
Just because octopuses can regrow arms and live doesn't mean that they are fine. The majority of an octopuses nerves are found in their arms. Loosing an arm is loosing a significant portion of their brain.
It also likely takes quite a bit of extra energy growing back a limb
And also it probably really hurts and frightens them
But...what is the fear and pain of this anthropomorphic homunculus he created in his mind compared to his very real White male privilege? Does she REEEEALLY have feelings if he didn't GIVE her feelings?
--Craig's new film, "I Created the Ultimate Octopus and She Loves Me"
Yeah, but that doesn't help the videos' narrative about the movie that it was an "emotional manipulation". Whatever that means.
@@DerpsGW The movie basically tries to create drama where there is none. Whether you realize it or not, how information is presented and the way it's shown can drastically impact how you view the events happening. If you took any shot of this guy following the octopus and you, say, played Jaws music over it while splicing in people talking about how octopusses ink when they're threatened, then that would change the emotional context of the scene because it would make you think the swimmer is way more dangerous than he seems. Make sense so far?
What's basically going on with the leg regrowing scene is that there is no real danger to the animal. But that doesn't work for the story because if you played it straight then there would be no emotional connection, you'd just be watching this random guy chase a small animal around the entire run. For the story they want to tell, they need to show something to make people think that there's a connection there when there really isn't one. So they need you to think it's not a one-sided relationship by doing everything they can to edit the narration and music together with the footage to try to sell this idea that this man nursed the octopus back to health.
He didn't, of course, he just kind-of fed it and it would be alright either way. But the documentary needs to make you THINK it's happened because nursing something back to health is a common trope to show that there's a connection between two characters. It's a trope used to try to make the helping character seem way more kind than they would seem otherwise. So in the narrative of this movie, it's meant to be the turning point where he wins this octopus over instead of the reality of the situation, where he's responsible for it getting hurt and the thing doesn't really want to be around him because it's physically dangerous for the octopus.
Creepy music plays. A haunting voice starts to sing: "I'd like to be. Under the sea. In an octopus's garden..."
in an alternate timeline this would be a much better documentary wherein Steven Hillenberg went underwater and explains about marine biology and how Spongebob came to be
In an alternate universe, a true crime documentary titled "My Human Stalker" was released on Octoflix
In another alternate timeline, dingus there would have been eaten by the sharks and the octupus could have gotten on with her life.
@Christopher Stanley I think I’ve actually seen that “documentary”
b..but hes white too!!??
@@TheFunwichHorror I'd watch that
Reminds me of a quote from Frankie Boyle: "... you'll go swimming with dolphins that, at best, will feel complete indifference towards you."
Comedians make the best marine biologists.
I really appreciate that you took issue with anthropocentrism rather than compassion itself like so many do when covering this subject.
Yes! I really don’t understand the hatred of basic anthromophisation of animals when it’s a common way for people to connect with things on a basic level.
You can be compassionate without anthropomorphizing animals. They are not humans and falsely projecting human emotions and reactions on them or assuming you know what they are feeling can be dangerous. Granted this is mostly a problem with pets but it’s also a great frustration for conservationists. You should be able to enjoy and and love the amazing animals of our planet as they are.
*most commonly a problem with pets... obviously also a problem elsewhere as well
@@anabarber4337 He never once interferes with the life of this octopus, he observed her behavior and tried to understand it, there’s nothing wrong with it.
@@laserfan17 he scared her away from a den then attracted sharks to her causing an attack. You can tell by the way he lacks effort in his family relationships that he has a hard time understanding he isn't doing anything very productive. He is just doing stuff to satisfy himself.
In essence, he is selfish and only bothered the octopus for a year to fill an emotional hole that could've been fixed by just talking with those around him. You know, like normal people.
Oh, that classic "I can't be a perfect father, so I'll just stop being one at all". It might not have been so infuriating to hear in this video, if I haven't heard it so many times before, both in media and in real life.
It's just pathetic. "If I make a mistake and mess up my child, that's on me. But if I leave (or just become indifferent and emotionally unavailable) and that messes up my child, that's not my fault, it kinda just happens. So, whether or not my child ends up happy is ultimately not important. What is important is whether or not I get to feel guilt, which I, an adult individual, am unable to handle."
People like that should look up the term "omission bias", because it's exactly what they're displaining.
Was not expecting to find such a concise explanation to the absence of fathers in this vid thread. Damm if you didn’t hit the nail on the head.
wish I had a thousand likes to give to this comment
Plus you have to think about the presence of his son in some of the footage. That would make me feel SO used.
Yes but a father can counteract the fact that he is absent by occasionally sending a birthday card with a five dollar bill.
The band Everclear wrote a song about it.
well it certainly beats the arcetypes of getting a pack of cigarettes & a carton of milk
My only problem is that he didn't save the octopus from being attacked because he didn't want to interfere with nature or whatever but he was already there interfering with nature! The octopus might not have been attacked if he wasn't there distracting it and calling attention to it.
If you took that approach then anyone filming in Africa would have to stop filming every time the lion/cheetah/leopard is about to catch something and drive their jeep through the scene to break up the hunt. You can't help your presence having some impact, but you can certainly try and mitigate it and not escalate it further.
@@irkendragon Not generally the same - a pro on land can sit in the same area for a long period of time and not disturb the animals, thus having way less interference with their daily life so the antelope isn't going to piss bolt and put itself in needless danger. I'm not saying that's always the case but generally it is.
@@selty no you’re not but you’re mitigating his point to justify your own when in fact even in your assessment of the circumstance he presented he’s still correct. You just assumed a lesser level of impact. An assumption I’d venture to say you have ZERO qualification to make as you don’t strike me as someone whose ever sat on an African landscape still for hours with a camera or know someone personally who has. Please correct me if I’m in accurate in my assumption.
@@deggree it's funny how no one ever counter argued that his presence could've actually avoided more limbs being torn by the sharks. As in his presence possibly scaring away some amount of predators.
@@Lgg130 Good point.
Octopus: exists
Man: and I took that personally.
I guess us men should just never show an interest in anything right? Seems the only thing you are allowed to do any more is self-harm
When you told me it was about you and Halloween the whole time i realized it was really about me and youtube the whole time which made me wonder what it all means? Why? Stop!
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man-for precisely the same reasons".
My favorite quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
Eight tentacles means more arms to hug you with.
One of them being a modified penis type thingy
Fun Fact: "Eight Arms to Hold You" was a title considered for the Beatles film "Help!"
@@johnpjones182 In reference to Durga, the Hindu goddess of war.
just think about it
you could give full hugs to four people at once
or half hugs to a whopping eight
or full to three and half to two
or full to two and half to four
or one humongous quadruple-hug to one person
gosh, wouldn't that feel special?
edit: oh but hey wait one of those hugs would always include one arm filled with spermatophores ay yo miss me with that hectocotylus son
And each of the tentacles has basically a mind on its own! (2/3 of all nerves of octopi are in the arms and they act without input from the brain) So it's like being hugged by a collective of 8 different people.
TH-cam recommended this video and I can't thank the almightly algorithm enough for it. I saw this movie as a preview on Netflix and initially thought it might be about someone who realises that we're not the only intelligent species on this blue earth and becomes humbled by the experience. Apparently that was overly optimistic of me and I am grateful to be cured of that optimism forever.
As a SAfer who has been recommended this Netflix documentary more times than I could count, thank you. A thousand times, thank you.
I found the whole thing so self-serving and narcissistic, but I couldn't pur it into words. Your video was spot on!
Thank you!
Self serving and narcissistic are pretty good words. I think you did that no problem.
What's a SAfer?
@@finnpendleton4615 South African
I suppose the argument could be made that all relationships are self-serving insofar that they provide a benefit for each each member of that relationship. No conditional relationship exists long if one member feels they are not getting enough perceived value out of that relationship.
Reading all these comments I'm amazed at how negative people feel about the story. It's about a man who clearly was going through an incredibly rough time in his life, emotionally and existentially, and how he rediscovered his love for his craft through the beauty and splendor of this underwater creature and his relationship with her. Indeed, in a world that has grown increasingly self-isolated and distant (doubly so for all of us who lived through the 2020 pandemic quarantine), I would think most viewers would identify easily with this man's struggle and how he found salvation and a newfound appreciation for the interconnectedness of all creatures and of all of life through his relationship with this octopus.
Also your label of Craig as a "narcissist" is patently false. A narcissist is defined as someone who has a disregard for others' feelings. In stark contrast, it's clear through the film that Craig cares very much about this animal.
@@RedShipsofSpainAgain He "deeply cares about the animal" because he's projecting his own emotions on it. He's acting like it has whatever exact way of thinking he wants it to, when it doesn't. Ironically, the only emotion it has that's easily understandable to humans is the obvious ridiculous fear it has for him, hence why it's almost always running away from him.
I loved how the Lolita imagery was placed. The whole time he sexualized this poor octopus and saying she had no parents to teach her or care for her and stuff, he seemed to think of himself as Edward from Pretty Woman, but he’s more like Humbert Humbert.
Why poor octopus? For all we know it was having the time of its life!
@@Lgg130 she was clearly distressed and he knows nothing about octopuses
2:00 So, basically, it's Grizzly Man without Werner Herzog practically screaming the subtext into the viewer's ear.
It's one of my favourite documentaries, but it's not subtle about the dangers of treating wildlife as your pet project for self-actualisation (pun very much intended).
However grizzly man had a reasonable ending
We need a term for this kind of "mock essay" that geniunely makes fantastic points while having a sarcastic/facetious approach. The fact that this absolute masterpiece of a video might be looked passed and not get the hundreds of thousands of views it deserves is a great injustice. What a totally unexpected rollercoaster ride, Maggie, very well done.
If only she had stuck to relevant criticism and not attacked utterly unrelated elements in a messy illogical way with in that cringy fake intellectual and sarcastic tone it may have been good. But her whole vibe is just too angry highschool girl..as for those lame top or bottom jokes. She just comes off really toxic and insecure.
@@nw6070 my thoughts exactly. Smug and self-opinionated.
Absolute roller-coaster of stupidity and poorly thought-out criticisms.
i think we have one. it’s called irony. also, she is guilty of the main criticism she levels against the film. she’s projecting motions of personal and private space onto animals
n w not only that, but her main criticism is that he is applying male colonial logic and projecting it onto the non human world.... while she projects human ideas of personal space and stalking and invasions of privacy onto the nonhuman world lol
I always wonder what would happen if octopodes did raise their children and therefore were able to pass along information from generation to generation. Probably take over the world.
I welcome our future cephalopod overlords. They can't do worse than humans...
Iirc this is actually happening. In some environments, thanks to human alterations, octopuses have thrived to the point they're basically obligated to live in small communities, in turn sharing knowledge.
I completely understand you mean this as humor, so I mean zero implications to you personally, but that anecdote kind of reminds me of statements from grifters like Ben Shapiro that love to state nuclear family statistics as a way to dodge admitting poor education in communities of color are systemic while lamenting that they could be just as intelligent if they shared their values ignoring their own access to resources.
Sorry, anxious lefty rant over. Really the octopi await their eldritch lord C'thulu's return.
@@marreco6347 If by "thrived" you mean their habitat was destroyed and due to lack of good real estate octopi are forced to congregate into less solitary lifestyles, then yeah, humans made them thrive so good
Thank you for using the correct plural term, from the bottom of my pedantic little heart.
An interesting thought, but it's still possible that they might be highly intelligent in non-social ways. Like, the opposite of dolphins. And they've been around so long that if they could do that, we wouldn't be having this conversation because Octo Sapiens would have conquered the galaxy millions of years ago.
The delivery of "who I later found out was The Octopus Man's wife" is so damn good.
I didn't understand- was the skeptical woman his wife? Or the animal communicator?
@@keesalemon The skeptical
I watched about 5 minutes of the octopus teacher and just couldn't get over the fact that there are people who can just, like, do this stuff, on a whim, while most of us are living paycheque to paycheque and can't even leave our houses bc of pandemic. I think I'm burnt out on affluence. I didn't even get to anything with octopus in it.
Ahhh thanks for watching the whole thing so I don't have to. Clearly this masterpiece would have been too scary for me to watch even if I got past the affluence jump scares at the beginning.
I live in the same city as this guy but I live in a way poorer area. I have often marveled at other members of his tribe's lack of understanding of the economic reality of us common folk. They normally wear fairly practical outdoorsy clothing and so forth so you won't think they are rich when you first meet them. But then you realise they are wearing a rain coat that cost more than my household's monthly food and transport bill combined and the scruffy backpack they are always toting around retails for my monthly net salary. They will be the first to tell you that material goods are "just not that important to them" while almost never having to worry about money.
I was at university with a lot of them. One studied art history and was going to move to Italy after graduation to basically just absorb the culture or some such BS for a few years. Another had a sister who took a gap year to bicycle accross Asia.
He knew he could monetise his year off with some wildlife footage though.
@@nataschavisser573 Kinda funny that you are taking about them being more privalaged than you while you were at University with them, for most in the world attending university is a huge privalage in itself.
@@ourlittlehomestead2962 Financial aid and a scholarship. Plenty of poor people make it to university.
“... Take a year off documentary filmmaking to make a documentary film.” sent me laughing to the ground.
The real treat for Halloween is this video. Loved it!
you're the best my dude!!!
Everyone go watch José's video of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Congrats on getting to read such a cool passage, you did it perfectly 👍
I have deep issues with projection due to being on autism spectrum and the "Last Chance to See" part the video hit me really hard because of it. While I really don't want to compare my struggles to that of an animal, hearing about the huge communication gap between humans and gorillas made me think hard about my own communication issues and how I interact with neurotypical people. There are really no easy answers for dealing with such gaps and the best we can do is accept that fact.
I'm a scuba diver and this movie made me cry so much. The relationship with the animals and documentary ethics is always something to question and analyze however, which was something it had me thinking about after I was done with it.
the footage they got is STUNNING! while we were watching it we kept going "this would be amazing if it were just the footage with calm music over it."
I kept thinking about it as well and how I wouldn't have the restraint he displayed at so many key points.
@@MaggieMaeFish I worry i would have got sucked in and fallen for the con if i watched it before seeing your analysis, because it is definitely a con.
@@dorianleakey
Because you aren’t good at thinking for yourself.
@@MaggieMaeFish
I hope you stop hating your own race soon.
"anthropamorphizing animals has a direct negative effect on the environment"
*The Furries have entered the chat!*
Jokes on you MY FURSONA IS EXTINCT.
(Seriously though, I wonder how anthropomorphism evolves when you associate that strongly with the CONCEPT of an animal. It's important to note that the furry community has its own set of stereotypes for specific fursona species, many of which are vastly removed from the animal itself and have the only slimmest of links to their actual real life behavior.)
Yeah, as a furry this hits different. That said, most members of the community that I know are fully aware that our identification with and assignment of arbitrary personality traits to various animal species is a complete fantasy. In fact many if not most furries go out of their way to learn about animal biology and behavior (at least when it comes to their favorite species), and the community as a whole has been quite active in supporting charities benefitying animals and conservation efforts. Honestly I think more broadly that people's tendency to anthropomorphize and relate to animals is probably a driving force behind a lot of efforts to protecting species and habitats, though I can see how that may lead to efforts being focused on more "lovable" species to the detriment of others and of the ecosystem in general.
...I dunno man, I mostly just want to hug a cartoon character.
@@patricksinger357 I'm a furry too this is just a shitpost
@@DarkSoulsSauron No worries, I didnt take it as an attack XD
Maggie Mae is "My Fish Teacher"
Yeah some generic white woman who’s never suffered in her life and is not even a real fish sure makes a wonderful teacher. At least maybe to other middle aged privileged white woman.
"When being creepy and stalkerish to human females just feels too normie, so you need to do it to other species" the documentary.
Wow, that's so... woke ?
Studying a completely different species is fascinating and the only way to truly experience it is through direct observation. This man did nothing wrong. You ignorant, sensitive baby.
@@laserfan17 you think this guy was studying the octopus? He’s no scientist, he never even asks any questions or investigates anything about the octopus. We learn nothing about the octopus.
@@TrueHimbo Speak for yourself, but from what I could see, he learns quite a bit about its behavior, intelligence, skills, physiological capabilities, reproduction, and life cicle. He’s no scientist, but he’s curious like one.
He gets to experience it all firsthand, which is why I like how it’s all portrayed so much.
@@TrueHimbo I learned a lot of stuff about octopus.
That moment of meeting the eye of a dolphin while "swimming with dolphins" inside a chlorinated tank in a glorified amusement park and feeling full-body horror at human self-involvement ..... relatable.
1. Take the alien from _Alien_.
2. Add eyes.
3. Now it's a dolphin.
Child: Mom, where is daddy?
Mother: Oh he took time off documentary filmmaking to make a documentary.
*Cats in the Cradle plays*
A friend linked me to this and I'm so grateful she did, this is a wonderful piece. I'm really glad you brought up the point of how we perceive intelligence as a human is a crappy way to judge complex animals who have an entirely unique way of experiencing the world.
Every time I see a comparison of animal intelligence with "as smart as a 3 year old child" my head feels like it's gonna spin all the way around.
“I couldn’t be a good husband or father to my adolescent son, because those relationships involved giving them autonomy and respect. So, I went out for a year and attached emotionally to an animal that functioned entirely different from me. The difference in internal functioning made it so I could personify it’s actions in any way that fit my set narrative, giving me a level of control I’ve always craved.”
25:07 this observation really drove it home for me how weirdly Pepe LePew-esque this whole set of interactions is-when things run away from you they generally don't want you to chase after them, you horrible, horrible self-aggrandizing father. And that's not even getting into those awful other documentaries he did that completely override actual native peoples' and biologists' concerns
Lol we almost used footage of pepe lepew to drive the joke home
A lot of that footage is from when the octopus is already trying to evade a predator and not related to his presence, except for when he scared it with the camera once
halfway through the movie I started calling it "Manic Pixie Dream Octopus"
"Just look at any medical text claiming that a woman's uterus could be floating above her head, haha! -- when really it's in her feet." - Finally some real goddamn science, thank you
This is some classic, rich people, existential crisis bullshit right here. I took an entire year off my dream job to spend time with my family. But then I realised what I REALLY needed was to form a delusional, one-sided soul bond with a wild animal onto which I could project whatever feelings, emotions and desires I wished. Something I can't do with my Wife and child because they always ruin it with their speech and actions.
Those documentaries are the most White Person thing since Asking to See the Manager.
No longer content with asking to see the manager, they are now trying to manage the sea.
Wait are you implying that his race made him do this? What does his race have to do with this? Apparently, there is no correlation between his phenotype and his behavior.
Damn, didn’t expect the sequel of “The Shape of Water” to take such a drastic nose-dive, what a twist.
Sending this to my grandmother bc her description of this entire documentary made me have chills and hope that this will explain whyyyyyy
You make a good point about anthropomorphization, but I think the point is way exaggerated. I don't think the octopus really suffered from his presence. Why would it come up to him and lie on his chest if it felt threatened by him? That's not projecting human logic onto an octopus, that's just universal logic. Animals don't come close, let alone come into physical contact with animals they're scared of and don't trust. Of course the guy is still projecting his own emotions onto the animal and it's pretentious, but imo it's relatively harmless. (As long as it won't become a trend to do this kind of thing and next year we'll have My Crab Teacher etc.)
"The Soul of an Octopus" is a really great book that I think would be a nice palate cleanser after this wild horror. I have to admit that it does some anthropomorphizing, but the perspective it takes is one much more of empathy and true scientific understanding. The author speaks of her relationships with various octopi residents in an aquarium, and she writes with an intense respect for the often overlooked physical power they have.
The commonalities she finds between herself and the octopi are drawn not from narcissistic bullshit like here, but from actually analyzing and processing their behavior. She also makes a pretty clear distinction between aquarium-raised octopi (who are brought in from a young age so as to more easily acclimate to captivity, btw) and wild octopi, and has a responsible take on interference.
Finally, a movie for people who thought Grizzly Man was too subtle and defended the actions of that white colonizing missionary that got killed by native Pacific Islanders last year.
You mean the Asian-American guy that was definitely not really white?
Man, you sjw people surely want to make everything about race, don’t you? It’s clear that people so far-gone into your ideology become extremely hypocritical.
@@laserfan17 Which ideology would that be, since you can apparently gleam everything about me from one 6-month old comment on a TH-cam channel?
And please, be original.
@@laserfan17 You sure do like to obsessively defend this fellow, don't you?
@@85percentnation I no longer give a crap about any of this.
@@theoneandonlygrod Trying to tie race into everything, with the whole “white colonialist” lots of people do that.
Also, don’t tell me what to do. I can be unoriginal if I please.
Man, the guy really said “Man, I really should connect more with my son... hey look, an octopus! Well time to harass it!”
Angry cynic here:
Which scenario would have been better for that boy? Time with dad or time away?
I always assumed octopuses lived for something like 5-10 years. Maggie Mae is right apparently they commonly only live for 1-2 years, while larger ones may live for up to 5. This dude harassed this octopus for most of its life
Got to see this creature live its life, from its early days, hunting, surviving and solving problems until it reproduced and passed on. The octopus wasn’t harmed in any way. People are just so sensitive with their false sense of “empathy” nowadays.
@@laserfan17 "False sense of empathy", interestingly enough, is an apt description for this film.
@@s.g.7572 Could be, I’m not a psychologist, but I don’t think the man was Insincere in his fascination and care for the creature.
@@laserfan17 love and care is when you watch on as they're being attacked by a shark💝
@@swellactually I mean, it’s sad, but, what can you do? Punch the shark in the face?
Him: "my stressful job strained my relationship with my son, so i'm taking a year off"
Son: "that's great dad! Now we can hang out, play catch, you can come to my recital..."
Him: "Nah, change of plans, i'm gonna stalk an octopus for a year"
I don’t mind anthropomorphising animals somewhat in documentaries, because it’s one way to convince idiotic people that they SHOULD CARE about non-human creatures.
But yeah what made the movie weird was that he took a basic experience of gaining the trust of a wild animal (which many wildlife documentaries have done) and made it into this weirdly fetishised ‘unique’ experience.
Sure it was a special experience for him, but it’s just called empathy and friendship my dude.
Deserting his family to make contact with another species: he is Roy Neary at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (without a scintilla of Richard Dreyfus' charisma).
In Roy's defense, the aliens in Close Encounters actually *wanted* to make contact with humans, which is more than we can say for this dude and the octopus.
@@theresafisher8781 I do question the alien's motive for their invitation. Maybe they assumed all earthlings had the same musical ability as the keyboard player who communicated with the mothership. What if they brought him back for a jam session? Or a lounge bar residency? Oh! Roy. Poor Roy.
Liked for the fact that you used the word "scintilla"
The most surprisingly revelation here is That Maggie is a switch. She's always serving DomTop energy.
Yeah the plight of the white boy. He's having such a hard time that he can take a year off a very very good paying job to play octopus whisper.😍😍😍😍🐙🐙🐙🐙
Take a year off his job to make a documentary, that he is probably making money off.
the adam sandler approach to film-making: take a vacation, sell it as work.
@@kloggmonkey At least Adam Sandler doesn‘t cause harm to anyone (except maybe his viewers‘ braincells)
This film is another great example of how horror film makers don't need to rely on special effects or gore to make the viewer feel a deep sense of disgust and aversion...
The narcissism of this guy was so off putting. He really thinks he's making something powerful when a lesson he needed to learn was how to have empathy for others. So happy you explained why this movie gave me such a weird feeling.
A good video, but I will admit I am still disappointed that this wasn’t a movie about an octopus using its camouflage ability to pose as a human school teacher.
You should play Octodad Dadliest Catch
Fortunately, there is other media that has already covered that topic.
When he described what he was feeling for the octopus when it got hurt I was like:
So this is the first time you feel empathy? ....... Interesting.
Like the act of feeling empathy was this profound magical rare experience.
Smh miserable people will do anything to make something negative I swear. How about he as he mentioned throughout the film was surprised by the fact that he felt a similar level of empathy for a sea creature as he has and could for a human being. And THAT is what was shocking to him. It was pretty clear that he wasn’t an octopus specialist but rather became Much more knowledgeable about them through his experience leading to more empathy due to realizing how incredibly intelligent they are. Also a FEMALE octopus life cycle is 2-2 and a half years not one. I’m certain this chick purposely said one for dramatic effect to make her point seem more potent. Funny how she’s criticizing his so called over dramatization of his behavior and USING the octopus for his own selfish gain when she literally did just that. And if you wanna say maybe she’s not that knowledgeable about octopi, then she shouldn’t be speaking in such a critical manner about someone who clearly is. Also IF one thinks her mishap of quoting their life cycle as one instead of two years, consider the fact that she herself cut off a whole HALF of the octopuses life span just to condense her point for more impact. That’d be like you dying at 50 and she gave a speech at your funeral and said gone too soon he was only 25...Makes it CONSIDERABLY more dramatic as well as inaccurate and IMO disingenuous. But go ahead eat it up. Let her stir up that self righteousness you got buried deep in there looking for a chance to spill out through the unfounded negative criticism of others any chance it gets.
@@deggree even so if you’ve reached middle age without feeling deep empathy for animals besides your house pets you still have problems
The number of times I've seen white man Artists invent empathy for the first time 😂😂
Lots of neurodivergent people don't feel empathy. That doesn't make them bad people or people not willing to help or care for others. First the claim is made him talking about his empathy is bad, "making it about himself", now him not feeling empathy is bad?
I'm neurodivergent myself, and often needed to learn when I was younger to not mention my own experiences when trying to show concern to someone because I was miscommunicating, some people want to know they are not alone in their pain, some just want to be held and quietly listened to, and I needed to learn to ask.
You cannot ask an octopus how she is feeling. How is showing and talking about how pale and slow she was after the injury, worrying about her, wondering how she will eat for the next few days, making it all about himself? Goodness, the bullying the overempathy or lack of empathy I and undiagnosed or once undiagnosed friends of mine got us comes to mind quick looking over this comment section.
@@sightired4590 "ackshually making fun of people who lack empathy is ableist cuz some disabled people are unfeeling robots"
please...STOP
empathy is LEARNED behavior. FOR EVERYONE. if you don't have it you need to do something about it and stop blaming it on autism. being able to look at someone and try to ascertain if they want advice or just for you to listen IS EMPATHY. YOU GET BETTER AT IT OVER TIME. If you can't use verbal communication you find other ways to communicate and you get better. Like with EVERYTHING. I get along better with animals than I do people so I'm not sure what you mean that autistic people can't understand animals cuz they're non-verbal. you know A LOT OF AUTISTIC PEOPLE ARE NON-VERBAL?! If anything we rely LESS on verbal communication than most people because of this! maybe you're a sociopath and were misdiagnosed, but even if you are autistic, you're perpetuating a stereotype and bigotry that people use to justify killing us. STOP.
One thing to remember is that Douglas Adams answered, when asked to go on the trip that would become Last Chance To See, that he knows nothing as a biologist, so why choose him? The BBC producer smiled and replied: That's why I want you!
And yes, his untrained eyes and ears could then go past the usual trappings of nature-documentarians. And as he was a british sci fi writer and humorist he also had a very peculiar tendency/ability to poke holes at assumptions that complacent minds jump to.
And his retelling of the plights of the New Zeeland Krakapo Parrots dating-life explains so much of human evolution.
m.th-cam.com/video/_ZG8HBuDjgc/w-d-xo.html
The embodiment of when you can't take NO for an answer!
LOL
I hope the sequel is when her kids take revenge on him!!!
Persistence is what has led the human species toward success.
You always have to make something about yourselves and your sense of persecution. This isn’t about feminism.
The spitting image song "I've never met a nice south african" kept playing in my head for this entire piece.
This guy seemed like a pretty nice South African
This movie was such a massive let down as a documentary, let alone as a nature documentary. The footage was amazing for sure, but I learned more respect and wonder towards the ocean and ocean life from spongebob.
It's not a documentary
@@TheVolginator Clearly not, but it markets itself as one.
@@0.-.0 do you even realize the hypocrisy in your reply? Smh....Maybe YOU THOUGHT it was a documentary and got upset that it wasn’t even though it NEVER WAS a documentary and now you need a reason to justify your anger. Nobody duped you cut it out yo lol. Either you enjoyed it or you didn’t do be a sheet to this ladies opinion.
There's a lot of violence towards the indigenous peoples in my home province of Nova Scotia. This video about asshole settlers made me think of that throughout.
So you think indigenous people are like octopus? Sounds pretty racist to me.
Greetings Maggie, I am an octopus and I love your content. I'd give you a thumbs up but alas I have no thumbs.
I am genuinely surprised that The Octopus Man didn't eat his aquatic lover in the end and present it as a spiritual experience.
+
This new TH-cam standard of advertising videos to you before they come out means you get to see pre-screening comments from people who loved the documentary, and post-screaming comments from people who despise the documentary, both with confidence and yearning to hear My Fish Teacher validate their worldview.
Thanks, I hate it.
Wow, when I saw the trailer for this on Netflix I was tempted to watch it. I had assumed that it was going to be about a friendly octopus who followed him around while he swam and became a sort of companion. It seemed kind of pretentious but I thought it might be a good laugh, I just hadn't gotten around to it. The fact that he actively pursued this poor creature over and over again when it was clearly running away from him and didn't even stop when his meddling got the poor things tentacle ripped off sure says something. The parallels to how some men will pursue human women and referring to the octopus as his lover sure put this in an entirely different light
16:47 is a sign of whats to come. He did it. Now more will wanna do the same. Who remembers the "into the wild bus"? How many tourist got injured, lost or died? Yea!
We do so much damage to the oceans, but dying in them is at least something they know how to handle.
I’ve been home schooling my 11 year old god daughter. She was diagnosed with cancer just at the beginning of the pandemic. I used this video as an example of using satire to support arguments. We had been talking before that about the concept of intelligence and how what is intelligent for a human isn’t necessarily intelligent for other animals and that reminded me of this video. She loved it and it led to some really interesting conversations. Thanks for being so insightful and funny!
This was really good!
We need to reconsider our entire relationship with nature, and this starts with how we treat animals....
A lot of science has good intentions in trying to understand things, but when we abuse the subject, it no longer is objective....
I had no idea this film would portray things this way....
I think I can refrain from watching it now, because as an animal lover, I cannot condone this intrusion...
It's certainly not the worst example of how we destroy nature, but it's definitely a sign of our narcissism in our modern view....
The quotes at the end were spot on!
Thank you for sharing this perspective!
This guy is not a scientist
I'd watch it before you take this review too seriously. This is largely an Onion article in video form.
You’re thanking someone you don’t know for preventing you from watching a film you didn’t see about animals, which you by admission DO love? I hope my point was received. Like another person said. Watch the film for yourself.
@@deggree I did, and immediately was thinking about the same issues presented in the review....
There's certainly beautiful footage, but the line gets crossed....
The intrusion into her life results in harm, that's the issue I had....
I feel like this guy's wife and son dodged a bullet. That could have been them getting attacked by sharks to validate this mid-life crisis.
Or even worse, they could have become the subject of the documentary
@@ghfudrs93uuu Except everyone here is complaining about how they weren't in the film. He can't win either way!
This made me think a lot about the puppy I got at the beginning of quarantine and the relationship we’ve developed. But mostly about me. Thank you, Daddy Mae Fish. Save Martha.
The inspiring story of a man who stalks an octopus for a year in order to avoid family therapy
You know basically nothing about this man, and yet you are happy to assume he is a terrible father etc. Says more about yourself
Also, isn’t white octopus’s stress color? A color the octopus is constantly turning?
I was expecting a B-movie horror that may have been an inspiration for Assassination Classroom, but what I got was something far worse.
I would risk it all for a falcon. That wing span, mmm.
I was disgusted by this film and was shocked to see this is the only video that I can find that echos my point of view. Thanks for keeping me sane that there are human who are still doing critical thinking and not just accepting the norm. This is a disgusting movie about a man obsessed with an octopus and stalking her. How can this win an Oscar?!?? Thank you for your only rational reasoning online. The world has gone mad.
The whole idea of humans projecting their ideals onto animals reminded me about an anthropology class I took once. I remember my professor taking issue with the "march of progress" illustration (you know, the one with the ape gradually evolving into a man), for two reasons:
1. The illustration has led many to believe that chimps evolved into humans
and 2. It assumes that human, or man specifically, is the end goal, as the word "progress" suggests. It's as if they thought humans are the perfect, most intelligent organism or something.
I'm glad she brought this up to us. She even mentioned how western/colonial the whole idea was.
Anyways I really love this video it was so fun to listen to lmao
Interesting point. I would argue that the problem stems from what you mentioned being incompatible with the materialist Neo-Darwininian conception of nature. I am uncertain why such thinking is western. Is it intrinsic? Certainly not, westernism is not as monolithic as you appear to believe.
This is SUCH A GOOD VIDEO
Billions, literally billions of humans communicate with plants and animals everyday. There is no "telepathy" involved. Telempathy, yes. Animals and plants, like humans, feel stuff. Their feelings are experienced by a sentient human in the vicinity. Simple. I said sentient. Everything is vibes. Even "physical life in the physical universe". Everything is vibes.
Your reference to creepy fingers and the documentary's own footage at 7:02 did a really good job of making one of the most familiar sights a human experiences (their own hands) look alien and upsetting.
I watched it and cried. The ending was so bittersweet. I can't wait to see what you'll have to say about it.
Edit: OH WOW the ending of that damn documentary blew my thoughts out of my mind (slaps forehead). I kept looking for the scary bits and you got the weird gendering and stalking on point. When he was worried about the octopus, I was confused how he didn't know about the regeneration or why he didn't stop once he knew. His focus on his own family just disappeared and I kept waiting to hear more about his personal development. But no.
Though the limbs regenerate, they won't be the same, because a part of their brain is in their tentacles. The skills are learned on a tentacle-by-tentacle basis, and only those tentacles know how to do that thing. If they're lost, the octopus will have to re-learn the skill.
@@GuerillaBunny I vaguely remember reading that, but it's not usually mentioned.
@Christopher Stanley IKR?! Octopuses are so rad. It's amazing.
@@dragoniraflameblade this doesn’t change how hard you went on using his “lack of knowledge” about their tentacle regeneration as your main point of contention. I see this lady has a lot of people in these comments riled up and coming off sarcastically self righteous in their agreement with her criticism of him. I guess that’s a thing though. Also fun fact, A the guy never claimed to KNOW much about octopi previous to his real time experience with the one in the film. B. Their life cycle is 2 and a half years for females. Her saying 1 year was a gross misleading for dramatic effect to intensify the demonization of this FILM MAKER. The part everyone seems to forget because of the WAY he chose to tell his story. He’s not some privileged guy who jumped in the water with nothing better to do than be rich and neglect his family. Netflix PAYS people for content. Him already being a film maker he could have even been paid BEFORE hand to make the film. That’s typically how Netflix deals go. I know first hand.
In the wild, their lifespan is only around 1 year, even if they don't mate and lay eggs. Depending on where they live, their bodies actually start to break down and weaken due to stress from predators, varying water conditions or temperatures, or having to use so much energy to regenerate limbs.
In captivity they can live slightly longer in very specific conditions. But they certainly aren't living to be 2.5 years old in the wild.
They gave an Oscar to Green Book, so I'm not that surprised they awarded this film as well.
Women Talking was robbed this year
I snorted at that closing line, man I was expecting some variation of Save Martha, but that one really got me-
Thank you! I hated him. "That moment when an animal finally trusts you" GET A CAT!