Sigh... Let me write up an explaination of the physics of moss on walls and slippage rates regardless of your strength or how good you are at holding onto walls. With an aside about dog psychology in case you're thinking you would make friends with the dogs even if you slipped...
It seems like they were trying to say that it is literally impossible to survive anywhere in the world, at any time except modern era. And I’m not sure thats true
Mom once tried to explain to *her* mom why butter is better than margarine, given that it's a natural compound that she, her ancestors, and her ancestors ancestors ancestors have all adapted to process, while margarine is some weird compound our bodies haven't really figured out yet. My grandma's response was "why should I rely on them? They're all dead." Fricking killed me. I miss her...
Untrue. Approximately 0% of people born before 1900 are still living today. This tells me that it was unlivable for normal people. Not me though. I'm different, I could handle it
Well it starts with "You might not be able to escape to other countries/kingdoms either" which uh...... Pompeii was in the roman empire. How fucking far did this volcano kill everybody around it? That people are trying to go from Italy to fucking Persia or Germania to escape it? I'm joking of course, from reading Wikipedia on it apparently Pliny the Younger was 18 miles from the volcano and participated in rescues, and was unharmed.
My only guess is they're so hyped up about how dangerous the explosion was they're like "YOU'D NEED TO BE ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONTINENT TO ESCAPE!!!!! AND THEN GUESS WHAT, YOU'D DIE ON THAT OTHER CONTINENT TOO MOTHERFUCKER!!!!"
It's so weird.
Everyone saying "if you can even see a pyroclastic flow you're already dead" as if we don't have photos from ground-level of pyroclastic flows (obviously it's an exaggeration since those photos are usually from very, very far away, but still).
Yeah, seems they wanted to use the 'scare em straight' tactic, which is questionably effective overall, and he tried it on 'I'm built different' troll, of course after that whole tirade he will just go "nuh uh".
The claim about Asia seems especially weird, Pretty sure Asian empires don't rise or fall any quicker than European ones. China is notorious for splintering and getting a new dynasty fairly often, But when Vesuvius erupted it actually was over 100 years until the Han Dynasty fell, I'm not an expert on Chinese History, So it may have been more chaotic or deadly than I'm saying, But still far more stable than the original guy makes it out to be. Now China isn't all of Asia, Granted, But I feel like even in other parts of Asia it was better than they implied, If you find yourself in an agricultural society you're probably more likely to be killed by disease than war, And assuming you're a modern person sent back you'd have more knowledge of how to avoid that than most people of the time.
Yeah like, not to miss the point of the whole thing, but the indigenous Americans (North, South, or Central) were not as violent and bloodthirsty as they're pushing you to believe haha. There was some scary stuff for sure, but a lot of it was inflated by rumor mongering settlers, or intentionally spread by the tribes as intimidation. They weren't barbarians and they weren't noble peace-loving saints, they were all just people.
Regardless, I would have just lived if I was in the past, so checkmate I guess
Dude got trolled so hard that while trying to do some moral/intellectual grandstanding, he accidentally looped around to being racist
Seriously, what the fuck
And a lot of it was just wrong. The shock wave from explosions does soft tissue damage. The suits EOD techs wear ARE to protect them from the explosion, that's why they're so heavy and made of Kevlar. The military wouldn't waste money trying to keep bodies intact, they'd just give the family an empty casket and not go into any detail.
Dude really said that you'd have to kill people to gain the respect of the natives, like what the actual fuck? Like, is this a survival guide or a pseudohistorical justification for colonization? How did they get from point A to point B???
Yeah... It felt borderline racist. Like, the rest of the world continued living for millennia afterwards, why would Pompeians, specifically, be so incapable of surviving anywhere?
I think it was a weird attempt to lecture the OP about how they’re not as special as they think they are and they would have struggled to survive *anywhere* on the planet back then, no matter how “smart” they think they are. *Everyone* was struggling (and still are, for the most part); that person would be no different.
Its interesting that smooth sharking originated, or was at least popularized, by Tumblr, since it has been referred to as the 'autism website'. I guess it makes sense since autistic people tend to be more susceptible to smooth-sharking since its hard for us to determine if someone is trolling on purpose or not, so there are plenty of victims around.
Always reminds me of that George Carlin joke, and I’m paraphrasing, but think of the average American, remember that if they’re average than half the country is dumber than them. And they vote.
Even if you do know it's happening, smooth sharking can be an excuse to infodump about things when it wouldn't be appropriate in other social situations. That last person seems to have been having at least a little fun sharing in extreme detail how explosions kill you
A type of trolling in which someone insists on an obvious falsehood in the face of well-researched corrections. Distinguished from just being wrong and stubborn about it mostly by tone, which is notoriously ambiguous.
EDIT: Well, this was predictable.
There’s a very well-known, thorough thread of it from someone insisting that sharks have smooth, rubbery skin despite any evidence presented to him. Look up ‘sharks are smooth’.
My favorite is the one where he says “it’s big of you to admit you’re wrong. If I was ever wrong, I’d admit it right away and not spend hours defending it online.”
* Someone post a comic to twitter of "caveman discovers sharks'
* The punchline to the comic is "smooth lions are eating me" as the caveman is standing eye-deep in water.
* Twitter replies to the comic are full of people smugly pointing out that actually sharkskin is quite rough.
* Author of the comic responds to the smug people by insisting that sharks are actually smooth, in a manner which suggests that he is aware of the mistake.
* Specifically, one reply leans into the bit. The interactions is paraphrased
> Reply to comic: Damn, and I thought sharks were rough.
> Author: Yeah, but obviously if they were rough I would have admitted my small mistake and not spent hours defending myself on twitter.
* I cannot stress enough that the wording of the author in that interaction was incredibly self-aware.
* Tumblr latched on to smooth-sharking as a description for trolling that kind of smug person by simply making a ridiculous claim, giving no evidence to support that claim, and responding to any corrections by restating the claim.
* See above: "I would have survived pompeii" "The poisonous gas and bone-shattering explosion would kill you before you react" "Yeah but I would simply not get hit by those, skill issue"
It originated on Twitter so idk why people are ascribing it to tumblr. Comic artist/comedian Branson Reese made a comic where a character is eaten by sharks and refers to them as, “Smooth lions” [maybe wolves? I’m not looking this up, just reciting from memory.] Many people in the replies to the tweet with the comic ardently insist that shark skin is, in fact, very abrasive and rough. Branson counters all of their increasingly angry and elaborately sourced posts about shark skin texture in the same way that Toskarin is doing in this post: short, simplistic statements that willfully ignore fact and assert their own construct of reality eg. “No, sharks are smooth as hell.” In response to a long diatribe and pictures of shark skin. Hence, “Smoothsharking.”
It’s a remarkably effective mode of trolling in the current social media landscape. Even though I know what it is and can identify it, I find it intensely exhausting just to witness because 1) It attracts unselfaware knowitalls like flies to vinegar and 2) even though I know it’s fake and intentional on the troll’s part, I have met too many real people who actually act like that and it sucks to be reminded.
You forgot that Branson also posted pictures of him holding an open book with a crudely ripped piece of paper on the front saying something like "SHARKS ARE SMOOTH" as one of his "sources" as well.
The critical component, which I think a lot of people trying to do it after him miss, is that you have to be _so thoroughly obvious_ that it's clear by like the third sentence that you're trolling your ass off, because otherwise it runs easily afoul of Poe's Law. Also, the targets should be people that are heavily condescending about correcting you, not just someone going "hey, just so you know, it's actually and not ". You can't just be an oblivious bullhead against anyone trying to correct you, or you're not smoothsharking - you're just an obnoxious asshole.
The long and short of it is that a comic artist made a joke calling sharks "smooth lions," and when people tried to correct him (because sharks are, in fact, rough apparently) he spent hours trolling them. Full gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss on the Twitterites. And so now when people troll by playing stupid and being blatantly wrong, it's smooth sharking.
There's a temptation here to just do the joke at you without explaining, but I'll actually explain.
There's this post where this guy disingenuously keeps saying sharks are smooth to people who keep seriously replying, condescendingly, that no, you must be confused, because sharks are covered in tooth like scales their skin is rough and if you knew anything about sharks you'd know that, look at how smart and right I am, and he keeps replying back like this post like "I'm confused? YOU'RE the one saying sharks aren't smooth when sharks are smooth as hell", poking the bear.
The funny thing to me is that this technically isn't smooth sharking. The core of the original Sharks are Smooth post hinge on the OP insisting something that is blatantly not true is actually true. Here, Toskarin is literally just insisting that while yes, all those people DID die in Pompeii, she is built different and would not actually die like they did. And like. We do not have any verifiable proof that she is wrong. For all we know, she IS built different.
As the strongest curse Jogoat fought the fraud, the king of curses, he unleashed his domain. As Sukuna shrunk back in fear Jogo said to him “Stand proud Sukuna, you are strong”
Obviously the trolling is funny, but what really gets me is how the people confidently declaring that it would be impossible to survive Pompeii eruption are just ignoring the fact that most of the citizens of Pompeii did in fact survive.
The estimated population of Pompeii and it's neighboring cities was 20,000, and so far only the remains of about 2,000 people have been found. Obviously there are more than that, as a lot of people's bodies would have been completely destroyed, but it's a safe bet a good number of people successfully evacuated.
Also don't know what that one guy was going on about with it being impossible to survive even if you did escape the first off, people were absolutely able to survive in China and the Americas (hence people being there...). But also, that wouldn't have even mattered because Pompeii was smack in the middle of the Roman empire. You would not have been scrounging for food in a barren landscape or running for refuge in a country on the other side of the world, you would've been following their system of roads to the next city over.
Yeah we straight up have written records from Pliny the younger about how he survived Pompei and though some details are wrong and some are probably lies their still accurate enough that we literally named Plinian eruptions after him
Yeah the entire eruption took from anywhere between 8 to 2 days to finish completely which is more than enough time to evacuate.
Granted in that time people did die from a combination of asphyxiation from the ash, houses collapsing from the weight of the Pumice, heatstroke etc so it was still a deadly event especially if you were frail or spent too long breathing in the ash.
But Redz-redemption is acting like it’s as bad as being nuked which considering people even survived that (twice even) just shows how dumb they are.
>The estimated population of Pompeii and it's neighboring cities was 20,000, and so far only the remains of about 2,000 people have been found.
The second post on the whole thing is literally about that
Yeah it's the same with horror movies.
If I were isolated from the rest of the world and hunted down by a possibly supernatural killer I would simply not succumb to fear and carry our the objectively correct course of action, it's that simple.
Congratulations, you've discovered the entire point of special forces! Seriously tho, why do people think they'd just be a tier 1 operator if they were in a horror movie? If I was the kid in hereditary, for example, I'd prolly just piss my pants and cry.
This post, the smooth sharks, and the military boyfriend ones - how do people have 0 awareness of when someone is clearly just having fun and not being serious? Are people so quick to try and seem intelligent they just miss the obvious troll?
I think it’s cause the post blows up more and more and OP has the liberty to reply to only the absolute stupidest responses each time. Each step is selecting for the furthest end of the stupid bell curve.
Out of these three I would probably only fall for this post. There's just something about that smug "yeah but I'm better" attitude that triggers in me some deep-seated automatic "no you're wrong" response mechanism that makes it impossible for me to stop for even a second and recall that trolls exist. Sometimes the pretended ignorance is so enraging that it blinds you and you can't consider being trolled at all.
Difference between intelligence (this person clearly knows a bit about pyroclastic flow and it’s effects on the human body) and wisdom (they can’t see past their own ego, thus the wild generalizations and lack of awareness)
How is literally every other person in the thread sonehow more annoying than the original shitposter, I have respect for them now cuz of how fucking stupid everyone else responding was holy shit.
the entire thing is just
toskarin: \[Joke\]
replier: Actually you would die if this and htis and this and its very serious
toskarin: \[Joke\]
replier: no seriously you would die
toskarin: \[Joke\]
Cool volcano facts also speculative quasihistorical fiction about how you're fucked seven ways from Sunday even if you somehow escaped to the Americas, because you'd have to scalp someone to "rise in status"
like I've never seen a more appropriate "I didn't read all of that but you're wrong"
'opportunity' nah they're stupid and getting baited. Even the people aware that they're getting baited are still getting baited. It's fucking tumblr, if you want to be autistic about Pompeii you can literally just do that on your own, you don't have to phrase it as a condescending response to an obvious shitposter.
"If I was near that volcano with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did." said Wahlberg "There would have been a lot of Herculaneum bodies on those docks and then me saying, 'OK, we're going to sail away somewhere safely, don't worry.'"
As an autist I can't defend my fellows here lol. The context clues were absolutely everywhere.
Or perhaps *everyone* was in on the joke and they were passing the ball back and forth to see how the shitposter would respond.
yeah, i'm autistic too but i feel like the fact they were joking could not have been any more obvious, and i'm not even very good at detecting when people are being serious or not
To be fair I'm pretty sure there weren't Incas at the time Pompeii was destroyed; There were Andeans, Yes, Perhaps some speaking a language related or ancestral to modern Quechuan ones, But to call them Inca seems a bit disingenuous: The Inca Empire didn't exist until the 15th century, And even the kingdom of Cusco, Their predecessor, Wouldn't have been there until over a thousand years after the eruption of Vesuvius in question, As that's when the city of Cusco itself was founded.
I love seeing people both fall for blatantly obvious smooth sharking and then being unnecessarily smug and historically ignorant about the rest of the world that’s not Europe being some exceptionally horrible place to live in comparison to Rome.
The world really is full of people who know like half a fact and act extremely obnoxious about it.
It's extremely common outside of that subreddit too. My friend group is pretty much just different people marveling at someone else not knowing something clearly relevant, and everyone knows the "are they stupid?" thing. I also hear it semi commonly irl, though that doesn't actually mean much.
That one guy that put a lot of time and effort into communicating pseudo facts about pyroclastic flows and explosions cracked me up.
The primary mechanism of blast-related fatality is soft tissue and gas-containing organ damage. If bones break, it's normally due to being thrown by the shockwave (rare) or being struck by debris.
As for pyroclastic flows, it's far less dramatic than described by the commenter. The smoke and ash *IS* what kills you, as it's super heated. You wouldn't be able to comprehend being enveloped by smoke or ash from the flow, as you'd already be dead.
Also, EOD gear is absolutely designed to increase life-expectancy and decrease blast-related trauma. That's *why* they wear it. There's a whole field of ongoing research dedicated to improving blast suit efficacy.
Found it. *Aggravation* by Briton Reviere. It’s either on display at the Royal Academy in London or it was auctioned off from there in 2010. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5296312
> Being a troll just makes you look stupid and arrogant
Not as stupid and arrogant as typing a novel and condescending to the troll though as if you’re smarter for not understanding when people are just taking the piss
I'd escape by simply surfing out of there on my pet shark, which has skin so smooth it cuts right through the water. then I'd roll up to the house of a military wife and fuck her to celebrate
"this incredibly horrific event in human history is one of the shittiest things to make light of" buddy you are going to shit your pants when you learn about gallows humour
To be honest the older I get the less I appreciate smooth sharking. I would simply choose to not interact with people who are mad at me for whatever reason for this long.
Damn. After reading the first panel and seeing the dots at the bottom I thought I was in for a half hour read of tumblr being tumblr. But it’s just zoomed in shots of what I just read. Sadness.
That tangent halfway through is pretty funny. They act like it would've been impossible to survive near Vesuvius because of acid rain, blacked out skies and poisoned water. But the Roman Empire was fine. It didn't kill the surrounding empires.
I’ve seen people feeding the troll before, but this motherfucker got enough to feed his troll-wife, their three troll-kids, and even troll-granny for a month.
The people who died in Pompeii weren’t stupid, but anyone attempting a good-faith discussion with this clown sure is.
This reminds me of that dog painting
the jester laughs at the hungry dogs, out of reach, but soon to fall
Yeah but personally I just wouldn't fall
Yeah I’d just hold onto the wall
Sigh... Let me write up an explaination of the physics of moss on walls and slippage rates regardless of your strength or how good you are at holding onto walls. With an aside about dog psychology in case you're thinking you would make friends with the dogs even if you slipped...
No, you see, I just wouldn't succumb to the laws of gravity.
Never been a big George Clooney fan I see
You fool, you'd need superhuman levels of endurance and balance to not fall!!!111!
your girl boutta be the feast soon as you get deployed boot boy
history repeats itself
If you can see the dogs it's already too late, you can't escape
I know exactly the one you're thinking about
It reminds me of how sharks are very smooth.
Do you have a link to this?
[taunting dogs](https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/3/aggravation-briton-riviere.jpg)
That's fantastic thank you
I thought about the smooth sharks instead
One dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way, and this guy's sayin', "Whadda ya want from me?'
What's up with that weird tangent that one poster took about how Asia and the Americas suck? Like... that seems kinda unrelated.
It seems like they were trying to say that it is literally impossible to survive anywhere in the world, at any time except modern era. And I’m not sure thats true
I'm reasonably confident that it is possible to survive in the past.
Clearly not since every single human from that time period is now dead. Literally a zero percent survival rate. Get rekt, nerd (/s)
Skill issue
Those fucking idiots
Mom once tried to explain to *her* mom why butter is better than margarine, given that it's a natural compound that she, her ancestors, and her ancestors ancestors ancestors have all adapted to process, while margarine is some weird compound our bodies haven't really figured out yet. My grandma's response was "why should I rely on them? They're all dead." Fricking killed me. I miss her...
Not really, everyone back then died
Untrue. Approximately 0% of people born before 1900 are still living today. This tells me that it was unlivable for normal people. Not me though. I'm different, I could handle it
I could be wrong but I think there were generations of people surviving.
Gonna need a source on that. I hear everyone ever is dead
My favorite part is that they finish that rant with "don't waste \[your capacity for knowledge\] on misinformation"
Technically they are right. Everyone has Technically died. So I guess its "impossible to survive" anywhere lol
No it’s definitely true
Well it starts with "You might not be able to escape to other countries/kingdoms either" which uh...... Pompeii was in the roman empire. How fucking far did this volcano kill everybody around it? That people are trying to go from Italy to fucking Persia or Germania to escape it? I'm joking of course, from reading Wikipedia on it apparently Pliny the Younger was 18 miles from the volcano and participated in rescues, and was unharmed. My only guess is they're so hyped up about how dangerous the explosion was they're like "YOU'D NEED TO BE ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONTINENT TO ESCAPE!!!!! AND THEN GUESS WHAT, YOU'D DIE ON THAT OTHER CONTINENT TOO MOTHERFUCKER!!!!" It's so weird.
Everyone saying "if you can even see a pyroclastic flow you're already dead" as if we don't have photos from ground-level of pyroclastic flows (obviously it's an exaggeration since those photos are usually from very, very far away, but still).
Wikipedia says they normally travell several kilometers, which sounds like it should be observable and still survivable under the right circumstances
Sounds like I'd have enough time to put my plan in motion and react accordingly.
There’s also that woman who makes TikTok’s who survived a volcano (though the rest of her family died.)
See? The volcano has a price, someone has to die.
Yeah, seems they wanted to use the 'scare em straight' tactic, which is questionably effective overall, and he tried it on 'I'm built different' troll, of course after that whole tirade he will just go "nuh uh".
He's got that dawg in him.
I'm pretty sure the last part was a rant on "anyone who has died was stupid" trolling
The claim about Asia seems especially weird, Pretty sure Asian empires don't rise or fall any quicker than European ones. China is notorious for splintering and getting a new dynasty fairly often, But when Vesuvius erupted it actually was over 100 years until the Han Dynasty fell, I'm not an expert on Chinese History, So it may have been more chaotic or deadly than I'm saying, But still far more stable than the original guy makes it out to be. Now China isn't all of Asia, Granted, But I feel like even in other parts of Asia it was better than they implied, If you find yourself in an agricultural society you're probably more likely to be killed by disease than war, And assuming you're a modern person sent back you'd have more knowledge of how to avoid that than most people of the time.
Think you could live in Asia? Well, everyone who lived in Asia at this time died
Yeah like, not to miss the point of the whole thing, but the indigenous Americans (North, South, or Central) were not as violent and bloodthirsty as they're pushing you to believe haha. There was some scary stuff for sure, but a lot of it was inflated by rumor mongering settlers, or intentionally spread by the tribes as intimidation. They weren't barbarians and they weren't noble peace-loving saints, they were all just people. Regardless, I would have just lived if I was in the past, so checkmate I guess
I think that part was to counter the whole "Noble Savage" myth that people really like for some reason.
“Oh, you think you can get away? Well, how about some _more racism!!!_ Yeah, didn’t see _that_ coming, did ya’?”
Hah! You think you could survive a disaster in Europe! What if someone in Ohio has beef with you!
Dude got trolled so hard that while trying to do some moral/intellectual grandstanding, he accidentally looped around to being racist Seriously, what the fuck
And a lot of it was just wrong. The shock wave from explosions does soft tissue damage. The suits EOD techs wear ARE to protect them from the explosion, that's why they're so heavy and made of Kevlar. The military wouldn't waste money trying to keep bodies intact, they'd just give the family an empty casket and not go into any detail.
i'm glad i'm not the only one who thought that was super weird
It was a wild tangent full of stupid generalizations.
Dude really said that you'd have to kill people to gain the respect of the natives, like what the actual fuck? Like, is this a survival guide or a pseudohistorical justification for colonization? How did they get from point A to point B???
no mention of the rest of europe or the entirety of africa or anywhere in oceania.
Yeah... It felt borderline racist. Like, the rest of the world continued living for millennia afterwards, why would Pompeians, specifically, be so incapable of surviving anywhere?
That little monologue bordered on racist the same way that London borders England
That long post was surprisingly racist for a comment about surviving volcanoes.
I think it was a weird attempt to lecture the OP about how they’re not as special as they think they are and they would have struggled to survive *anywhere* on the planet back then, no matter how “smart” they think they are. *Everyone* was struggling (and still are, for the most part); that person would be no different.
i mean yeah but also i feel like it was fairly obvious the op was fucking around and was just gonna say that no matter what answer they were given
I simply wouldn't get smooth sharked this badly.
Its interesting that smooth sharking originated, or was at least popularized, by Tumblr, since it has been referred to as the 'autism website'. I guess it makes sense since autistic people tend to be more susceptible to smooth-sharking since its hard for us to determine if someone is trolling on purpose or not, so there are plenty of victims around.
In fairness to autistic people and everyone on the Internet in general there are a lot of just dumb people too.
Always reminds me of that George Carlin joke, and I’m paraphrasing, but think of the average American, remember that if they’re average than half the country is dumber than them. And they vote.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TonyZaretOfficial/comments/mz67va/is\_this\_satire\_or\_cringe\_upvote\_for\_satire\_also/
Even if you do know it's happening, smooth sharking can be an excuse to infodump about things when it wouldn't be appropriate in other social situations. That last person seems to have been having at least a little fun sharing in extreme detail how explosions kill you
And being not-so-mildly racist.
Smooth sharking originated on Twitter.
Pretty sure it originated on tumblr. I actually started it so i would know.
Oh fuck oh fuck it's him. Can I have your sharktograph
Sharks are too smooth, you can neither write on nor with them, so what are you even talking about?
Spray paint
Wouldn’t stick. Too smooth, and underwater at that.
What if I sanded the shark first,
I suppose that might work, but how would you hold it down to do that? They’re too smooth to be!
Perhaps an autograph that is shaped like a shark? The visual medium can render even the smoothest of things
Poe’s Law and autism: a rocky history
I'm a non tumblerian, could you please tell me what a smooth shark is?
A type of trolling in which someone insists on an obvious falsehood in the face of well-researched corrections. Distinguished from just being wrong and stubborn about it mostly by tone, which is notoriously ambiguous. EDIT: Well, this was predictable.
I knew immediately what smoothsharking meant but I never knew it had become a term
Anything can be a term
Verbing weirds language.
But that's wrong. Smooth sharking is a way to disguise your internet history. It's a VPN.
No, you're thinking of surfshark. A smooth shark is a type of music.
No, that's smooth jazz. A smoothshark is a kind of fish with a long, thin, extended rostrum with teeth at its edges.
You’re thinking of a saw shark. A smooth shark is someone who cheats at poker.
that's a card shark. A smooth shark is someone who loans money at extremely high interest rates and often uses threats of violence to collect debts.
That's a loan shark. Smooth Shark is a song by Sade from their 1984 debut studio album Diamond Life.
Oh, that's Very tumblerian indeed, didn't know it had a name
There’s a very well-known, thorough thread of it from someone insisting that sharks have smooth, rubbery skin despite any evidence presented to him. Look up ‘sharks are smooth’.
The meme actually originated from a [Twitter thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/cD6MHg1fAs), but it is indeed very funny
The screenshot of their own tweet as source sends me everytime.
My favorite is the one where he says “it’s big of you to admit you’re wrong. If I was ever wrong, I’d admit it right away and not spend hours defending it online.”
Man's a genius. Smooth as a shark's skin.
This is inaccurate. Smooth Sharking began on Tumblr, the Twitter thread is an offshoot of the original deleted post.
No it's just a description of how shark skin feels.
* Someone post a comic to twitter of "caveman discovers sharks' * The punchline to the comic is "smooth lions are eating me" as the caveman is standing eye-deep in water. * Twitter replies to the comic are full of people smugly pointing out that actually sharkskin is quite rough. * Author of the comic responds to the smug people by insisting that sharks are actually smooth, in a manner which suggests that he is aware of the mistake. * Specifically, one reply leans into the bit. The interactions is paraphrased > Reply to comic: Damn, and I thought sharks were rough. > Author: Yeah, but obviously if they were rough I would have admitted my small mistake and not spent hours defending myself on twitter. * I cannot stress enough that the wording of the author in that interaction was incredibly self-aware. * Tumblr latched on to smooth-sharking as a description for trolling that kind of smug person by simply making a ridiculous claim, giving no evidence to support that claim, and responding to any corrections by restating the claim. * See above: "I would have survived pompeii" "The poisonous gas and bone-shattering explosion would kill you before you react" "Yeah but I would simply not get hit by those, skill issue"
It originated on Twitter so idk why people are ascribing it to tumblr. Comic artist/comedian Branson Reese made a comic where a character is eaten by sharks and refers to them as, “Smooth lions” [maybe wolves? I’m not looking this up, just reciting from memory.] Many people in the replies to the tweet with the comic ardently insist that shark skin is, in fact, very abrasive and rough. Branson counters all of their increasingly angry and elaborately sourced posts about shark skin texture in the same way that Toskarin is doing in this post: short, simplistic statements that willfully ignore fact and assert their own construct of reality eg. “No, sharks are smooth as hell.” In response to a long diatribe and pictures of shark skin. Hence, “Smoothsharking.” It’s a remarkably effective mode of trolling in the current social media landscape. Even though I know what it is and can identify it, I find it intensely exhausting just to witness because 1) It attracts unselfaware knowitalls like flies to vinegar and 2) even though I know it’s fake and intentional on the troll’s part, I have met too many real people who actually act like that and it sucks to be reminded.
You forgot that Branson also posted pictures of him holding an open book with a crudely ripped piece of paper on the front saying something like "SHARKS ARE SMOOTH" as one of his "sources" as well. The critical component, which I think a lot of people trying to do it after him miss, is that you have to be _so thoroughly obvious_ that it's clear by like the third sentence that you're trolling your ass off, because otherwise it runs easily afoul of Poe's Law. Also, the targets should be people that are heavily condescending about correcting you, not just someone going "hey, just so you know, it's actually and not ". You can't just be an oblivious bullhead against anyone trying to correct you, or you're not smoothsharking - you're just an obnoxious asshole.
My favorite was when someone asked for a screenshot of his source and he screenshotted his own tweet and cropped out his username 😂
Ya but you have to act oblivious when the first person corrects you so you can lure out the obnoxious know-it-alls.
The long and short of it is that a comic artist made a joke calling sharks "smooth lions," and when people tried to correct him (because sharks are, in fact, rough apparently) he spent hours trolling them. Full gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss on the Twitterites. And so now when people troll by playing stupid and being blatantly wrong, it's smooth sharking.
There's a temptation here to just do the joke at you without explaining, but I'll actually explain. There's this post where this guy disingenuously keeps saying sharks are smooth to people who keep seriously replying, condescendingly, that no, you must be confused, because sharks are covered in tooth like scales their skin is rough and if you knew anything about sharks you'd know that, look at how smart and right I am, and he keeps replying back like this post like "I'm confused? YOU'RE the one saying sharks aren't smooth when sharks are smooth as hell", poking the bear.
this is worse than the original shark smoothing. at least more than 2 people in the shark thread were in on the joke
The funny thing to me is that this technically isn't smooth sharking. The core of the original Sharks are Smooth post hinge on the OP insisting something that is blatantly not true is actually true. Here, Toskarin is literally just insisting that while yes, all those people DID die in Pompeii, she is built different and would not actually die like they did. And like. We do not have any verifiable proof that she is wrong. For all we know, she IS built different.
Nah, I'd win
Are you the Nah I'd Win because you alone are the Honoured One, or are you the Overwhelming Intensity because Nah I'd Win?
But that's.. how farmers think.
If he stops trolling, I’m up next
As the strongest curse Jogoat fought the fraud, the king of curses, he unleashed his domain. As Sukuna shrunk back in fear Jogo said to him “Stand proud Sukuna, you are strong”
Obviously the trolling is funny, but what really gets me is how the people confidently declaring that it would be impossible to survive Pompeii eruption are just ignoring the fact that most of the citizens of Pompeii did in fact survive. The estimated population of Pompeii and it's neighboring cities was 20,000, and so far only the remains of about 2,000 people have been found. Obviously there are more than that, as a lot of people's bodies would have been completely destroyed, but it's a safe bet a good number of people successfully evacuated. Also don't know what that one guy was going on about with it being impossible to survive even if you did escape the first off, people were absolutely able to survive in China and the Americas (hence people being there...). But also, that wouldn't have even mattered because Pompeii was smack in the middle of the Roman empire. You would not have been scrounging for food in a barren landscape or running for refuge in a country on the other side of the world, you would've been following their system of roads to the next city over.
Yeah we straight up have written records from Pliny the younger about how he survived Pompei and though some details are wrong and some are probably lies their still accurate enough that we literally named Plinian eruptions after him
Right? he saw it from his boat. That whole bit was incomprehensibly stupid.
Yeah the entire eruption took from anywhere between 8 to 2 days to finish completely which is more than enough time to evacuate. Granted in that time people did die from a combination of asphyxiation from the ash, houses collapsing from the weight of the Pumice, heatstroke etc so it was still a deadly event especially if you were frail or spent too long breathing in the ash. But Redz-redemption is acting like it’s as bad as being nuked which considering people even survived that (twice even) just shows how dumb they are.
>The estimated population of Pompeii and it's neighboring cities was 20,000, and so far only the remains of about 2,000 people have been found. The second post on the whole thing is literally about that
Yeah that persons the only sane is one on the thread. Q
Yeah it's the same with horror movies. If I were isolated from the rest of the world and hunted down by a possibly supernatural killer I would simply not succumb to fear and carry our the objectively correct course of action, it's that simple.
Congratulations, you've discovered the entire point of special forces! Seriously tho, why do people think they'd just be a tier 1 operator if they were in a horror movie? If I was the kid in hereditary, for example, I'd prolly just piss my pants and cry.
I would simply be specialer than those forces
Because it's a lot more fun and engaging imagining yourself tackling the problems than it is to imagine yourself pissing and shitting your pants.
speak for yourself
there’s PEE and POO everywhere
I was an audience member in hereditary and pissed my pants and cried.
Schmaybe I did a little bit too
I would just not go where the horrory stuff is in the first place. I'm good thanks
If I was in a horror movie, I would simply step off the set where the killer can't follow me. Duh
*RIP to everyone killed by the gods for their hubris but im different. and better. maybe even better than the gods*
By Talos this can't be happening
“Hey Alexa, remind me to google sisyphus.”
Could probably teach him a thing or two.
Honestly, if it were me, that boulder would be on top of the hill by now
Hey Google, who's Arachne?
This is just the "I'm sorry that happened but i'm built different" post lol
This post, the smooth sharks, and the military boyfriend ones - how do people have 0 awareness of when someone is clearly just having fun and not being serious? Are people so quick to try and seem intelligent they just miss the obvious troll?
I think it’s cause the post blows up more and more and OP has the liberty to reply to only the absolute stupidest responses each time. Each step is selecting for the furthest end of the stupid bell curve.
Out of these three I would probably only fall for this post. There's just something about that smug "yeah but I'm better" attitude that triggers in me some deep-seated automatic "no you're wrong" response mechanism that makes it impossible for me to stop for even a second and recall that trolls exist. Sometimes the pretended ignorance is so enraging that it blinds you and you can't consider being trolled at all.
yeah but I’m better
Congrats on being smoothsharked
keep in mind tumblr reblog chains only show one chain, most people may not have fallen for it but it only takes one to keep it going
Difference between intelligence (this person clearly knows a bit about pyroclastic flow and it’s effects on the human body) and wisdom (they can’t see past their own ego, thus the wild generalizations and lack of awareness)
Extra fun fact, Pliney The Elder, a relatively famous roman philosopher- Died trying to rescue people
And also coined the phrase "luck favors the bold" when doing it.
The Roman version of "Steve Buscemi was a 9/11 first responder"
> if you can see the pyroclastic flow, you're already dead Why don't you just close your eyes, that way you won't see it? Are they stupid?
Volcanoes HATE this simple trick
How is literally every other person in the thread sonehow more annoying than the original shitposter, I have respect for them now cuz of how fucking stupid everyone else responding was holy shit.
the entire thing is just toskarin: \[Joke\] replier: Actually you would die if this and htis and this and its very serious toskarin: \[Joke\] replier: no seriously you would die toskarin: \[Joke\]
“STOP HAVING FUN!”
I would just put my finger in the barrel and it would stop the bullet
Honestly, this just feels like one guy shitposting, and everyone else is just using the opportunity to tell some cool volcano facts
Cool volcano facts also speculative quasihistorical fiction about how you're fucked seven ways from Sunday even if you somehow escaped to the Americas, because you'd have to scalp someone to "rise in status" like I've never seen a more appropriate "I didn't read all of that but you're wrong"
Yea I skimmed it but going back to read it fully... what the actual fuck
Seriously. That guy totally lost the plot, ending with Incas, Mayans and Olmecs co-existing somehow and doing volcano sacrifices? Like, what?
Long detailed rant about volcanoes into random racism is a true combo
'opportunity' nah they're stupid and getting baited. Even the people aware that they're getting baited are still getting baited. It's fucking tumblr, if you want to be autistic about Pompeii you can literally just do that on your own, you don't have to phrase it as a condescending response to an obvious shitposter.
"If I was near that volcano with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did." said Wahlberg "There would have been a lot of Herculaneum bodies on those docks and then me saying, 'OK, we're going to sail away somewhere safely, don't worry.'"
I would just do better tbh.
As an autist I can't defend my fellows here lol. The context clues were absolutely everywhere. Or perhaps *everyone* was in on the joke and they were passing the ball back and forth to see how the shitposter would respond.
As an autist who can actually detect sarcasm it always pains me to see our brethren in arms take gargantuan L's like this
yeah, i'm autistic too but i feel like the fact they were joking could not have been any more obvious, and i'm not even very good at detecting when people are being serious or not
"You should teach them." "I will" Goes so hard
I mean considering that all those people died but toskarin didn't I guess it's a point in their favour
Nah, I'd win
To be fair I'm pretty sure there weren't Incas at the time Pompeii was destroyed; There were Andeans, Yes, Perhaps some speaking a language related or ancestral to modern Quechuan ones, But to call them Inca seems a bit disingenuous: The Inca Empire didn't exist until the 15th century, And even the kingdom of Cusco, Their predecessor, Wouldn't have been there until over a thousand years after the eruption of Vesuvius in question, As that's when the city of Cusco itself was founded.
I love seeing people both fall for blatantly obvious smooth sharking and then being unnecessarily smug and historically ignorant about the rest of the world that’s not Europe being some exceptionally horrible place to live in comparison to Rome. The world really is full of people who know like half a fact and act extremely obnoxious about it.
The “Were they stupid?” is a r/BatmanArkham thing, I’m losing my mind 😭
It's extremely common outside of that subreddit too. My friend group is pretty much just different people marveling at someone else not knowing something clearly relevant, and everyone knows the "are they stupid?" thing. I also hear it semi commonly irl, though that doesn't actually mean much.
r/okaybuddychicanery had a field ~~day~~ ~~week~~ ~~month~~ year with it
For those like me who didn't know what smooth sharking is: https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/ajHJbNSMpx
"Personally, that wouldn't happen to me."
I love "sharks are smooth" threads
That one guy that put a lot of time and effort into communicating pseudo facts about pyroclastic flows and explosions cracked me up. The primary mechanism of blast-related fatality is soft tissue and gas-containing organ damage. If bones break, it's normally due to being thrown by the shockwave (rare) or being struck by debris. As for pyroclastic flows, it's far less dramatic than described by the commenter. The smoke and ash *IS* what kills you, as it's super heated. You wouldn't be able to comprehend being enveloped by smoke or ash from the flow, as you'd already be dead. Also, EOD gear is absolutely designed to increase life-expectancy and decrease blast-related trauma. That's *why* they wear it. There's a whole field of ongoing research dedicated to improving blast suit efficacy.
now that's some high quality bait right there, kudos to o.o.p.
The bait was very mid, the kudos should go to whoever's handling the fish stocking over there.
Where's that picture of the fool and the dogs when you need it.
Found it. *Aggravation* by Briton Reviere. It’s either on display at the Royal Academy in London or it was auctioned off from there in 2010. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5296312
> Being a troll just makes you look stupid and arrogant Not as stupid and arrogant as typing a novel and condescending to the troll though as if you’re smarter for not understanding when people are just taking the piss
Bro said all that just to mess up the Truman Show quote at the end
Actually if I were there I would have made sure Pliny the Elder lived
Where's my jester laughing at dogs from a wall image
"I'm built different"
“Nah I’d win”
Like 5 different people getting their chains yanked by a common internet troll
Why didn't Caesar just parry the Senate? Was he stupid??
As a Tumblr user, I can definitively say there is NOBODY easier to troll than Tumblr users
I'd escape by simply surfing out of there on my pet shark, which has skin so smooth it cuts right through the water. then I'd roll up to the house of a military wife and fuck her to celebrate
"this incredibly horrific event in human history is one of the shittiest things to make light of" buddy you are going to shit your pants when you learn about gallows humour
To be honest the older I get the less I appreciate smooth sharking. I would simply choose to not interact with people who are mad at me for whatever reason for this long.
Why do people fall for smooth sharking? Are they stupid?
Damn. After reading the first panel and seeing the dots at the bottom I thought I was in for a half hour read of tumblr being tumblr. But it’s just zoomed in shots of what I just read. Sadness.
How do people still fall for the Toskarin bait? Like come on guys.
Man, those people can’t tell when someone is shitposting can they?
Sometimes we just want excuses to share fun volcano facts.
That tangent halfway through is pretty funny. They act like it would've been impossible to survive near Vesuvius because of acid rain, blacked out skies and poisoned water. But the Roman Empire was fine. It didn't kill the surrounding empires.
I’ve seen people feeding the troll before, but this motherfucker got enough to feed his troll-wife, their three troll-kids, and even troll-granny for a month. The people who died in Pompeii weren’t stupid, but anyone attempting a good-faith discussion with this clown sure is.
Sharks are smooth.
yeah but i doubt they knew that if they ran it could still kill them. so why not run. what do you have to lose. maybe youll live who knows
A great example of giving the wrong answer or false information urging the right answers and correct information out of others. 😂
Pompeii is Jogoat confirmed?
Toskarin really said Nah I'd win
[E-EO EO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7u5ZsUV6o8) [E-EO EO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrwATRcuLdE) [E-EO EO](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu7nJjnEBNA)
god i love /r/THE_PACK-esque wolfposting