Social media has done a lot for diving. Whether you have 300 popularity points, completely ignore, or are banned from places like Scubaboard, cavediver.net, or any of the others you can't ignore the fact that these places have put people who's dive plans would never correspond, and for whom local diving means something so very different that they might otherwise never meet in direct contact with each other. Now they can bicker and argue with one another about all manner of minutia at all hours of the day. And, of course, there's Facebook.
How many divers are you “friends” with whom you've never met? I admit: I am terrible with names. Being absolutely great with faces… would be helpful, but I am terrible with faces, too. Every time someone comes up to me and just starts talking I have to make the quick and clumsy decision to either awkwardly reintroduce myself or just run with things and wait for someone else to say this person’s name. This is something I've struggled with for ages. People tend to know me because I am remarkable looking; not particularly handsome or striking… just tall. So people remember me and come up to me and they start conversations and inwardly I panic while trying to appear nonchalant. Now -- with Facebook such a constant social force, and with friends of friends of friends connected -- this happens almost anytime I am anywhere there are other divers. And I'm a nobody!
I can't imagine being one of the diver celebrity class. Maxed out Facebook friends list, people vying to share their thoughts with you on every single charter you ever set foot on, knowing the names of your cats and how your cousin’s new bathroom remodel is going. Our culture of celebrity, our belief that the VIPs are somehow different and better human beings, spills over into the dive world. And our desire to impress these titans seems boundless.
Social media makes them so accessible! You're “friends” with these people all the sudden. You can keep abreast of exactly the sorts of things they're doing in the water and even communicate with them directly. Daily Facebook is filled with the most spectacular images of some of the most spectacular diving being done on the planet. And these are dives being done by your “friends!”
You tell them how pretty the pictures are or compliment their dive reports; they say thank you. Perhaps you chat a bit about some finer point of the dive. You might send them info on some recent dive you were very proud of or tell them about how you're planning to do the very dive they've just documented next month or next season. They'll wish you good luck and safe diving. And all of this is putting you even more on their level (psychologically speaking).
Now here's the thing: you're not on their level. Not skills-wise, experience-wise… generally dive-wise.
It's not that they're better divers or more important people or demi-gods simply because they're celebrities. It's the other way around: they are dive celebrities because they are doing it much more than you are. They are professional instructors or guides or photographers. Or perhaps, if they aren't pros, they live in an area where they can dive every weekend or every day. These are people who have put years of time, energy, and effort into becoming the divers they are. In the case of dive pros, they have also made, likely deep, sacrifices and spent as much energy developing their “brand” as they have on becoming excellent divers in the first place. All of this is hard, time consuming, and financially draining.
Say you see a breath-taking image of a deep sea-cave on a remote island. It’s taken by a Facebook friend who lives in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, owns a dive guiding business, and is truly “living the dream.” The photo is perfect in every way. You can see 300 feet across to the other side of the blue hole, you can see marine life, you can see ancient stalactites, you can see divers hovering motionless in the perfectly calm water. Hell, it’s our fantasy, so let’s put a shipwreck right in the middle of the blue hole bottomed out at 300 feet, too!
What you don’t see:
The years of training to become a good diver in the first place.
Hundreds of recreational dive classes taught.
The years of scrimping and saving for good gear.
How scary the bank account looks after said gear is purchased.
Day after day after day of tourists who barely know how to dive and it’s your job to keep them alive and happy even when you’re in a shitty mood yourself.
The countless dives that were called or went pear-shaped, sometimes in tragic ways.
Having to travel to trade shows all over the world, paying your own way, AND taking time off from working and earning which is the double-whammy of a financial burden.
The power on the island goes out at least once a month for days at a time.
Two months out of the year the bugs are unbearable.
All of December it rains non-stop and everything you own smells like mildew.
That blue hole is only diveable in the most extraordinary conditions that only happen when the tides are just right and the phase of the moon is just right. All in all, only two… maybe three times a year is it safe to jump in.
Even when it is safe to jump in, the conditions can be varying and unpredictable, so only the best divers can join you… are the divers who you happen to be guiding that week capable?
Usually the visibility, on those rare occasions the site is diveable, is only 50-100 feet. Which is great, of course, but when that picture was taken… it was just pure luck.
That one photo was one of hundreds that were taken over years.
Substitute whatever Florida, Mexican, Bahamanian, Polish, or wherever cave that you like and imagine that’s the photo instead. Or a world-class shipwreck.
But you, sitting at work, flipping through social media, and daydreaming about diving, all you see is that one photo and you think, “I want to go there.” Your friends and your dive buddies agree and perhaps you start to plan to go someplace that might be similarly impressive, someplace on the same scale or level. Someplace that might get the attention of the poster of this mind-blowing shot so that when you plan to go out there to the middle of the Pacific that person will already know what an amazing diver you are and they’ll bring you to that special place you’ve seen.
Social media has accidentally made diving a competitive sport. Or, perhaps it always was and social media has just altered the playing field in such a way that anyone can feel themseves either in direct competition with the pros themselves, or at least in competition for the pros’ attentions.
Where once a diver could grow under the supervision and mentorship of a more experienced buddy or instructor, now with the all-pervasive social media lens anyone can see countless manners of techniques and configurations. Real friendships have given way to cyber-friendships through which anyone can cherry pick their information from people they see as ideal sources WITHOUT EVER MEETING those people. As though the informal growth process of mentorship has been supplanted by an informal elearning. Sadly, just as with all things that happen in the cyberspace of the modern era it is all expected to happen so quickly.
There isn't any time to slowly develop towards a particular goal. Instead of a mentor actually diving with a person several times to a certain point or restriction or room and offering bits of constructive criticism or feedback on each visit as there are gentle pushes forward, one can seek out a casual comment detailing a location or piece together the route to this or that particular site from a few maverick dives. Without ever being mentored up to a level of proficiency by actual people doing actual dives suddenly people can put themselves into the real life dangers of places they'd only seen or heard about on the internet.
I wonder and worry. How often to people recognize the danger they're in? Do they ever notice when they're about to go in over their heads? Or is there a durable sense of entitlement from the feeling some dive celebrity internet friend armed them with a bit of information?
How much is that sense strengthened when they, by luck or by accident, come back from the frontier where they didn't belong? They can now post their adventures on the messageboards or on Facebook to be lauded and adored, too. And suddenly they, themselves, have credibility. They have done something that only the best can do… ergo: they must be among the best.
Such a frighteningly dangerous syllogism. Because it is self-perpetuating. As they start to comport themselves as among the best people will start to fall in line with that reality. This sounds horribly cynical, but I am not suggesting that people are just naive morons. Lacking any real-life experience or any evidence to the contrary people have no reason NOT to believe in even a concocted reality.
Dive celebrities may start to believe in someone's qualifications. “Lay” divers may start to believe that this or that person is simply a less well-known dive celebrity. And most dangerously of all, less-experienced divers may start to believe this person knows what the hell they’re talking about and may wind up taking them on as an internet mentor themselves, following their leads, aspiring after their conquests, and pointing themselves in the same hazardous direction.
Now there is some very good news. This is all self-correcting, for the most part.
Divers tend to be quite clever people (as well-as being better looking, nicer, and more successful!). At the very least we tend to be quite critical thinkers and usually quite perceptive. And, because of the smallness of the dive world, sooner or later everyone starts running across everyone else in the real world.
And that is when the cards truly hit the table. You can't hide behind a screen-name or only show the one photo in a hundred where you aren't silting out a room when you are actually diving with someone. When someone has overreached too far the word will spread and the world will know.
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