Man Versus (Virtually Created, But Not An Actual) Beast on Shark Week

Last week, Discovery Channel’s annual Violence-in-the-Natural-World-a-Palooza, also known as Shark Week, made it into mainstream news coverage. And not because scientists discovered that Greenland sharks are the longest-living vertebrates with lifespans of up to 400 years. Not because of a recent book uncovering the history of a secret U.S. Navy project that tried to train sharks to deliver bombs. Never mind that people keep finding two-headed sharks all over the world and no one knows why. Nope. Everyone got riled up because Discovery (sort of) said that 23-time gold medal Olympian Michael Phelps would (maybe) race against a Great White Shark. And because he (mostly) didn’t. In the episode “Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White,” Phelps hangs out in a boat with some scientists as they record a Great White’s swimming speed. Then, wearing a bunch of specially designed gear, he races in the ocean against… a superimposed, CGI shark. Spoiler alert: Phelps loses by two seconds. Theoretically. You know – against an imaginary shark. A shark made of pixels and dreams. The ratings, though: very real. Discovery reported that their viewership hit new records, with over 15 million people tuning in to watch Michael Phelps lose to a fake-news fish.

To be fair, both the network and Phelps argue that they made it clear in all the promo for the episode that the record-setting swimmer wouldn’t be in the water with an actual, physical shark. And for the most part, that argument checks…