Will the ORIGINAL Mermaiding Mermaid please stand up??! O.o

[-Annwyn-]

I love Annette Kellerman! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKZCIFI8gbk

[New York Mermaid]

i always think back to the ladies of (i believe- correct me if im wrong) of the south pacific who would dive to either hunt or look for pearls. those to me were the real mermaids.

[Mermaid Photine]

There's a theory that female divers began the myth of mermaids, instead of drunk sailors seeing manatees.

[-Annwyn-]

Just went back to the article she put up on Facebook ( the fist link I put up in reference here) and I can see that she's removed my questioning comments, which I thought was a bit rude considering the time, effort and research I did to make my responses and especially considering I was not mean to her. How bloody endearing. -.-'

I guess she's aware of the truth as much as we are. Maybe instead of Kazzie her mermaid name should be "Crazy Mahina" hehehe .

[Spindrift]

Pity that it didn't occur to anyone to grab screenshots. Sorry.

[thelocalmermaid]

we don't need drama in this community. let the claim go, I say!! peace, love, and friendliness... isn't this what our community stands for, something apart from the violent and overly prideful human ideas!!!?

I would have to say that the ORIGINAL mermaid idea came from years and years and years ago.. no one person at one specific time said, hmm, i'm going to make a mermaid tail and be the first ever to do it. probably multiple people did it (without recognition) from multiple different corners of the earth...

love everyone!! <><

[happyguava]

we don't need drama in this community. let the claim go, I say!! peace, love, and friendliness... isn't this what our community stands for, something apart from the violent and overly prideful human ideas!!!?

I would have to say that the ORIGINAL mermaid idea came from years and years and years ago.. no one person at one specific time said, hmm, i'm going to make a mermaid tail and be the first ever to do it. probably multiple people did it (without recognition) from multiple different corners of the earth...

love everyone!! <><

Exactly! I really don't think it's important who started it. I guess it's like any hobby... No one really gets their knickers in a knot over who started stamp collecting or... I don't know, pottery :P It's just cool that someone somewhere did, because now we get to collect stamps and make clay things and swim around in fishy tails!

[Gem Stone]

I only started liking mermaods when I saw the Weeki Wachee girls

[mermaidsammi]

I think mermaid Melissa started it all and if not her then the movie little mermaid or aquamarine (at least that's what started it for me)

[AniaR]

Womp womp. I was a mermaid before melissa and so was raven we helped her get started. Anette kellerman was the first on record over 100 years ago. Hannah was around before Melissa. So was linden.

[Raayvhen]

Also, way to revive a thread over 2 years old.

[SeaGlass Siren]

well, while we're here...

WOULD THE REAL SLIM SHADY PLEASE STAND UP! PLEASE STAND UP!

[Theta]

I'd say the Weeki Wachee mermaids probably did it for a lot of people, and then Splash, and then Foxmoon and Mertailor, honestly. Not a lot of people outside the community really know Melissa, but if you ask them about mermaids you're likely to hear about Weeki Wachee and Splash. Foxmoon and Mertailor have been around the longest as tail makers, by my rough estimation. And Thom Shouse, of course, but his tails were never marketed to average consumers, like FM and MT.

[Ondine]

I think that she deserves the benefit of the doubt over that article. Journalists want to write the most exciting story, and "LOOK THIS PERSON STARTED A WHOLE NEW THING" makes a better story than "LOOK THIS PERSON IS DOING A THING THAT LOTS OF OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING BUT YOU MAY NOT HAVE HEARD OF IT BEFORE". Even more so when it's a magazine for kids and you have to keep things simple.

I tend to deal with the press stuff for Merlesque, and when I started I was just amazed when I was reading through one of our first press stories (fortunately we got copy approval) at the difference between what we thought we had said and how it had been written up in the article. We had to make a number of changes before I was happy for it to go out. It's just the nature of the beast when you're dealing with the media. The journalists aren't trying to be dishonest or anything, they just want to ensure that the story is as exciting as possible, and often they won't know anything about mermaiding so it's completely new to them.

Moral of the story: always try to get full copy approval if at all possible.