Just when you thought bong-crafting ingenuity had reached its limit, a video of an Australian fisherman using a baby shark as a bong shows you just how wrong you are. Some people are giving Billy Brislane credit for proving that even the lifeless husk of an animal can make a suitable smoking device. But for the most part, he has faced intense social media backlash, condemnation and even a visit from the police.
Is Using a Baby Shark as a Bong Okay if It’s Dead?
Though you’ve probably never heard of him, Bill Brislane is something of a social media celebrity in Australia. He moderates the Facebook group “Fried Fishing” and has made a name for himself filming Jackass-style stunts with fish. Hits include the time Billy let some sharp-toothed fish snap down with skin-breaking force on his nipples; the time he hung a fish from the tip of his penis; and the time he hung a couple grabs from his nipples—you get the picture.
The point is, people loved the Fried Fishing videos. And members of the Facebook group have also taken to uploading their own weird and gory videos of the fishing life. But Brislane’s latest video, for many people, crossed a line. “Humans need to do better than this. Sharks are not trophies, toys or bongs,” wrote one media commentator. “Shame on this person and anyone who thinks this is even remotely okay,” wrote another.
So what exactly happens in this video? It’s brief, but we can see that Mr. Brislane has stuffed a conical pipe into the top of the baby shark’s head—about where a blowhole would be on a whale or dolphin. He has also punched a mouthpiece tube into the baby shark’s body, just behind its dorsal fin. From the look of it, the bong—technically it’s just a pipe, but whatever—works fairly well. Brislane gets a good rip. But who knows what nastiness it tastes like. The fisherman said the baby shark had been on ice for two days before the lightning of genius struck.
Shark Bong Backlash Tanks Popular “Fried Fish” Facebook Group
Many people were disgusted by the video, others entertained. Either way, it’s 100 percent on brand for Billy Brislane. So what accounts for the blistering social media backlash he’s facing for using a baby shark as a bong?
Perhaps people thought the baby shark was alive when Billy converted it into a makeshift smoking device? But Brislane corrected that assumption online: “there is no possible way it was alive,” he explained.
Is it possible that Billy’s choice to play the children’s song “Baby Shark” in the background of his video drove people over the edge? But why? From a production standpoint, it’s perfect. Pinkfong should award Brislane the prize for their Baby Shark Challenge.
Or maybe, people were offended by the idea of someone smoking a banned substance through a shark’s body? But Brislane corrects that view, too: “it was tobacco,” Billy wrote, not cannabis. And he’s willing to take a drug test to prove it. And he might have to, considering that the backlash was so intense online that some actually called the cops on Brislane. “I just want to say thanks to the bunch of sooks,”—assuming that’s Australian for crybaby—”who complained to the point of police visiting,” Brislane wrote. “Honestly, I quit.”
And with that, Mr. Brislane walked away from the Fried Fishing group, potentially for good. What we don’t have an answer to, however, isn’t the why or the how of using a baby shark as a bong, but whether it was a good design. That’s for future Billy Brislanes to find out.
