Whale vocalizations, or “whale songs,” have long fascinated biologists and nature lovers alike, but while it’s been theorized that the hauntingly beautiful “music” some whales produce aids in sexual selection, there hasn’t been a clear consensus as to its purpose. Well, all of that just changed, as marine biologists have revealed that whale songs are the whale equivalent of online hate speech.
Well, there’s one less mystery of the sea!
The Center for Whale Research just published the largest study to date on whale songs, and the researchers confidently concluded that whales use their unique vocalizations, which can travel up to 10,000 miles throughout the ocean, in a similar way that humans use the internet to spread hateful rhetoric without much risk of consequences. The authors of the study wrote that “just as humans use the anonymity and reach of the internet to broadcast their hateful views of other races, genders, or sexualities, whales use their vocalizations to do the same. Based on the character of their tone and pitch, we have isolated distinct whales songs that are racist against sperm whales, call for the death of all baleen whales, and even some that seem to be suggesting that all squids are gay. These whale songs have evolved over millions of years to travel as far as possible while being very difficult to trace back to their original source, ensuring that the whales spreading their hate throughout the ocean are mostly insulated from any negative repercussions of their bigoted ideologies.”
The parallels between whale songs and human online hate speech don’t stop there. Many of these hateful whale songs appear to be designed to appear as if the whale is only joking, likely to give the whales singing them plausible deniability if the songs are traced back to them. In the most open, frequently traveled parts of the ocean, which the researchers equate to “sort of the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok areas of the ocean,” these types of more vague, unserious hate-songs are more common. But in the deeper, more out-of-the-way areas of the ocean, which the researchers classify as “the sort of Breitbart/Truth Social/4Chan parts of the ocean,” whale songs that are more explicitly racist and less ambiguous become much more prevalent.
Wow. We always knew whales were highly intelligent creatures, but the way their behavior mirrors humans’ is truly remarkable.
So, how do you feel about this? Do you think less of whales now that it’s been revealed that their beautiful singing is just basically racist bathroom graffiti, or are you impressed by the parallels between whales and humanity? The ocean is filled with mysteries, but this was one of the big ones, so either way, it’s awesome that scientists got to the bottom of it. Bravo, science, for yet another fascinating discovery!
