Why were dolphins such a trend in the 90's?

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free-toe-pie@reddit

As a kid in the 90s, I wanted to be a marine biologist so bad. I loved Seaworld and Lisa Frank. It was my dream to swim with dolphins. I loved orcas, whales, and just about any sea mammal. I still want to go whale watching. Oh and I love manatees.

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x_ennial@reddit (OP)

I went whale watching once! It was an awesome experience, seeing massive animals like that up close, but also scary, and they smell bad. I still recommend doing it, though. There's the aquarium in Georgia (largest in the US) where you can feed whale sharks, and I don't know if it's like this now, but when I was a kid, you could feed manatees at EPCOT.

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Lunar_Landing_Hoax@reddit

I was in my 20s when I saw a store in the mall devoted just to dolphin themed paraphernalia. I had the exact same question and I don't think I ever figured out the answer.

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Sudden-Grab2800@reddit

I…enjoy…dolphins

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ElectrOPurist@reddit

The Clinton campaign was fueled almost entirely by donations from Big Dolphin lobbyists.

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This_Cruel_Joke@reddit

Seaworld created many wannabe future marine biologists. Can confirm

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NotSureNotRobot@reddit

All I know about dolphins was from a trip to Dutch Wonderland in PA.

We’re at the aquarium show, they bring out the dolphins, all is great. All of a sudden, all of the kids are raising their hands and so did I. I was like 4 or 5, by the way.

Next thing I know, I’m picked, I get ushered down to the pool deck and they strap me into a life vest and put me in an inflatable raft being pulled by a dolphin. I was scared but it was a little fun. Then all the dolphins started jumping over me in the raft and I was terrified!! To hear my Dad tell it, he was like, “what the hell! Get him out of there!” but it was too crazy and hectic.

I was fine but my Dad wrote an angry letter and they sent a letter saying “sorry about that!” and that was it.

My parents felt so bad they didn’t know I didn’t know what was going on.

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Any_Positive_9658@reddit

I think Flipper was on reruns

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Verbull710@reddit

Decadeologist Emeritus professor Lance Boyle, Esq. concludes that the primary reason that the 1990s are heralded as The Decade of the Dolphin is because "That Ecco the Dolphin soundtrack absolutely slaps."

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MCA2142@reddit

I thought Lance Boyle was the TV presenter for Mega Race.

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socksonachicken@reddit

So many hours playing that game.

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Verbull710@reddit

https://i.redd.it/cxmbunnoixtd1.gif

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amayain@reddit

And if you wanna capture that feeling again, don't sleep on Chuck Person's Eccojams

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LiminaLGuLL@reddit

That game changed me

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Spaceboy779@reddit

And cue the Andy Serkis CGI reboot, complete with backstory and one of the Stranger Things kids. Nice going fucker, you used the word "Slap" and jinxed it. Ruined my childhood because a movie nowadays couldn't possibly evoke that kind of Spielbergian 16bit innocence and still be marketable to these jaded little phone zombie twelve year olds... Or did I hear FRANCHIIIISE!!!???

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BigPoppaStrahd@reddit

Lol, lance boyle

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TheSaltyJM@reddit

It does though

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Soft-Piccolo-5946@reddit

First thought went to Ecco.

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Earthworm_Ed@reddit

Dolphins were to the 90s what ninjas were to the 80s

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jessewest84@reddit

That's fuckin echo game

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RDCK78@reddit

I enjoyed watching Axl swim with them in that music video.

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Godawgs1009@reddit

I'm such a baby but they made me cry

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SuspiciousRhimes@reddit

I learned in the past year that the lyric refers to the sports team, not the marine mammal 🥲🐬

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Godawgs1009@reddit

Never knew! Makes sense as he's a big sports fan

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funkmastamatt@reddit

And also from Miami? Or Florida I think.

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Godawgs1009@reddit

South Carolina

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funkmastamatt@reddit

Oh, well not sure why he likes the Dolphins so much then.

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Klutzy-Delivery-5792@reddit

Or if you're a LIVE fan, can you hear them cry?

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simpleXercises@reddit

Holy shit i haven’t thought of LIVE since 1995. I alone love you! Thank you for the throwback. I definitely had a t-shirt of theirs.

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alles_en_niets@reddit

Spotify put a Live song, All Over You, on my Discover Weekly this week and it was such a throwback!

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TheyLiveWeReddit@reddit

It's all good. Let Her Cry.

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Illuminated_Lava316@reddit

This!

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4204666@reddit

There was a big push culturally to care about the environment, and dolphins became the unofficial mascot for it (the official mascot being owned by Ted Turner, Captain Planet). Anyone using a dolphin motif was letting others know they care about the planet, even my elementary school changed its mascot from bobcats to dolphins in the 90s. I think on some level the aesthetics were very much a part of it, everything from Enya to Jazz Solo cups has a vibe I could see as part of the dolphin-wave.

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madsci@reddit

Hey, my elementary school changed to dolphins, too! I don't know that it had a mascot before, exactly - it just had a "kingdom" theme.

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lunicorn@reddit

Roadrunners were on the shirt.

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xtlhogciao@reddit

Official soundtrack of the “dolphin-wave”

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tastyprawn@reddit

I knew what this would be before I clicked it. Absolutely agree.

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xtlhogciao@reddit

I can still sing, or can’t help but sing, this and Monster Ballads in the song orders from the commercials

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Puzzled-Item-4502@reddit

Yes. I remember a contest for postage stamp art ca. '92 and I drew a dolphin leaping from the water with something about banning tuna nets. Definitely a thing.

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howaboutwow@reddit

It’s called charismatic megafauna. Like pandas.

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bikemandan@reddit

And the megatherium extinct giant sloth

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Putrid-Mess-6223@reddit

Because einhorn was finkle!

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OlyTheatre@reddit

Starter jackets

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PermitInteresting388@reddit

Ave Ventura made Snowflake a star

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Verbull710@reddit

No, thankyou. I don't smoke. It's a, uh, disgusting habit.

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panda900rr@reddit

why do you care about Snowflake? do you know him? does he call you at home? do you have a dorsal fin?! to train ze dolphin you must zink like ze dolphin! you must be getting inzide ze dolphin's head!....i am saying to Snowflake, "Akay!... Akay Akay Akay?" und he is saying "AKay? Akay!" und he is up on ze tail "Eeeeeeeeee!" und you can quote him! 🐬

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detectiveriggsboson@reddit

THAT'S NOT SNOWFLAKE!

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panda900rr@reddit

gif

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Vegskipxx@reddit

Do NOT go in there!

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panda900rr@reddit

gif

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ronchee1@reddit

That's just some common bitch

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No_Solution_2864@reddit

Pekinese, hyperactive, Highland Park area, half dead when I found her

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epidemicsaints@reddit

Because every kid who wanted to sound smart said they wanted to be a marine biologist when they grew up.

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Not_a_werecat@reddit

Nah, some of us were just on the spectrum.

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

Me, but I was contrary so I was going to be an anthropologist. FWIW, I did do the schooling first it and ended up in a somewhat adjacent field.

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Not_a_werecat@reddit

That's pretty rad!

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Puzzled-Item-4502@reddit

I feel way too seen. I was obsessed with whales and dolphins from 3rd-6th grades ('92-'96). My obsession was so well known that my mom's coworkers would tear out whale pictures from National Geographic and other magazines for me. My room was sponge-painted aqua and plastered in posters and magazine photos.

I still find them fascinating, and yeah, I'm probably on the spectrum. Definitely neurodiverse.

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Not_a_werecat@reddit

Oh damn, you could be me! Same age and special interest timeframe. I had one of those tear-off daily calendars with art by Robert Lyn Nelson and papered the entire wall beside my bed with them.

In middle school my parents sent me to Sea World camp and I won a poster because I knew the scientific name of the spotted dolphin. lol

I was being a little tongue-in-cheek with my post. I'm not diagnosed, but have a lot of the indicators of female autism. Which would fit right in with my anxiety and hypermobility, as those three are often co-morbid.

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Puzzled-Item-4502@reddit

LOL we could have been BFFs. Did you have the whales & dolphins chart with all the species to scale with the scuba diver guy at the bottom? I remember asking my parents to help me measure out 100' because I wanted to really understand the size of a blue whale.

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inthevelvetsea@reddit

Thank you for unlocking this memory! We had some great posters in our youth.

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Puzzled-Item-4502@reddit

I, um, may have just bought one for myself. My husband said I need to frame it, but for authenticity I'm pretty sure I should just Scotch tape it to the wall.

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Not_a_werecat@reddit

Haha, I did!

School would have been so much nicer if I'd had a friend who understood my weird-ass self.

I always wanted to ride in a VW bug because I watched a documentary that said that's about how big a blue whale's heart is and that a toddler could climb through its chambers!

I think I wore through my library's copies of all their Jacques Cousteau books and "Notes from an underwater zoo". I swear I checked out at least one of them every two weeks to read over and over again. (It was a really small library. That's all they had.)

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Puzzled-Item-4502@reddit

OMG I remember the VW bug comparison! I'd check out all the Dorling Kindersley infographic books. I had a friend with a CD-ROM encyclopedia by 1994, so would also leverage that.

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RoundEarthCentrist@reddit

Also not-diagnosed prolly-AuDHD here… hello there, prolly-neurospicy fam 😀

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Not_a_werecat@reddit

Literally threes of us!

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chargoggagog@reddit

And some of us just liked sharks!

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azazel-13@reddit

I told people I was going to be a biomedical engineer starting in the 5th grade because I wasn't a follower like all those marine biologist wannabes. 😆 Yes, I was kind of intolerable.

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

You sound like me. I’m also intolerable. I’m rolling my eyes at the gall of myself right now.

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bakedveldtland@reddit

And some of us grew up to be marine biologists :)

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

Yay! I’m glad at least one of us did it! ❤️

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Enigmatic_Observer@reddit

I have a cousin who did that - very proud of her! She’s also a xennial

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goosepills@reddit

Two words - Lisa Frank

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Ent_Trip_Newer@reddit

Ok maybe a bit. But Seaquest? Plus we all grew up watching Flipper on Nick at nite.

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Combatical@reddit

Dont forget Ecco the dolphin.

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

I did watch it because it has Jonathan Brandis in it who I had a bit of a thing for.

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hbi2k@reddit

My mom used to work directly for Lisa Frank, as in the actual person who runs the company that's named after her.

Apparently she's a massive bitch.

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Flux_My_Capacitor@reddit

She doesn’t own the company anymore. Her asshole ex stole it from her.

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hbi2k@reddit

This was many many years ago, when I was a kid. Haven't been keeping up with what's gone down with the company since then.

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TheSnowChickun@reddit

Yes! The Dollop podcast has a whole episode on Lisa Frank.

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Flux_My_Capacitor@reddit

I’m still pissed that her asshole ex stole the company from her. New Lisa Frank is not actually her anymore, she isn’t a part of the business sadly.

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Interesting_Ad1378@reddit

Came here to say this.

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TurbulentPromise4812@reddit

You can smell that sentence

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RoundEarthCentrist@reddit

I can see that sentence in technicolor and glitter art.

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TurbulentPromise4812@reddit

gif

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dufflebag7@reddit

Man, you could not escape the teal and purple in the 90s.

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Procrasturbating@reddit

I finally miss it.

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miscnic@reddit

gif

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SuspiciousRhimes@reddit

Scratch-n-Sniff Lisa Frank would smell like Pegasus Farts.

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Baby-cabbages@reddit

smells like pixi stix and hope

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beebs44@reddit

Is she the one giving handjobs to that one dolphin?

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Combatical@reddit

There was teh whole uhhh.. "Relations" with humans scandal.

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SnooFloofs1778@reddit

There was no internet. Before social media, there was a disinformation campaign saying that dolphins were cool. Some people thought Dolphins were as intelligent as humans. Some even thought Dolphins talked to aliens. These conspiracies were mostly propagated by white women, with dreadlocks, and slathered in patchouli. Many of which had small dolphin tattoos on their ankle.

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oddball_ocelot@reddit

Because they made Darrius Rucker cry.

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waywardviking208@reddit

gif

Blame it on Ecco the dolphin video game 💯

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dirty_spatula@reddit

Fuck you dolphin!!

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GarminTamzarian@reddit

https://i.redd.it/nmc01zxd0xtd1.gif

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Smurfblossom@reddit

There was a ton of concern about dolphins getting caught in tuna nets. That led to more efforts to protect them.

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chillybean77@reddit

My teenage brain required me to stop eating tuna for this reason. Had to do my part to save the dolphins!

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Smurfblossom@reddit

I remember asking my parents about not eating tuna because of this. They made it very clear we were too poor to care about dolphins who couldn't avoid tuna nets.

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Tiny-Reading5982@reddit

Are narwhals the new dolphins?

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

I didn’t know that narwhals existed until my kids started talking about them and I told them they were a magical creatures like unicorns. Whoa did I get humbled that day! How did I make it to 37 never knowing they were real? How many people failed me along the way?

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Tiny-Reading5982@reddit

Lol they are very elusive. They can't be in captivity, thankfully, and you need to go to northern waters to see them so I can see why. Lol.

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x_ennial@reddit (OP)

Feels like the 2010's were the decade of the Narwhal, now that you mention it.

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IKnowAllSeven@reddit

Animals trend, like interior design and fashion.

We are coming out of highland cow and llama era currently. The 90s was the dolphin and panda era. Ten to fifteen years ago we were definitely in the woodland creatures era.

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pregnantandsober@reddit

Dan Marino

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Hoosier_Daddy68@reddit

Overrated, never won a Super Bowl and too stupid to know it’s laces out.

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dufflebag7@reddit

The laces were in. I hope he burns in hell.

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No_Solution_2864@reddit

Little footballs!

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DeterminedErmine@reddit

I mean, have you seen them?

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BBallsagna@reddit

Totally thought this was about the Miami Dolphins.

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RossTheHuman@reddit

Like the animal or the team?

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Cael_NaMaor@reddit

That's when they were first discovered....

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HandsomeGemini@reddit

I remember sharks being a big thing. The new hockey team was the San Jose Sharks, we had the sharks fruit snacks, the Street Sharks action figures..

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RaphaelSolo@reddit

I blame SeaWorld, and like half the big zoos in the US. Most of em had and still have Dolphin shows.

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Aquatichive@reddit

Those shows need to be history, we know so much more now that there’s no way dolphins should be doing that. That said I would never swim with dolphins, they are awesome but also aggressive humpers

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RaphaelSolo@reddit

If they are as smart as some folks believe them to be they are probably laughing at us for taking care of all their basic needs.

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andiinAms@reddit

I mean, you could say the same thing about jail.

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RaphaelSolo@reddit

I have actually known people who do say that about jail. One of which went back earlier this year.

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wondersparrow@reddit

Three hots and a cot. Decent way to spend winter for some people.

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RaphaelSolo@reddit

Yeah, heard that one too. Don't think I'd want to sample the hospitality at County but there have been times I have wondered what it would be like to actually live in a zoo. Meals and activities curated for my well-being, doctor comes to me.

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jojocookiedough@reddit

Give it another couple of decades and you can try it yourself in assisted living!

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

For a fee, of course, unless we become endangered!

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andiinAms@reddit

Cool. Silly dolphins, don’t know how good they have it.

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

I used to swim with wild porpoises in the early 90s and would never have done that if I knew what horny motherfuckers they were.

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Puzzled-Item-4502@reddit

I went to Sea World in 1995 and honestly found it really sad, even as a kid. I also empathized a lot with Willy, so yeah.

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RaphaelSolo@reddit

I loved that movie.

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Puzzled-Item-4502@reddit

Same, and was so excited when I got the VHS for Christmas.

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Divergent-1@reddit

The question we should be asking is, why aren't they still such a trend? Dolphins are awesome.

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

Don’t ask this question. Reddit loves ruining dolphins, koalas and ducks for people. You don’t want your know, sweetie. Stay ignorant, it’s better this way, I promise.

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

All but two of my middle school friends wanted to be marine biologists. We did live on the Atlantic, but it still seemed odd that everyone had the same goal.

That being said, I did ask for a CD of humpback whale sounds first Christmas when I was 12 or 13 so I was riding the wave too.

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Thomisawesome@reddit

I think the artist Wyland had a lot to do with it. I'd see his paintings everywhere.

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ZbwePyaeLinn@reddit

Because who wouldn’t want a cute, intelligent creature as the ultimate symbol of the carefree '90s vibe?

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JPhrog@reddit

Anyone remember Ecco the Dolphin on Sega Genesis? That game was pretty fun for it's time!

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x_ennial@reddit (OP)

I recently watched a video on the lore of that game with John Lilly and E.C.C.O. It's a great game!

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Inc-Roid@reddit

Flipper - Jessica Alba

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TimedogGAF@reddit

Cause they're cool and look like weird smiling penises?

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meredithedith0@reddit

Anyone remember the talking dolphin on Seaquest?

P.S. Seaquest is on Peacock and i absolutely plan to rewatch it. RIP Jonathan Brandis.

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x_ennial@reddit (OP)

Yes! I've been watching this show on Blu-ray.

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SlackerDS5@reddit

I never understood that. I always liked killer whales more. They are one of mother nature’s biggest crash outs. They can be playful and do tricks or wreck your life.

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YogurtclosetDull2380@reddit

They've got a teal green blue thing going on. 90's colors

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BornTry5923@reddit

I remember supermodel Nikki Taylor had a dolphin tattoo on her ankle

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DamarsLastKanar@reddit

Star Trek IV made people very sympathetic to ocean seacreatures.

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join-the-line@reddit

We didn't know they were rapist yet.

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SC-Hathel@reddit

Random pictures of dolphin "art" in frames were in every other household at one point.

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panic_sandwich@reddit

My mom still has her beloved Christian Riese Lassen painting in the upstairs hallway! It was like the “classy” Lisa Frank. XD

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OberonGypsy@reddit

I blame SeaQuest more than a tiny bit.

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Traditional_Entry183@reddit

They made the playoffs seven times and didn't have a single losing season. Dan Marino set all of the all time passing marks, while Don Shula became the winningest coach in NFL history. Not to mention the best uniforms in all of sports.

I love it when the subreddits I post the most in can come together like this 😄

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RoundEarthCentrist@reddit

Maybe they all said, “So long, and thanks for all the fish!“, and left.

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localjargon@reddit

I think of Lisa Frank and those sparkly fake sand statues that would leave glitter and plaster on your hands.

I thought this was just a thing in Florida, where I grew up. Glad to find out it was a national craze.

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