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Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface. Boaty McBoatface…
The name (Boaty McBoatface, if you’ve forgotten) will seldom be seen when referring to the vessel that will show up in Svalbard and other polar ports in the future – although we guarantee to mention it at least one in every relevant article until that fishwatcher or this fishwrapper sinks. Meanwhile, Boaty McBoatface will be mentioned as often as possible in this story about how the vote of the people was overridden by timid tyrants.
The United Kingdom is naming its new £200M polar research ship the RRS Sir David Attenborough, even though Boaty McBoatface was the runaway winner of an online vote to name the ship, with Boaty McBoatface’s 124,109 votes topping the 34,371 votes for Poppy-Mai.
And while the “winner” not named Boaty McBoatface is being hailed globally as he turns 90 this week for being a landmark broadcaster and naturalist, he’s still the guy whose narration a few years ago in the award-winning multi-part “Frozen Planet” documentary suggested footage of a mother giving birth to cubs was from a Svalbard den, but was actually footage from a Dutch zoo using artificial snow.
Besieged by huge tabloid headlines when the scandal was exposed, the dude that displace Boaty McBoatface stated his narration was carefully worded to not flatly declare the bears were in Svalbard and the decision to film at the zoo was made for “the safety of the animal.”
“If you had tried to put a camera in the wild in a polar bear den, she would either have killed the cub or she would have killed the cameraman, one or the other,” Attenborough told the press hordes, who would react with near-equal outrage when his name replaced Boat McBoatface on the new vessel.
The decision to name the research ship after Attenborough – who finished a mere 113,825 (a.k.a. 92 percent fewer) votes behind Boaty McBoatface to finish fourth in the naming election – wasn’t a complete shock after cretinous ‘crats in the kingdom announced after the vote the results weren’t binding. Although a deluge of protests poured in, many from scientists arguing the people’s choice would ensure a global following for the research conducted aboard the vessel, Britain’s Science Minister Jo Johnson issued a statement so dry it seems he only wishes his name was less boring than Boaty McBoatface.
“The public provided some truly inspirational and creative names, and while it was a difficult decision I’m delighted that our state-of-the-art polar research ship will be named after one of the nation’s most cherished broadcasters and natural scientists,” he said. (Oops…Boaty McBoatface was inadvertantly omitted in this paragraph in the original version).
Certain “independent” observers noted the Boaty McBoatface fiasco, much like that of Donald Trump, is what happens when you rely on the voice of the people. Others reacted with a petition demanding Attenborough be renamed Boaty McBoatface to ensure the results of the election are upheld.
True to modern “democracy,” the Overlords are throwing the plebes a bone: a remotely-operated submarine on the ship that will collect data and samples will be named after Boaty McBoatface (shortening it to perhaps just “Boaty”).
