The Wall Street Journal delved into Jahlil Okafor, the dominant Duke center and potential No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, examining his personality. Like everybody, he watches Netflix. Unlike everybody, he specifically watches docufiction about mythical creatures and believes them wholeheartedly:
Okafor is well-versed in the legend of Bigfoot, for example. He also likes mermaids. "That's always been my interest," Okafor said. "Things of the unknown."
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Okafor has tipped multiple people off to a Discovery Channel special that promised new evidence that mermaids are real. "I tried to tell them," he said. "They wouldn't listen."
Okafor is talking about "Mermaids: The Body Found," a 2013 production that Discovery Channel produced in the guise of a documentary, hoping a disclaimer and the fact that IT'S ABOUT MERMAIDS EXISTING WHEN THEY CLEARLY DO NOT would tip off viewers to the fact that it was not actually a documentary.
Okafor is not alone: many viewers of the show believed that it was real, leading to heavy media criticism. A few weeks ago, the head of the Discovery Channel announced they would no longer be producing faux-documentaries.
But apparently nobody has told Jahlil, who is trying to spread the mermaid gospel. To be fair, we also believed a bunch of dumb stuff when we were 19, but ... man. Mermaids.