A woman was shocked when she stumbled upon a Halloween decoration that shows a squid monster reminiscent of the kraken crushing the infamous OceanGate Titan submersible.
“At first I was like COOL and then I was like oh no,” Alyssa Lenore (@alyssa.lenore) captioned her viral video, which had more than 937,100 views by Monday afternoon.
@alyssa.lenore At first I was like COOL and then I was like, oh no.
♬ Oh my god what is that – Funny memes
Back in June, the Titan submersible was on route to visit the historic Titanic shipwreck site when it suffered a “catastrophic implosion.” All five passengers—including British businessman Hamish Harding and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush—were killed.
The US. Coast Guard has since recovered remaining debris of the Titan as well as presumed human remains. The remains will be analyzed by U.S. medical professionals.
In the comments, many agreed with Lenore that it’s too soon to be poking fun at the tragedy.
“I assumed people would use the oceangate sub this Halloween but still feels a bit too soon,” one user wrote.
But many found the decoration funny, and cracked jokes at the submarine expense. “Lol crushed it,” one wrote, joking about the submersible imploding.
“Wasn’t the sub made from the same materials?” added another.
“Just missing the same controller,” a third wrote, in reference to the Logitech gaming controller that Rush used to operate the Titan.
CBS reporter David Pogue raised safety concerns about the controller when he took a tour of the Titan. In a video, he said he “couldn’t help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components.”
This isn’t the first time people have made jokes about the Titan’s fate. When the submersible went missing, social media was flooded with tweets, TikToks, and memes poking fun at the absurdity of the expedition. Many justified these jokes at the passengers’ expense by saying that being reckless with their extravagant wealth got them into the situation.
However, many others fired back against these “eat the rich” sentiments.
“The entire online discussion surrounding the OceanGate submarine is an indictment on the vile nature of social media,” wrote Twitter user @chrisLXXXVI.
“Five people are either dead or starving of oxygen (imagine the terror) and Twitter is awash with jokes/hot takes about them. Gross.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Lenore via TikTok comment.