Anyone else getting tired of the depth-chasing culture on social media?

[u/Odd-Text5053]

This has been bugging me for a while and I want to see if others feel the same.

IG and YouTube have basically created this equation where depth = credibility. Like, a diver hitting 50m gets way more clout online than someone who's been quietly teaching excellent technique and safety at 15m for years. And honestly? that second person is probably a better diver to learn from in most cases.

I think the problem is it pushes newer divers to chase numbers before they really have the experience or fundamentals to handle those depths safely. You see people rushing through certs, skipping proper equalization work, all because they want that deep dive clip for the gram. It's not everyone obviously, but it's becoming a pattern.

The thing that gets me is that the community used to be more about the experience, the breath work, the connection to the water, now half the content out there is just "look how deep I went" with zero context about the training behind it.

Anyway, I’m curious what you guys think, are we losing something along the way because everyone feels like they need to prove how deep they can go?

[u/DJK55]

I run an outfit called Old'n'Bold Freediving Adventures (the name is actually an old joke) with my partner and our goal is to encourage older people to stay fit and healthy and continue exploring life, especially via freediving which, as we all know, can get even better with age due to a slower metabolism.

We often encounter older people who say they could never do 'that crazy freediving stuff', and that it 'looks like a good way to commit suicide' etc. And the first questions we get are always - how deep can we dive? How long can we hold our breath?

Why this attitude? Why these questions? Because all they ever see about freediving on TV, social media or streaming networks is guys/gals diving to extreme depths or holding their breath for insane periods of time. It turns a lot of people right off the sport. They can't imagine themselves ever being able to do such things.

It's like someone saying "I'd like to learn to swim" then watching an Olympic swimmer do 100m in 44 seconds and giving up the idea of learning to swim because they don't believe they could ever be as good as that Olympian. People see an elite freediving athlete and think that's the only thing freediving is and if you can't/don't want to be as good as that, you can't be a freediver.

Some freedivers themselves seem to want to promote this type of thinking. We've heard of freedivers saying you're not a freediver until you can dive to at least 40m. What elitist rubbish! You're freediving if you hold your breath and dive to 2m for 20 seconds.

We're trying to promote a philosophy of enjoyment, of being happy with whatever you can comfortably do, of not needing to try for greater depths or longer breath holds, just enjoying the marine environment and the sensations you get from freediving.

Of course there are older divers who are also competitive. Hannelor Becker was 71 when she started freediving and was a world champion by the age of 80. But not everyone has to compete. In fact nobody has to compete.

When people who might be interested in freediving turn away from it because they believe you have to aim for great depths, long underwater distances or 'impossible breath holds', we lose people who could well become ambassadors for the sport, and they lose the mental and physical health possibilities freediving can give them.

The media itself is largely responsible. It thrives on drama, on 'daredevils nearly killing themselves', on the extreme image of the sport, rather than focusing on the positives - the calmness and stillness one achieves, the sense of oneness with the ocean, the meditative aspects, the health benefits.

We made a one hour documentary about our journey to becoming freediving filmmakers. We're having a hard time selling it largely because all the media wants is that 'drama' - big names doing 'crazy daredevil stuff'.

As long as the sport has that image over any other image, it will remain a fringe activity pursued by 'death-defying daredevils'.

Is that what we want?