Finding Nemo is a tremendous and timeless film, but a nature documentary it ain’t. As much as we might wish it, fish don’t swim around with the personalities of Al Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres demonstrating human-like intelligence. Though we might love our pet goldfish, they’re not capable of telling jokes about anemones, speaking whale, or coming up with elaborate plans to escape their tanks.
At least, that’s what we thought. However, one TikTok video is now leaving us questioning our understanding of everything after user @mccribby shared what appears to be cast-iron evidence that her pet fish faked his own death in order to escape back into the wild — just like Nemo does to get out of the dentist’s office and back to his Hank Scorpio soundalike dad.
In the video, two women are gathered in their bathroom to host and record a funeral service for their apparently deceased goldie. In time honored tradition, their chosen method of sending the pet into the great hereafter is a quick flush down the can — from fish bowl to toilet bowl, such is the fate of all fish. Except this one apparently had other ideas.
While his owner plucks him out of a plastic cup, the fish is limp and unmoving and, for all appearances, is dead. As soon as he’s lowered into the toilet and hits the water, however, the life returns to him and he swims like it’s feeding time. The woman yelps in alarm and reaches in to grab him, but he’s too fast and vanishes down the back of the system. Good luck, little wannabe Nemo. Remember *does best Willem Dafoe impression* all drains lead to the ocean.
Well, yes, that is true, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for a fish to try and get back home that way. It is my tragic duty to inform you that it’s highly unlikely a fish could survive all the way to the sea if they have been flushed down the toilet alive. The shock of the cold water itself could kill them, but even if it doesn’t then they’ll have to face the noxious contaminants of the sewage system and then the chemicals of the water treatment plant.
Clearly, this clever guy saw Finding Nemo and hatched his own escape plan, sadly not knowing that Pixar lied to us all. And yet it turns out Pixar wasn’t lying when it taught us that fish were smarter than you’d think. What’s next? Are TikTokers going to find their toys move when they’re not looking? Or that the family next door are secretly superheroes? At least it’s not like anyone’s found a rat in their kitchen lately… Oh, wait.
Prepare yourselves, people. The Pixar-pocalypse has begun. We’ll be living in WALL-E by the end of the year.