Viral TikToks use AI to tell the story of a Mississippi shark attack victim. They’re wrong.
A shark attacked Jessie Arbogast of Ocean Springs and almost killed him 22 years ago, when he was only 8 years old.
In 2001, Facebook was not a thing. YouTube hadn’t launched, either, and nothing was going viral on TikTok. Yet the story grabbed hold on a nascent internet and has never let go, propelled by a fascination with sharks and the power they display during infrequent but deadly attacks on humans.
Jessie was wading in knee-deep water at dusk with siblings and cousins along the Gulf Islands National Seashore near Pensacola when the shark attacked. Jessie’s uncle pulled the boy from the Gulf of Mexico, then heroically returned to wrestle the 7-foot bull shark to shore so the other children wouldn’t be injured while Jessie’s aunt administered first aid.
Others on scene managed to pry Jessie’s right arm from the shark’s gullet. Doctors later reattached his arm, but the shark also destroyed about a third of the lateral muscle mass in his right leg, news accounts at the time said. Massive blood loss left Jessie with brain damage but he survived and eventually returned home to his family.
Shark attack makes worldwide headlines
The shark attack made headlines worldwide. From the beginning, fictitious elements crept into the telling.
“There’s always been stuff that’s been out there that’s not true, or people’s suppositions,” Claire Arbogast, Jessie’s mother, told the Sun Herald on Tuesday. She hasn’t paid much attention to the falsehoods. After the accident, she and her husband, David, stayed busy taking care of Jessie and their other three children while working full time.
She’s still works as a medical coder. Her husband is a crane operator. Their children are now grown and they’re the proud grandparents of three. Claire Arbogast was her son’s main caretaker until he got too heavy for she and her husband to lift.
He now receives full-time care in an Ocean Springs home with three other special-needs adults. He spends weekends with the family.
Claire Arbogast is not on social media, so she’s unaware the story of Jessie continues to morph with technology. Most recently, #jessiearbogast has been trending on video platform TikTok. The hashtag has accounted for 9.3 million views.
AI videos of shark attack surface online
Boys who are not Jessie tell the story of the shark attack in their own words. Their voices sound computer-generated and, in some cases, the boys themselves appear to be generated through artificial intelligence, more commonly known today as AI. Factual details seem to be irrelevant to the video creators.
For example, one video has the shark attack taking place in Western Australia. More videos, equally inaccurate, show up on YouTube.
The videos have also caused a spike in searches for Jessie Abrogast’s name since June 2023, according to data from Google Trends.
Claire Arbogast takes it in stride. If she got upset about the distortions in her son’s story, or tried to correct them, she would have time for nothing else.
“We’ve moved through all this and we’re in a pretty good place,” she said. “You just have to go forward.”
