The Ripple Effect: How Your Mermaiding Passion Can Save Our Planet

Mermaiding has recently had a boom in popularity; mostly due to the Netflix docu-series Merpeople and the hard work of Social Media Mers over the past few years. Even if you are new to mermaiding, you’ve probably noticed the efforts of mermaids like Mermaid Linden (@mermaidlinden on Instagram), partnering with organizations like ReefCheck to preserve the beauty of our oceans—but there’s no need to have a big platform or millions of followers to make a much bigger impact than you think! Here are three things you can do to start saving our oceans, and our planet, today!

• One: Start Second Hand

“What?” You may be asking. “How does second-hand shopping help save the oceans? How is that related to mermaiding?”

According to the National Ocean Service, a government organization dedicated to monitoring our oceans based out of the United States, there is almost 8 million metric tons of plastic pollution in the oceans. A large portion of this is microplastics; so small they’re barely visible to the naked eye. As our clothing becomes more synthetic (think polyester and nylon) more and more of these microplastics come from our clothing.

Fast Fashion, a phenomena you may have heard of before, is one of the main contributors to plastic pollution in the oceans: the amount of clothing produced now-a-days far outweighs the amount of people on the planet, and many people don’t keep new clothing for more than a year or two, making room for the new, most fashionable thing. This also applies to mer-accessories: swimsuits, jewelry, tails, etc, are often discarded as people grow out of them, or as their mersona changes with time. Although you can find Facebook groups with people selling their tails or monofins, very few people will buy or sell things like tops second hand. Silicone tails and tops are especially hard to find second-hand, even as people grow out of them, because they are custom fit to their mermaid and their mer-sona.

But in some cases, one size can fit more than one! MerMapp actually has a feature which allows people to buy not only new things for their mer-sona, but also to help our Mer-Family find new homes for their old things. Under the Bazaar section on your MerMapp app, you can find the second hand shop. This was designed for the express purpose of not only helping new mers find cheaper options to get started, but also helping to reduce any mer-related pollution from monofins, tails, or accessories that could just as easily find a new home. If you can’t find what you want second-hand, that’s okay. Check out the Shops section; mermaid-owned businesses like FinFun may be just what you need!

• Two: Take a Hike

But don’t leave quite yet! Let us explain what we mean.

Mermaiding is a physically demanding artform, and the more you do it, the more fit you’ll get—but this may cause people to forget more land-based forms of exercise. Mermaids are from land and sea, so taking a walk or a hike is not only an excellent way to improve your heart-health and reconnect with the Earth, it also provides an excellent avenue for cleaning up litter that may end up in the ocean.

Even if you don’t live near a major body of water, you would be surprised just how much of the trash you see in your every-day will eventually break down, polluting your local water table. (If you don’t know what a water table is or why it’s important, National Geographic has an excellent article about them right here.) Of course, a major body of water like a lake or ocean isn’t required for litter to be awful—just like in the ocean, where plastic from packaging can get wrapped around turtles or end up in a shark’s stomach, litter on land is just as terrible for the wildlife. Many of the plants, small animals, and predators we rely on to keep our local land-based ecosystems running are hurt by the litter humans leave behind, as well.

Encourage your pod to start picking up trash as they go about their days; and if you’d like, start meeting up to go on hikes together, not just swims! If you don’t know any mermaids in your local area, take a look at the Merfolk tab on your MerMapp home screen. You may be surprised to find Pods and MerPeople living near you!

• Three: Swim, Post, Spread Awareness

While a lot of mermaids prefer to keep their hobby offline, an article about mermaiding wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t encourage you to get out there and swim!

Your mermaiding hobby may actually be the secret to attracting people to causes you care about; but it won’t draw attention unless you're willing to put yourself out there. Even with small platforms, mermaids on TikTok can directly put any money they make into charities like Ocean Conservancy, and mermaids on Instagram will often do partnership posts—advertising their support of certain organizations. You don’t need partnerships or specific charities in mind to make a big impact, though! Show yourself swimming, picking up trash from the ocean’s floor, taking those hikes with your pod! Advocating for Ocean Cleanup can be as easy as posting a TikTok about all the trash you picked up at the beach.

If you want to do more than just post TikToks, MerMapp’s Weekly Challenges and Premium Memberships are great ways to participate in a community effort to reduce pollution! Every month, a percentage of our revenue goes to an ocean initiative of the community’s choice; so if you want to be part of a big movement to clean up our oceans and our planet, MerMapp is the perfect swimming-ground for you!

The Mermaiding community has always been deeply intertwined with Earth-focused efforts to save our planet—and MerMapp is especially focused on reminding people that our oceans wouldn’t be nearly as magical without every fish, coral, and arthropod that lives in them. Part of your welcome to the mermaid community, from us to you, is reminding you that even the small things you do have a big impact; not only on our Oceans, but also on the mermaiding community as a whole. Bring the best of yourself, and you will make a big difference.

Happy Swimming!