Thursday 19 January 2017

Pics: Meet the men and women who gave up their day jobs to be the real-life mermaids

Ed Brown, Tessie LaMourea, Morgan Caldwell and Caitlin Nielsen

This is the community of men and women who are giving up their lives on land for a permanent sea life as mermaids. Gaining followers across social media, the group have decided to make more of a life in the ocean, and even wear silicone fish tails to swim through the waters. The community is making waves in Seattle, Washington, where Ed Brown, Tessie LaMourea, Morgan Caldwell and Caitlin Nielsen are members.
Caitlin, also known as Mermaid Cyanea, quit her job in 2015 to concentrate on being a mermaid full-time . The biology graduate uses her identity to promote her passion for ocean conservation and her knowledge adds realistic details to her mermaid persona. The 32-year-old from Seattle spends her time swimming in lakes and posting videos and photos to her online following. She also has a workshop where she crafts handmade silicone mermaid tails.





Caitlin said: "When I was in kindergarten and the teacher asked everyone to go around and say what they wanted to be when they grew up, I said 'a mermaid.'
"Everyone laughed at me and now here I am - I'm a mermaid. I'm literally a real life mermaid.
"What inspired me to be a mermaid is hard to say. It's actually the fact that I've always felt I was a mermaid.
"Ever since I saw Disney's Little Mermaid when I was very young and I also watched the movie Splash with Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah.
"Both of my parents are marine biologists, so I grew up knowing a lot about the oceans, spending a lot of time at the sea shores and really feeling like I was meant to be in the ocean, so when I saw mermaid movies it sort of resonated with me."
Caitlin identifies with being a mer-person so much that she likens her glimmering scales to a prosthetic limb.
She said: "I do feel like my tail is a part of me, and I do actually feel like it is a prosthetic limb.
"I sometimes joke that I wear a prosthetic because I was born with a terrible birth defect - which is legs.
"When my tail is off I feel a little bit awkward. Suddenly I have legs and I don't know what to do with them. I feel extremely clumsy."




Ed
There is a prevalent mer-community in Seattle. Her friends Ed Brown, Tessie LaMourea and Morgan Caldwell also identify as part-fish-part-human.
Being a merperson isn't just a hobby for Ed, it has become a lifestyle. Ed also identifies as being a non-binary, asexual person. The 24-year-old prefers to use the pronouns 'they' instead of 'he.'
But becoming a merperson has helped the Disney fan come to terms with their sexuality and the social anxiety it caused.

2 comments:

  1. well...its their choice!

    ReplyDelete
  2. 'they'- more wonders to come in this world we are

    ReplyDelete