Many On Social Media Exhausted By Discovery Some Conservatives Are Blaming The OceanGate Sub Incident On 'Wokeness'

Yesterday afternoon, Twitter user @allahliker joked, "It’s still too early to politicize this submarine tragedy, but after all is said and done we will have to have a national reckoning about how this was all caused by wokeness."

The joke was meant to skewer a recent push by many conservatives and anti-woke protestors to tie anything they dislike to wokeness, which has led to some humorous controversies surrounding brands like Chick-fil-A, Ford and Call of Duty in recent weeks.

Hours after the tweet, however, theories about how the lost OceanGate submersible incident was the fault of "wokeness" began spreading in earnest.

While it may seem improbable that wokeness could have anything to do with five billionaires boarding a submarine to see the Titanic that was likely ill-equipped for such a deep dive into the ocean and was controlled with a $30 video game controller, the evidence that some, such as conservative media brand The Quartering, have used to blame the debacle on "wokeness" is an undated Zoom interview once conducted with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

The video, shared by the New York Post, features Rush claiming at the time of the interview he didn't want to hire "50-year-old white guys" to crew his vehicles because he thought it would be more "inspirational" to hire a younger crew.

That was enough to tie the missing submersible to wokeness for some familiar anti-woke voices, as posters like Joey Mannarino and Jack Posobiec began to claim the submarine tragedy was caused by wokeness.

While many found it self-evident that "wokeness" had little to do with the lost submarine, others did point out that the people aboard the submarine include Stockton Rush himself, British businessman and Action Aviation CEO Hamish Harding and French Maritime expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who has been on 35 dives to the Titanic. All three are white men over 50 years old and have the track record to suggest competence at navigating the sea.

While some on social media hash out whether the submarine went missing due to "wokeness," it is believed that the people on board the vessel have died, as debris has been found suggesting the vessel imploded, killing the passengers instantly.