Sea Shanties and the Whale Oil Myth Oil companies like to point to the demise of the whaling industry as an example of market-based energy solutions. The reality is much more complicated. OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images Whaler and Captain Olafur Olafsson and his number two, Hafstian Omar Thorstainsson, on a restored whaling boat in Reykjavik harbor in 2009. Iceland reopened commercial whaling in 2006. With 400,000 dead from Covid-19 and the nation still reeling from the raid on the U.S. Capitol, an odd corner of the internet has emerged to provide temporary comfort and distraction in the past few weeks: sea shanty TikTok. The flashpoint was a video from Scottish singer and postal worker Nathan Evans performing “Wellerman,” a nineteenth-century New Zealand folk song recounting the harrowing journey of a whaling ship. True to form—shanties are catchy, collaborative tunes, whose rhythm is used to help coordinate labor among the men on seafaring vessels—other creators piled on, posting their own variations to TikTok, adding bass lines, violins, and Kermit the Frog. “One day, when the tonguing is done,” one line broods, “We’ll take our leave and go.”