The True Story of Baby Shark

My dad was our Cub Scout Pack Leader - this shouldn’t be a surprise. Running large group activities has always felt like a natural extension of my being, but it’s just me emulating my father. Over his long tenure, he brought much innovation to the pack, from new activities to epic overnight trips. But his legacy in our Connecticut region of scouting is camp songs.

Camp songs are an oral tradition of silly, memorable sing-alongs mainly created for children. Some of the lyrics border on inappropriate, which makes them more tantalizing and fun. They are rarely educational; instead, the value lies in the positive social experience of sharing a moment with a large group.

Camp songs bring people together. Even the coolest tweens and teens would be singing along with everyone by the end of a camp week. Why? Because it feels good to be a part of something. And these songs bring everyone together. The older kids don’t want to be excluded - so even when it’s seen as corny, they all eventually give in. Every meeting opened and ended with at least one song or stylized clap. It brought the room of a couple hundred children and parents to order and served as a way to gain attention during potential chaos.

My dad collected new songs as well. He had a core two or three go-to songs, but now and then, a new one would premiere. These were usually shared with the council of scout leaders from around the state before making it to a meeting. But, as far as I know, he never wrote a song or added verses to songs. He did make new claps, but songs were sacred.

Naturally, I became a camp song master as well.

When I was eleven, all the scout troops in our area held a day of activities in the forest near our house. My dad was scheduled to run games as one of the many stations kids visited throughout the day. There was an emergency, and instead of staying at the event, he dropped me off along with all of the gear and wished me luck. I was on my own. The first group arrived in mere minutes.

This moment was foundational in my life. I concluded instantly that I was going to run the games - and I was going to run them well. I evaluated the props and made a plan. And I somehow pulled it off. From then on, I was the go-to facilitator for regional Cub Scout events, including camp.

I did not want to spend a few weeks of my summer working at camp. I was eleven and had better things to do, like sitting around doing nothing. But I consented and taught outdoor cooking alongside a lovely older woman named Mrs. Fischer. She taught me the activities, and I, in turn, taught them to the campers. I ended up doing this for the next seven years. I would claim I was done yearly but would inevitably return. My mom had brought me to the same camp when I was younger, and I had a wretched experience. I decided no one should share that misery and made it my mission to improve the camp. It honed my ability to work with children and gave me my first taste of camp life. After seven years, I was practically running the camp and ready for a new challenge.

I toyed with working at an overnight camp but ultimately ended up at a day camp in Monroe, Connecticut. This was the luckiest set of seemingly random choices in my young life. I fell in love with that camp and many of the people in it, including my wife! I was hired as the Survival Skills, Hiking, and Nature specialist. The role of the specialist is to have activities for camp groups to do for roughly 30-40 minutes per period. I would get a schedule at the beginning of the two-week session and wait for counselors to bring their 10-20 kids to my area. Beyond outdoor cooking, I had taught scout skills and outdoor games at my previous camp, so I felt overprepared.

Unfortunately, I came to Camp Tepee at a low moment. The camp director had been serving for twenty years and no longer exhibited any effort. Most of the specialty areas were up a short hill in the woods, and in the eight weeks of camp, he never climbed that hill. The schedules were just photocopies of photocopies, which made them hard to read, but more alarming, they were created at a time when the specialty areas and number of camp groups were different. The result of the first summer was too much free time. So I filled it.

Note: The camp had many other issues at the time, resulting from the leadership's complacency. Kids who “misbehaved” were put into the barn, which was a way to hide disruptive children from their peers. And the same kids went to the barn every day, which showed that it had no positive impact on their behavior. Additionally, many staff was “old school,” meaning they had once been campers. This created an “in-crowd” and also fostered behaviors that were not at all appropriate for the end of the century, such as bullying and hazing. They treated camp as if they were the campers, not the professionals hired to create a safe and positive space. I would have a significant role in eliminating that attitude, but it took many years.

The structure of Camp Tepee was that the Camp Director was at the top, followed by Unit Directors for each age group, split between males and females. The Unit Directors managed the smaller groups (insensitively called Tribes). Every week, the UD’s were in charge of running a special event for their unit. These were primarily uninspired and often ill-conceived. One event was to put a large tarp on a hill, cover it in dish soap, and let kids slide down. Another was to fill a gutter (no kidding) with ice cream and let the campers go nuts eating out of the trough (this was for >50 kids).?

I had time, energy, and experience. I wanted to bring the magic of the Cub Scout camp to Camp Tepee. One day during my last summer at Cub Scout camp, it was raining, so my friends and I showed up late. We ran specialty areas anyway, so we didn’t need to rush.

Note: My friends did not get into the National Honors Society during their junior year because they needed more volunteer hours, so I ensured they worked at camp the summer before their senior year. It was great.

I arrived and was immediately cornered by the director, begging for help. She had all the campers in the pavilion and had no idea how to entertain them. She sang the same song four times and was struggling. It was my time to shine. I looked around at the kids and noticed a lot of wrestling-themed shirts. And within a few minutes, my friends and I were playing up the drama of an actual professional wrestling experience. The campers were rapt. We spent an hour or more “wrestling,” which was less spectacular physicality and more cartoon violence and hammy soap opera drama. And then it stopped raining, and we saved the day.

I approached a few Unit Directors and asked if I could take over their weekly event. I befriended a couple of new staffers who also wanted to shake things up - they were outside the old-school staffers. One was the future actor Ignacio Serrichio (nicknamed Nacho), my earliest partner in concocting ridiculous dramas to do at camp. I told my small group the wrestling story and devised a plan. Then Nacho and I spent the week fake hating on one another to up the anticipation for our event.

There are three notable observations from the wrestling event. The first is that it was a huge success. The entire camp showed up - not just the units we anticipated. The difference was 400 kids versus 80. The sound, at times, was deafening. The second is that Nacho was incapable of losing. The script called for him to stay on the ground, but he couldn’t help himself in front of such an agreeable audience. He continued hamming it so much that I let him pin me just to end the event. The last is that I recruited a junior counselor to assist me, and the entire silly affair unlocked something - he wanted to do this for the rest of his life. Bryan and I have been best friends ever since.

Unit Directors no longer planned special events. My band of misfits and I entertained the camp for the few weeks left in the summer. And it was a glorious beginning to a new era at Camp Tepee.

Note: I played Roger in Grease during my senior year of high school. He’s a goofy character and sings a song about mooning as a way to win over his love. I was allowed to create my costume, and in between my tight white undershirt and leather jacket, I wore a Hawaiin shirt - and I would switch shirts between scenes. I thought it was a funny character trait. That summer, I wore a Hawaiin shirt over my staff shirt as it made me stand out to the campers.

After an event during the final session of camp, I was embraced by the old-school staffers. This should have been a satisfying end, but it was explained that I was excluded due to my Hawaiin shirts. Collectively, they made some conclusions about me and decided to stay away. That ruined the sentimental moment.

The following year, I was the Nature Specialist and unofficially in charge of all special events. That is, I was in charge but was not paid. The year after, I oversaw the specialists and was the “Special Events Coordinator.”

The camp let go of the previous director and hired an outsider to run it. I was no longer confined to the woods (or a set schedule), so I spent my days visiting every specialty area and assisting where possible. I even created a new schedule for the first time in twenty years (it was much more challenging than I imagined!). The new director was not well-liked or very effective, so I was in charge. And everyone, including the parents, knew it.

The first thing I did was implement “morning announcements.” The camp had previously just started once kids started to arrive. I wanted to punctuate the beginning of camp with a large-group mini-event—something positive and exciting to prepare everyone for the day.

Morning announcements are not novel at camps, so it’s bewildering that Camp Tepee didn’t even try. The behavior is now so ingrained in camp culture that they still do it every day, twenty years after I left. At the time, however, it seemed alien.

Our mornings would sometimes have dramas, sometimes have games, sometimes have costumes, but always have camp songs. That was the critical uniting factor, and it brought everyone together as one. We would start with Bryan singing the “Announcements Song,” which I learned from Cub Scout camp and adapted to Camp Tepee. Then, we would cycle through my dad’s classics: Pizza Hut, In a Cabin In the Woods, Do Your Ears Hang Low?, and My Bonny.

Soon, I started adding to my repertoire. Everyone wanted more songs, and many staffers and campers had ones to share. One of the few Camp Tepee favorites was a song called Titanic, featuring lines, “Oh the little children cried as the water rushed inside…” That one was rare due to the content matter. They also loved Tarzan, Froggy, and Rattlin’ Bog (I prefer Green Grass Grows, a similar song).

I started learning all of the songs I could. One counselor taught me The Wishy Washy Washer Woman, quickly becoming one of our hits. Bryan and I added several verses over the years, as did some campers. And that is the key to camp songs. They are spread orally and often without accompaniment. I would learn a new song and start singing it in front of hundreds of campers within moments. It would become mine because I had to make it work. There is no right melody, as it almost creates itself in context and evolves and solidifies as more people learn it. I called my dad in the middle of camp one day for a new song, and he sang me Fish and Chips and Vinegar over the phone, describing the actions. I immediately turned around and taught it to campers. That was how it worked - these songs were ours because no one sang them like us.

One morning in 2002, a nervous five-year-old girl approached me with her counselor. As the guy who ran the announcements and the special events, I was a celebrity but also terrifying despite my Hawaiin shirts. She wanted to share a song she learned in another camp with me. Quietly and quickly, she sang her version of Baby Shark. I heard it once and proceeded to Morning Announcements. And I sang my best version of the song. And it was a huge hit.

The rest of the day, the week, the session, campers requested I sing Baby Shark. I crafted the song as I went, ensuring it sounded good and the lyrics made sense. Our version has a little Shel Silverstein inspiration, as the singer gets eaten (similar to Boa Constrictor, one of my favorite children's poems/songs). The song became part of the daily rotation. It was a hit and constant go-to during mornings and special events.

I became camp director the following year and continued to improve the camp, sing songs (new and old), and create thrilling events. After three years as director and six total years at Camp Tepee, I left to pursue other goals, hoping that I made a positive difference.

I bought a Flip Camera the last summer at Camp Tepee in 2005. This is a little digital video camera that existed before smartphones. I recruited Bryan and Cara to sing camp songs on tape to upload to the newly available Google Video. I wanted to share these videos for multiple reasons - I wanted to share my love of camp songs with the world; I wanted other camp professionals to learn them; I wanted to be the star of a children’s show. I was graduating from a costly grad school and was desperate to find my place in the world. Perhaps being a recognized camp song expert would open doors?

The songs were popular on Google Video, getting hundreds of thousands of views. And in 2006, I started moving the videos from Google to the newly acquired YouTube. It wasn’t until 2008 that I moved Baby Shark, but that wasn’t the most popular. The Wishy Washy Washer Woman was my top performer.?

My camp songs eventually made it onto YouTube, sometimes multiple times. And for a decade, they garnered hundreds of thousands of views and many comments. The earliest comments were expected, “This is not how I learned it!” “This is not how we do it at our camp!” “These aren’t the right words!” That made sense. Every camp, every organization, makes the songs theirs. That’s the beauty of an oral tradition. There is no right way.

Those comments stopped a while ago, however. And I stopped learning new camp songs. And I stopped singing them regularly, except during Vigeant-family events. And that was that until COVID-19.

Pinkfong’s Baby Shark became a phenomenon sometime in 2016. I didn’t think much of it then - it was a camp song. They had every right to sing it as I did. I didn’t make a billion dollars, or even a hundred dollars, from singing it, but good for them! During COVID, though, my thoughts on the matter changed. My kids were remote-learning and occasionally would be assigned YouTube videos to watch. From the other room, I heard The Wishy Washy Washer Woman performed almost identically to my version. Then I saw It’s Not Hard I Tell You So (a clap-based action-based song) on GoNoodle (one of the most watched children’s channels), and it was identical. I created the last two sets of motions, and there they were - plain as day.

I did more research and came to a startling and sad conclusion. Almost all of the songs I posted on YouTube between 2006 and 2008 were the first versions of those camp songs. They became the reference version for future camp professionals. Instead of songs being part of an endless game of Telephone from one group to another, there was a source of truth. My videos inspired other videos, all of which sounded just like mine. And those inspired even other videos. I inadvertently halted the evolution of these songs. While there are children’s singers (like Cocomelon or GoNoodle) that add or change verses to distinguish their version, there are fingerprints all over the place. The melody and rhythm, which are always fluid in the camp song experience, have stabilized and are relatively consistent.

Did I inadvertently ruin a defining trait of camp songs? Is this the unintended consequence of technology? And what does this mean for Baby Shark? Many people, including lawyers from South Korea, have asked me if I wrote Baby Shark. My version is the earliest known recording of the song that Pinkfong uses. A five-year-old taught me the music, but what I heard and what was on video were worlds apart. I spent years singing it over and over, adapting and modifying it for the entertainment of my campers. And I did put it online for hundreds of thousands to watch and learn from. I am responsible for Baby Shark, but my dad is also. We both sought to spread camp songs far and wide - and I may have done that too effectively.

From the New York Times:

The song has also begun to disappear from the repertoire of some camps, driven away by overexposure or distaste. “Camp songs are sacred and not to be sung mainstream, and that’s what makes them special,” said Alyson Bennett Gondek, the director of Camp Woodmont in Cloudland, Ga. “Therefore we don’t sing it anymore.”