From waterway to 'You Quiz': Busan shark becomes a meme

A shark in a Busan waterway has inspired memes, AI images and a nickname as crowds gather to spot it.

An AI-generated meme featuring Yu Jae-seok, right, interviewing a shark that wandered into a Busan waterway on Sept. 18 and has since drawn national attention SCREEN CAPTURE

Korea has a new internet star, and it has fins. A shark that wandered into a Busan waterway last week has become a cultural phenomenon, spawning memes, AI-generated images and even a nickname as tens of thousands flock to the southern port city to catch a glimpse of it.

The fish, a sandbar shark estimated to be 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet) long, was first spotted around 8:57 a.m. on Friday in a shallow channel that connects North Port Waterfront Park to the sea in Busan's Dong District. The National Institute of Fisheries Science said warmer waters may have drawn the shark into the channel in pursuit of prey. 

People crowd around a waterway to see a shark at North Port Waterfront Park in Dong District, Busan, on Sept. 20. YONHAP

The most popular joke casts the shark as a guest on "You Quiz on the Block" (2018–), the weekly tvN talk show hosted by comedian and emcee Yu Jae-seok. The show is known for hosting guests ranging from world-famous figures like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, former President Yoon Seok Yeol and "The Odyssey" director Christopher Nolan, to ordinary citizens in all kinds of jobs and people who have become the talk of the internetOn Sunday, a viral online community posted a thread titled "Predicting the Busan Shark's Next Move" (translated), with AI-generated images of the shark sitting in the "You Quiz" studio being interviewed by Yu.

The gag has a precedent. In April, when Neukgu, a wolf that escaped from the Daejeon zoo, held the public's attention, the show invited Jin Se-rim, the National Institute of Ecology veterinarian who captured the wolf alive.

Now the same thing is happening to the shark. "I wonder who 'You Quiz' will interview for the shark," one online comment read, while another said, "I bet the team is dying to interview the shark if that was possible."

AI-generated images of a shark-shaped dome stadium at North Port, Busan SCREEN CAPTURE

Locals have even given the shark a name, Sanggu.

Neither tvN nor the show's production team has commented.

Another meme has Busan's mayor naming it an ambassador for the city for drawing so much attention to the city. 

Nearly 20,000 people visited the North Port Waterfront Park over the weekend, four to five times its usual weekend crowd, according to the Busan city government.

The jokes have even spilled into one of the port city's biggest local debates. Mayor Jeon Jae-soo campaigned on building a retractable-dome baseball stadium at the North Port redevelopment site, and AI-generated images now envision a shark-shaped version there, with its mouth opening and closing like the proposed stadium's retractable roof.

The Busan Coast Guard sent a rescue boat on Friday to try to herd the shark out to open sea, but it stopped after the National Institute of Fisheries Science warned that pushing it in a narrow channel could make it aggressive or harm it. It is now watching and waiting for the shark to leave on its own, with the institute monitoring how long it stays.

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]