Mermaid hoaxes were perhaps popularized by P.T. Barnum and his famous circus. He advertised having the remains of a FeeJee Mermaid. FeeJee is the sucker spelling of Fiji I believe. Rotten.com describes these supposed remains as looking like a Hollywood pitch gone wrong: “It’s like Gremlins meets Piranha meets Ebirah!” PT Barnum went ahead and used drawings of traditionally attractive mermaids in order to lure crowds. It’s the damn patriarchy keeping abominations down. The three ring huckster need not have bothered apparently, as the attraction continued to appear before sell out crowds even after Barnum publicly confessed that the mermaid was a hodge podge of glued-together parts from totally unrelated critters. (via rotten.com)
