
Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior - merraksh
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=56
======
paidleaf
I had a huge argument with my philosophy professor about this. Our class was
discussing the distinguishing characteristics between humans and animals.
Someone brought up humans commit suicide while animals don't. The professor
claimed that was false and brought up lemmings as evidence. I chimed in that
lemming suicides were most likely myth and even if it was real, we shouldn't
accept the idea of lemming suicides until we have definitive proof. He claimed
lemming suicides were established fact and that if I or anyone rejected the
idea in our papers on the topic, we'd be penalized for positing a factually
incorrect statement. A bit of back and forth later, he said he was the
ultimate authority on the topic and ended the discussion.

Naturally, in my paper, I wrote that lemming suicides were likely myth ( with
sources ) and naturally I got penalized.

I still remember it years later and whenever the topic of lemming suicides
come up, I make it my business to correct people. Years from now, on my death
bed, my last words will be "lemming suicide is a myth".

~~~
chrisseaton
But lots of animals commit suicide. You don't need to talk about lemmings.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autothysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autothysis)

And your discussion sounds with your professor sounds really stupid - he
literally claimed to be the ultimate authority on lemmings? An academic with a
chair said that? Sounds so unlikely I'm not sure I believe you.

~~~
nitrogen
_An academic with a chair said that? Sounds so unlikely I 'm not sure I
believe you._

Are you now claiming to be the ultimate authority on academics and their
interactions with 'paidleaf?

~~~
chrisseaton
> Are you now claiming to be the ultimate authority on academics and their
> interactions with 'paidleaf?

No?

I said 'I'm not sure I believe you' \- that only makes a statement about what
I believe about this interaction. It doesn't claim anything about ultimate
authority at all.

------
lintroller
This is covered in the 99% Invisible podcast episode 256 Sounds Natural -
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/sounds-
natural/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/sounds-natural/)

I found this entire episode fascinating, especially the part about Elephant
footsteps being nearly silent in the real world.

~~~
mywacaday
I was lucky enough to have an elephant ride through the jungle in Thailand,
can confirm that they are almost silent, only noise is the brush being pushed
to one side on a path just wide enough for a person to walk. Amazing animals.

~~~
chris_overseas
Not so lucky for the elephant though I'm afraid to say[1] :( The best way to
experience elephants is on safari, where you can get close to truly wild
elephants in their natural environment - something that to me at least feels
much more rewarding than riding one in captivity. With a well chosen safari
the fees you pay will be going to local guides and helping support and protect
the animals too.

[1] [https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/elephant-riding-
ph...](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/elephant-riding-phuket-bali-
chiang-mai-koh-samui-rides-sanctuary-nature-park-ethics-intrepid-
travel-a7185061.html)

~~~
mywacaday
Have to admit I'm torn about the whole issue. Animals in the wild are amazing
but how may people can go see elephants in the wild. I recently brought my son
to a dolphin show, while he has a new appreciation keeping intelligent animals
in a tank that would normally roam over 1000s of KMs really bothers me.

~~~
corobo
With new technology such as VR, live streams, television, photographs there
has to be a better way to do this rather than holding them in captivity

------
sgillen
Disney popularized the myth, but I think it was around before them. I think
they wanted to get video of those famous/interesting lemming suicides but the
lemmings wouldn't do it, so they coerced them into it.

~~~
paulie_a
Tldr: Disney committed lemming genocide

~~~
hexscrews
Wouldn't xenocide be a more apt description? A quick search for genocide gives
the definition of:

"the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a
particular ethnic group or nation."

While xenocide is described as:

xenocide (plural xenocides)

The killing of a stranger or foreigner. (science fiction) The genocide of an
entire alien species. (US, colloquial) The intentional killing of an entire
foreign (plant or animal) species.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xenocide](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xenocide)

Either is fine really, just seems like a semantic curiosity.

~~~
xkjkls
Probably -- the problem is that no one actually knows the word xenocide who
isn't an Orson Scott Card fan.

------
forkLding
Talk about unnecessary cruelty, lemmings are quite cute creatures, can't
imagine what was going thru their heads ("the Disney filmmakers") when they
threw all those lemmings off a cliff to their deaths for a film.

~~~
dmix
> lemmings are quite cute creatures

The most important attribute for animal rights causes it seems. If Facebook
campaigns are any measure...

~~~
cnasc
I had an environmental ethics professor in college. Her pet cause was the
plight of the atlantic bluefin tuna. She frequently lamented that only the
cute animals get any real support.

~~~
biztos
And yet we eat both bunnies (cute) and pigs (arguably not cute).

Fish, though, yeah, they're not getting any cuteness bonus. Not much outcry
about "factory farming" in aquaculture.

I have recently, and irrationally, stopped eating octopus because they're so
smart. Maybe some viral videos of tuna doing amazing things would help...

~~~
rusk
_> and pigs (arguably not cute)._

Ah come on![0]

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJgCDBx2bU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJgCDBx2bU)

EDIT: P.S.

 _> Not much outcry about "factory farming" in aquaculture._

I try not to eat Salmon; it's pretty much always farmed, often in ugly
conditions which is a travesty for such a noble creature.

~~~
krageon
If you're going to eat salmon anyway (and lots of people do), it's _much_ less
destructive to eat it factory farmed. This actually goes for every single
fish.

~~~
jlebrech
factory farming contributes to ocean dead zones

~~~
rusk
There's a kind of a compromise going on here. Wild Salmon stocks are limited
and were it not for farming demand would outstrip what's available. Apparently
the tradeoff here is "dead zones" in the ocean unfortunately.

Of course, as I say, the farmed salmon is not the same fish as the wild one.
The flesh is dyed pink. The flavour doesn't benefit from the wild salmon's
varied diet, and the texture isn't developed by all that swimming upstream.

There is a very wide variance in the quality of farmed salmon too, to the
point where you really can't be sure what you're eating unless you actually
know the farm it's coming from.

I've heard it said that farmed salmon carries little of the health benefits of
wild salmon. Personally I'd prefer to just pay a lot to eat salmon very rarely
than to eat farmed salmon frequently. But everywhere you go there is otherwise
indiscriminate demand.

------
IncRnd
Disney is a money-many endeavor that sometimes cuts corners and spreads
untruths. I'm not against making money, just against those who would lie and
defraud others to make more of it.

Businessinsider.com has a page that shows four that Disney apologized about or
said were untrue. [1]

In the same way, Dan Rather, Brian Williams, and others were believed to be
great reporters, even though they created their own sensationalized fake news
to get ratings.

One of the items from Rather was called "Fake but Accurate" by Rather. _" The
New York Times' headline report on this interview, including the phrase "Fake
but Accurate," created an immediate backlash from critics of CBS's broadcast.
The conservative-leaning Weekly Standard proceeded to predict the end of CBS's
news division."_ [2]

One of Williams stories about being in a flaming plane that was shot down was
debunked by the soldiers who were in the plane with him, the plane that was
unhit and unlit. Williams later apologized, saying he didn't _" know what
screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another."_
[3]

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/discovery-channels-fake-
docum...](http://www.businessinsider.com/discovery-channels-fake-
documentaries-2014-9)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy)

[3] [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/nbcs-brian-williams-
apol...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/nbcs-brian-williams-apologizes-
false-iraq-war-story)

~~~
laken
Re: Brian Williams - many leading memory scientists say that Brain Williams
didn't sensationalize his story, but rather created a false memory over time.
There's a lot of evidence of this, and 10+ years is a long time in terms of
memory and you will start combining multiple people's stories in your own
recollection.

[https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/was-brian-
williams...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/was-brian-williams-a-
victim-of-false-memory/)

------
weeksie
If any entertainment company is known for taking old myths and putting a new
family-friendly shine on 'em it's Disney!

------
rmetzler
"White Wilderness" snippet -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOs8MaR1YM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOs8MaR1YM)

~~~
dmix
Which is interestingly the 2nd highest ranked video when you search "lemmings"
on Youtube...

------
barking
Terriers stay small because they're given whiskey as pups and the way to catch
a bird is to throw salt on its tail are two other childhood facts that I find
hard to completely give up.

~~~
jacquesm
The second is more a matter of degree than principle.

~~~
MisterTea
325 degrees farenheit to be exact.

~~~
ende
Or 325 lbs.

------
deltateam
upon reading the whole article, it is mostly true.

"mass dispersal" occurs when the population grows too much and the food runs
out, sometimes it can be very directional, and sometimes they will pile up on
the shore until they gets too packed and they try to swim across frigid
waters.

the Disney mass suicide documentary says this can be observed every 7 - 10
years, and then they over dramatized how it looks

edit: removed blue planet reference, peace!

edit2: alright folks, what is inaccurate or disagreeable about what I wrote?
I'm downvoted so far that I can't even post a rebuttal anymore and have zero
feedback about how I read the Alaska Government's article incorrectly

~~~
jakevn
Suicide is deliberate. Any unfortunate death due to overcrowding attributed to
suicide is simply false. There is no evidence of intentional death or racing
towards a cliff, merely that when faced with no other apparent route of
escape, they have a great chance of dying when trying to cross a body of
frigid water. That's entirely different from the portrayal by Disney and the
associated myth.

~~~
garmaine
I’ve never seen the Disney “documentary”, but then I’ve heard this myth many
times before. And never, not once, is suicide meant as intentional, but rather
that they’d just follow the leader off a cliff or something. Like the ants
that can be made to walk in a circle forever (also a myth).

------
vivekd
Just a few days ago on hn I discovered the stanford prison expweiment was
largely faked, and now this. I guess this is good reason to be suspicious of
pop science factoids that often get thrown around in discussions.

------
ModernMech
Oh wow, this brings me back. I did a report in 6th grade about this, and had
to try really hard to convince all my friend the lemmings game lied to them. I
remember typing it on an electric typewriter.

------
ChuckMcM
An entire genre of adventure game, reduced to simple entertainment. :-)

Yet another black mark against Disney's attempts to make "nature more
interesting" only to be just making up just so stories.

~~~
ebbv
Adventure game? Always thought of it as a puzzle game.

------
ibdf
Wait.. is the game based on this same fictional fact?

~~~
mlindner
Yes, but it existed before the game or Disney were around.

~~~
csours
It took me a while to realize that you were saying that the myth was around
before the game and Disney. For some reason I thought you meant the game was
around before Disney.

~~~
whatshisface
You thought that because the last (parent's) sentence was talking about the
game, and "it" tends to refer to the last noun that was talked about.

~~~
cortesoft
Wouldn't the last noun be 'the fictional fact'?

------
danschumann
I'm still mad at the discovery channel for convincing me that Megaladon was
still out there.

------
cup-of-tea
There's a great short story by Arthur C. Clarke about lemmings, but he does
admit in a later foreword that the premise is actually a myth.

------
alehul
So do we know whether Disney actually killed lemmings for a film?

There's some people claiming that 'most survived' and others accepting that
they were killed.

While I'm not much of an animal rights activist, killing animals relatively
ethically in medical research seems like a far cry from tossing lemmings off
of cliffs.

------
antientropic
In unrelated news, 500 sheep killed themselves by jumping off a cliff in
Turkey: [http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/500-sheep-die-in-mass-
suici...](http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/500-sheep-die-in-mass-suicide-jump-
in-eastern-turkey-133225)

------
mchahn
And myth explanations spawn more myths. I had read (forgot the source) that it
was a myth and that the lemmings were really jumping off cliffs to swim to an
island people weren't generally aware of.

Although swimming to an island is closer to the truth of swimming across a
river than suicide is.

------
Nadya
This is triply interesting for me because I had _never heard of this myth_
and, reading the comments, I appear the be the only one out of the loop on the
myth itself or the game. I wonder how many other pop-sci myths I'm unaware of.

~~~
matt-attack
Curious if you’ve heard of someone being called a “lemming” meaning they’re
easily coerced or will follow a leader blindly.

~~~
rusk
Only ever heard someone be called a "lemon" which was I presumed because they
were so winsome they made you purse up your mouth like you'd just tasted
lemon.

------
Keverw
Oh wow, they killed animals just to make a film?

I am a Disney fan but never knew about this. Disappointed. I would think
modern Disney probably is much better than that nowadays. I think nothing like
this would happen today thanks to CGI.

~~~
GhostVII
If you are OK with eating meat, you should be OK with killing animals for a
movie, in my opinion. When you eat a steak, you could eat potatoes or
something instead, but you choose to eat an animal because you like how it
tastes. I don't see that as any different from killing animals for a movie, in
both cases you are unnecessarily killing an animal for your enjoyment.

~~~
Keverw
Well when you eat a animal, you are doing it because eating is necessary, and
some people are picky eaters conditioned to like meat since childhood.

But I feel like killing them for a movie is a waste, unless they are eaten
later maybe but still not too much better. Like if you kill a animal, you
should try to use every single part of it as possible. Same thing the Native
Americans believe.

------
sopooneo
Disney seemed as determined to create a dark analogy as the Standford Prison
guy.

------
TulliusCicero
I'm glad we had the myth for a bit, if only for the game.

------
IshKebab
There should be a list of commonly known facts that people who are new to the
internet have to read so they don't think things like this are novel.

~~~
CodesInChaos
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions)

Which among many other things, mentions the Lemming Suicide myth:

> Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating.
> This misconception was popularized by the Disney film White Wilderness,
> which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots
> of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a
> studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.[234] The
> misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th
> century.

~~~
shkkmo
This is one of my favorite wikipedia pages. I'm not aware of any other
resource that does so much to fix our broken epistemology.

~~~
otakucode
That's not epistemology... epistemology is about the fundamental nature of
truth and knowledge, like whether reality is shared and knowable. I think you
mean 'common sense.' Though nowadays always spoken of positively, originally
'common sense' referred to the sense of commoners, being incomplete and
unreasoned and just an accumulation of happenstance. That's pretty much what
common misconceptions are.

~~~
shkkmo
I know what epistemology is, but apparently you don't. "the fundamental nature
of truth and knowledge, like whether reality is shared and knowable" is not
epistemology but metaphysics. Epistemology may dip into metaphysics, (and
vice-versa) but they are generally distinct fields.

By "our broken epistemology" I mean "our broken methodologies of evaluating
the truth of our beliefs and the certainty of our knowledge". The brokenness
of our practical epistemology is why these common misconceptions not only
exist, but continue to dominate.

I could have been more precise and said "our broken epistemological systems",

------
_pmf_
Nature documentaries are laboriously produced works of fiction.

~~~
ainiriand
Like any other form of art, it tells you a lie to speak the truth.

------
zmix
Even more childhood dreams destroyed. Fuck Micky Mouse!

------
kartan
This is not my personal experience.

Lemmings are fearless creatures that will scream to any animal, including
humans, that cross their path.

I have seen a Lemmings confronting a crow. The crow sends the lemmings flying
on three different occasions until it took the lemming dead body and left
flying. The lemmings never tried to run or hide, it just was screaming at the
crow until its very last moments.

So I can see that "mass suicide" is a myth. But it has some true on it looking
at the lemmings' behaviour.

