'We can be weirdos too' Black mermaids creating their own fantasy worlds

Dressed in a purple and turquoise seashell bra and an iridescent green tail, the professional mermaid Carrie Wata swam through a hula hoop that a group of children held underwater in a pool at a birthday party outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

- Melissa Hellmann

The birthday girl was astonished to see that Wata was a black mermaid. "You look like me," Wata recalled the girl saying. Her mother had previously told Wata that the child was insecure about her hair and brown skin tone. But throughout the party, Wata said she saw the child become more self-assured as she mimicked Wata's moves, swimming through the hula hoop and flipping her tail underwater as well.

"And at that point she knew she was a mermaid because she saw a mermaid that looks like her," Wata said. "She was 100% confident that she could be a mermaid, too."

Professional mermaiding, an occupation that began more than a century ago with the likes of the Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, has gained traction in recent years, capturing the imaginations of children and adults at birthday parties and company events, as shown in the 2023 Netflix documentary MerPeople.

While there are no official records on the number of professional mermaids in the industry, the business news website Fast Company estimated that there were about 1,000 in the US in 2015. Wata, whose real name is Melanie Carrie Schneider, is part of a new wave of black mermaids who have taken up the activity as a hobby or profession. They are seeking to diversify a largely white industry, with some black mermaids also using mermaiding to advocate for aquatic safety in the black community.

"Back in the day, we didn't have the right to even play mermaid in pools, we didn't have that privilege," said Wata, whose Miami-based, aquatic-themed company, Afro Mermaid, sells clothing and accessories and hosts mermaid events. "But when you look at history, Africans were the very first water people."

For Wata, whose name is a nod to the African water spirit Mami Wata, the black mermaid community provides a space to acknowledge the African context of mermaid lore and to find a sense of lightness and playfulness underwater.