SAN DIEGO — A wave of outrage and disappointment swept over a niche of nostalgic Gen Xers and elder millennials when new research identified Ecco the Dolphin, of the eponymous ‘90s hit Sega titles, as one of those rapist cannibal dolphins.

“Jesus, it never fucking ends!” cried Dr. Gabby Drumb, a trauma psychologist and utterly exhausted woman who is trying really fucking hard to have faith in just one goddamn creature with a penis. “This is the last straw in my crippling attempt to empathize with a male. And it’s the most hurtful, personal blow yet as I really related to Ecco as a child. His journey to find his missing pod mirrored my own after losing my family in a fire at an ice skating rink. I never beat the game, which was unfathomably difficult, and that helped me accept I will never be reunited with my loved ones. And now I find out Ecco’s parents didn’t go missing after a mysterious alien event like he said. They were hiding out from their cannibal, rapist son!” 

Dr. Munky Fallyard, PhD, a maritime criminologist and the author of Seasicko! admitted he is too young (27) to know what a Sega Genesis is and only heard of Ecco the Dolphin after falling into an ambien-induced rabbit hole on a gaming subreddit focused on saltwater protagonists. Still, he sympathizes with Ecco’s fans. 

“I do feel bad for this miniscule, miserable cult of gamers who have apparently bonded with Ecco and consider him some kind of aquatic grief icon, but I’m also glad to expose this dolphin who is by far the most psychopathic marine mammal I’ve seen — either in fiction or reality,” Fallyard said. “He makes Jaws look like Nemo. The amount of creatures he’s defiled and devoured is in the hundreds. And he doesn’t only target dolphins. He’s raped and eaten sea lions, manatees, even walruses.” 

Dottie Wopple, a prosecutor at the Pacific Ocean promised Ecco will be held accountable and could face 42 life sentences for his crimes. 

“Ecco will be tried by a jury of his peers—and we’re talking bottlenosed, short-beaked, spinner,you name it,” Wopple said. “The goal here is to see him spend the rest of his lunatic life rotting away at Seaworld.” 

At press, a new Ecco the Dolphin game has been announced to be in development at The Daily Wire.