Jason Momoa Gets Called Out for ‘Inaccessible’ Underwater City—Bro, It’s The Ocean
Look, I get it. We’re all living in a world where billionaires are building bunkers in New Zealand and Elon Musk is trying to turn Mars into a HOA nightmare. So when Jason Momoa—the guy who made Aquaman cool enough to ignore the fact that he talks to fish—announced he was building an “underwater city” for eco-tourism, I thought, “Finally, a rich guy doing something that doesn’t involve a crypto rug pull or a private island shaped like a dick.”
But no. Of course not. Because the internet has decided that Jason Momoa, the human equivalent of a cold beer on a hot day, is now public enemy number one for… wait for it… not making his underwater city accessible to people in wheelchairs.
Yep. You heard that right. The man built a literal city at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and Reddit is currently trying to cancel him because the entrance requires scuba gear.
Let me set the scene. Momoa, who has been on a “save the oceans” crusade that makes Greta Thunberg look like a part-time hobbyist, dropped a video on Instagram last week. He’s standing on a dock in Hawaii, looking like a Viking who just found a surfboard. Behind him, there’s a massive underwater dome made of recycled plastic and whale song or whatever. He calls it “The Deep Blue Sanctuary”—a fully self-sustaining underwater resort that runs on tidal energy and serves kelp-based cocktails. Sounds chill, right?
Here’s where the AITA energy comes in. The video shows Momoa swimming through a tunnel of fish, waving at a camera, and generally looking like he’s having the best day of his life. But eagle-eyed viewers noticed something: the entrance to this city is a 50-foot drop into the ocean. No ramp. No elevator. No “accessible scuba chair” for people with disabilities.
Cue the Karens of the internet.
“Wow, so Aquaman is ableist,” reads the top comment on the r/TwoXChromosomes post that’s currently sitting at 14k upvotes. “What about people who can’t swim? Or people in wheelchairs? Or people with anxiety about drowning? This is exclusionary and I’m so disappointed.”
Another user, who I’m 90% sure lives in their mom’s basement and has never touched salt water, wrote: “Jason Momoa could have built a floating city. He chose to build an underwater one. That’s a choice. And that choice excludes disabled people. Cancel him.”
Let’s pause for a reality check. Jason Momoa built an underwater city. As in, it is literally underwater. You need to breathe compressed air to survive there. The whole point is that it’s not on land. It’s like getting mad at a roller coaster for not being wheelchair accessible. Like, yeah, it sucks, but also—it’s a fucking roller coaster. Some things are inherently inaccessible because of physics, not because of malice.
But no, the internet doesn’t do nuance. We’re in the “if you don’t accommodate every possible human experience, you’re literally Satan” era of activism. So Momoa is now trending on Twitter with hashtags like #AbleistAquaman and #JasonMomoaOverboard. I saw one tweet that said, “He could have built the city on land and called it ‘The Blue Sanctuary’ but he chose to exclude us. This is internalized ableism.” My brother in Christ, the man is trying to save coral reefs. Not every project needs to be a community center for all abilities.
Here’s the thing that’s really pissing me off about this whole discourse: Jason Momoa is actually one of the few celebrities who walks the walk. He’s not just posting a black square on Instagram and calling it activism. He’s been fighting to ban single-use plastics in Hawaii for years. He literally shows up to climate protests in a fanny pack and a leather vest. The man once lost his voice screaming at a senator about ocean acidification. And now he’s getting ratioed because his futuristic underwater city requires you to, you know, be underwater.
I did some digging—because I’m a journalist and not just a guy who yells at clouds—and it turns out Momoa’s team actually addressed this. In a statement that will probably get ignored by the outrage mob, they said the Deep Blue Sanctuary is designed to be accessible via a pressurized elevator system that can accommodate wheelchairs. Oh, and they’re working on a “virtual reality experience” for people who can’t physically dive. But the internet already made up its mind. The mob doesn’t want solutions. It wants blood.
Let’s also talk about the sheer audacity of the entitlement here. Jason Momoa is building a city at the bottom of the ocean. That’s hard. That’s Elon Musk-level hard, except Momoa isn’t a shitposting narcissist who fires people for tweeting. He’s a dude who literally dove into the Pacific to clean up a ghost net. And now he’s being told he’s not inclusive enough.
I swear, if someone built a city on the moon, Reddit would be like, “Okay but what about people with vertigo? What about people who can’t afford a rocket? This is classist and ableist.” Sometimes, a thing is just cool. Not everything has to be a platform for social justice. Sometimes, Jason Momoa just wants to live in a glass dome with octopuses, and we should let him.
But no. The internet has spoken. Jason Momoa is now the villain of the week. Which means he’ll probably do an apology video where he looks sad and says “I’m sorry if I hurt anyone” while his biceps flex involuntarily, and then we’ll all move on to cancelling whoever tweeted something dumb in 2014.
In the meantime, I’ll be over here, not drowning, and not giving a
Final Thoughts
After watching Jason Momoa's trajectory from the brooding Khal Drogo to the soulful Aquaman and beyond, it’s clear he’s one of the rare action stars who understands that raw physicality is only half the story—the real power lies in the vulnerability he lets flicker beneath the surface. His willingness to dismantle his own macho image, whether by championing environmental causes or openly grieving the end of his marriage, suggests a man who refuses to be boxed in by Hollywood’s expectations. Ultimately, Momoa’s career feels less like a carefully crafted ascent and more like an authentic, sometimes messy, human evolution—and that’s precisely what makes him so compelling to watch.