The Coral Reef Event on ‘Byron Baes’ Has to Be One of the Weirdest Charity Moments on Reality TV

From the Real Housewives to Selling Sunset and beyond, reality television thrives on events. Every episode of these shows has to be built around a premiere, a gala, a launch, a party, an opening, or a dinner, with all of the buildup and fallout that goes along with said events. These people keep a busy schedule as they jump from planning an event to attending an event to gossiping about who was or was not invited to the event.

In the grand scheme of reality television, Netflix’s new Australian docu-soap Byron Baes is very much one of these kinds of shows. Viewers get to meet the hottest Instagram influencers from down under and follow them as they cause scenes while making the scene at a fashion show, an art gallery in a barn, something called “Spirit Night,” and a launch party for a tanning spray collab. The show hits all of the usual events that serve as the backdrop to the usual about who is and is not “being real” — and one of those events is, of course, a charity fundraiser.

Reality shows love charity fundraisers, and why shouldn’t they? They’re the only event that allows the cast to get gorgeous and show that they have, like, awareness. Every event highlights how rich and beautiful these people are, but only the charity fundraiser also shows how much they really care. And Byron Baes‘ spin on the charity fundraiser in Episode 5 centers on something uniquely Aussie: saving the planet’s coral reefs from the manmade threats to their existence. And how does Elle, the Byron bae championing this legit cause, plan on raising awareness to the dangers posed to the coral reefs? I’ll let her explain.

So here’s the thing: will it? Considering that mermaids are not intrinsically tied to coral reef iconography, nor are they real, nor is Elle herself a reef, it seems like this statue can only raise “conscious attention” to what Elle would look like as a Disney princess (with, as Elle requests, bigger boobs). The rest of the cast all struggle to follow this leap in logic, but everyone agrees that getting a 3D scan of herself wearing a mermaid costume is very much how Elle would go about raising awareness. But also Jade, a newcomer to Byron, is skeptical about whether or not the Great Barrier Reef is dying since it looked fine to him when he went swimming.

But that’s not all! The event is raising awareness (not money, it seems like) for the Beyond Coral organization (which is run by Elle’s partner Stav) as well as CHARM, Stav’s coral farming robot. So, how is coral farmed? What is coral bleaching? How does sticking some robot-farmed coral in the giant mermaid statue help the coral reefs? What does CHARM stand for, if anything? These are all questions raised at Elle’s event, and all we learn is that coral has sex once a year and no, the robot cannot help Jade with his love life. In fact, the closest we get to a direct answer to the question “how do we rehabilitate reefs” is… Elle unveiling a giant statue of herself as a mermaid.

So we have a robot that, I don’t know, 3D prints coral reef (?) that gets stuck into a mermaid statue of an influencer — what else could we need? Howsabout a mermaid show performed by one of the two mermaid models? She dives in, she swims, she glides, she blows a kiss to the underwater camera — and precisely zero attendees can actually see any of this because it’s all happening underwater.

Then again, this event isn’t a Q&A session, nor is it a show. It’s all about getting the word out about Beyond Coral, and having a mega-influencer like Jade will surely help. So, did Jade Kevin Foster introduce CHARM, the sexy reef robot, to his 1.2 million followers? He did not — or if he did, it didn’t make it to his grid.

But hey — at least this episode of Byron Baes does its part to raise awareness for coral reef conservation (check out Coral Reef Alliance) by reaching far beyond the dozen cast members and extras at Elle’s event. And ultimately, Elle’s coral reef awareness-raising event does exactly what it was intended to do: it raised Sarah’s awareness about Elle calling her fake behind her back!

Stream Byron Baes on Netflix