Are sharks now the #1 fear in America? Is public speaking only #2?

Heck no! But at Eventbrite I saw an announcement for an online training event to be held by public speaking trainer Eric Dominguez in Des Moines on May 6, 2020. His title is Public Speaking: Scarier than Sharks, and the text says:

“….In case you were wondering, the #1 fear in America is now sharks. Public speaking got bumped to #2 and in some studies, maybe #3. And it is no surprise Between Shark Tank and Shark Week, Public Speaking was bound to take a hit on the fear charts.”

An article in the Des Moines Register on September 13, 2019 explained Eric’s fascination with fear of public speaking – it is titled How a reclusive kid from Mexico tried speech and debate – and found his voice.

I doubt that a general audience would regard either sharks or public speaking to be their most common concern. Look at some rankings in blog post results from the 2015 to 2018 Chapman Surveys of American Fears, as shown above. For 2018 Sharks #51 (29.2%) rank higher than public speaking at #59 (26.2%) – but both are lower than a pandemic #32 (38.6%), and all three are far behind corrupt government officials at #1 (73.6%). Results for 2017 are similar.

Cartoons of a shark and a man speaking in public were adapted from images at Wikimedia Commons.