After months of flattening fence posts, blocking roads and footpaths, and attracting thousands of fans, Tasmania's biggest, quite literally biggest, celebrity has finally slipped back into the Southern Ocean. Neil the elephant seal became an unlikely global superstar simply by turning up in the suburbs of Hobart and carrying on with life as if the humans around him didn't exist Sleeping, moulting and refusing to budge, every nap, groan and awkward waddle became another viral moment watched by millions around the world. So why did this one wild animal capture the world's imagination? And what does our obsession with Neil say about us? Someone who has been pondering this question is Hobart resident and a lecturer in media at the University of Tasmania Dr Gemma Blackwood.