Usually, there are few witnesses: A small splash; maybe a flash of pink water, maybe not; sometimes friends come to help, sometimes they flee; onshore, spectators feel trapped between helplessness and disbelief.

But more than 30 million people have watched the Australian professional surfer Mick Fanning's miraculous escape while competing in a surfing competition at South Africa's Jeffrey Bay.

It was history's first recorded live shark attack. Beamed or streamed by Fox Sports and the World Surf League, it was replayed endlessly on a thousand media outlets and Youtube.

Watching Fanning bumped from his surfboard, knowing he was in the water alone and then being picked up by the water security jet ski, for millions was to ride from confusion to dread, from anxious horror to joy from the safety of their own homes, iPhones and laptops.

Shark attack fever had broken out well before Fanning's virtual unreality moment.

The hype surrounding the 40th anniversary of the release of the film Jaws last month had re-ignited long-buried panic about it being no longer safe to go back in the water.

Almost on cue, a spate of eight attacks along the summer beaches of North Carolina put the American shark scare industry into hyper-drive and prompted the British media to drum up warm weather terror about Jaws along English shores.

Meanwhile, Australia had been drifting along in its customary role as Shark Attack Central with five people being taken off NSW beaches alone since November 2013.

Fanning, 34, a three-time world champion, who won his fourth Rip Curl Pro at Victoria's Bells Beach in April, behaved with a kind of Australian grace under pressure that suggested he and the shark were destined to meet in J-Bay's waters.

He paddled away physically unscathed but who knows the inner turmoil that comes from confronting that sort of primal fear?

Many, however, had their own take on Fanning.

On the rescue boat, the first thing his corporate surfing mates wanted to know for the cameras was pure macho: Did he "see the teeth" or "get in a couple of punches". No, to the teeth, one punch to the back, Fanning replied.

Some experts said he did the right thing in abandoning his board and thumping the shark. Others wondered if it might not have been an attack, saying that the shark may have been coming in for a look. Still more thought the shark had got a fright with Fanning's leg rope (it was bitten in two).

The reality is that nobody knows why a shark attacks or why Fanning remained unscratched.

But the attack was a reminder that surfing remains a human against nature pursuit, something that has become lost in the commercialisation that now drives the sport.

Modern surfboard riding started off nearly 70 years ago when Californians discovered the beach courtesy of the book and film Gidget, evolved it into a freerider/freeloader lifestyle before settling into a corporate space occupied by travel companies and an ever-increasing cast of surfing competitions where flashy tricks in lousy surf vied with men dropping down steroid-sized waves for the amusement of lesser risk takers.

Flying into Sydney on Wednesday, the reality of his near death experience seemed to weigh heavily on Fanning at a press conference with his fellow competitor Julian Wilson (who had attempted to paddle to his assistance when he was in the water swimming).

The press conference was festooned with crass product placement by Red Bull and Rip Curl. One company, started 46 years ago in a baker's shack in Torquay is run by merchant bankers, the other is Austrian-owned. Commercialism blew the purity of Fanning's moment out of the water.