You might think of seals as innocent, friendly little creatures who just want to live their lives and not get clubbed to death. But sometimes, it's the seal doing the clubbing.

In a video that went viral on Wednesday, New Zealander Kyle Mulinder is seen kayaking with friends near the town of Kaikoura off the east coast of the South Island.

"After a fun paddle around the peninsula catching waves, we spotted a giant male seal fighting an octopus," Mulinder explained on his Instagram account. "Before we knew it, the fight came to us."

All of a sudden, the seal popped right out of the water, and the floppy octopus it was battling ended up slapping Mulinder right in his face. You might say his fate was sealed.

"I'm not sure who got more of a surprise, the seal, the octopus or me," Mulinder wrote. "Either way, the octopus held onto the bottom of (the) kayak for some time before our guide was able to get it off with his paddle, then it swam away to fight another day. True story."

Mulinder's friend Taiyo Masuda captured the octopus' seal of approval via the GoPro Hero 7 camera he was wearing. And if you're thinking the footage is too good to be true, and must be fake, Masuda says there's no way something like this could be scripted.

"Such a raw moment," Masuda told me, noting that the event had the men laughing for the rest of the trip. "What a day to remember."

Social media loves animal antics of all kinds, and Masuda and Mulinder's seal slap quickly earned captions, jokes and meme status.

Some days I'm the man. Some days I'm the seal. Most days I'm the octopus. — C-Dude Gump (@BedsideYak) September 26, 2018

Seal: Life

Octopus: some bullshit

Man: Me https://t.co/IU3j6SGzOP — Big D&Dick Energy 🎲 (@pidgeonsmith) September 26, 2018

A porpoise would have opted for a STRONGLY worded text message.



STRONGLY. — Brett Nicholson (@aggiebrett) September 26, 2018

Thank you for this day giving me the opportunity to ask the immortal question, “Do you want to see a seal slap a man in the face with an octopus?” “That’s awesome” came the response. — John Mangrum (@jwmangrum) September 26, 2018

Me vs. the news cycle https://t.co/UK3r6MWpnw — Blake Hounshell (powered by blockchain) (@blakehounshell) September 26, 2018

The caption for this was "seal slapping a guy with an octopus" and I thought it was an exaggeration but wow it delivered pic.twitter.com/sb0XcpOOhI — Britney (@ihatealmonds) September 27, 2018

Can anything top that seal slapping dude with an octopus? Maybe I should just go to bed early. — WanderlustPixieDust (@wnpixiedust) September 27, 2018

Do you know how mad this seal had to be to get an octopus and come back and slap this man 😭😭 https://t.co/nZiSyhn96r — Model (@URepRoman) September 26, 2018

Man, I'm so jelly of that seal. I'm dying to slap folks in the face with an octopus. — Kim Possible (@kimlockhartga) September 26, 2018

My boss came over to me last night and he goes "make sure the store does well tomorrow"



little does he know, I've been sitting here repeatedly watching that video of a seal throwing an octopus at some dude on a kayak all day and I have no idea what's going on around me — Joan Archer (@joanarcher_) September 26, 2018

OH, and that's a Sea Lion, not a Seal.



You're welcome, I'm sure. — Captain Abraham (@ThomasHeaney6) September 26, 2018

Sea lion and seal aren’t proper names, so you don’t have to capitalize, unless you’re talking about Seal the singer, and Sea Lion the famed octopus slapping rapper. — Joseph Kepferle (@joekepferle) September 26, 2018