I watched Jaws when it opened in theaters in 1975. I was 13. I didnt swim in anything but clear pool water for the next 4 years...well, not entirely true. I would SCUBA in open ocean, but like Hooper, my defense strategy was to go to the bottom and have lots of bubbles to make me appear bigger than any shark. LoL. But surface swim? No way!
I saw it on opening day at the movie theater at the mall across from Biloxi Beach in Mississippi. They had a giant cardboard set of shark jaws that you walked through entering the theater. I’ll just say that nobody was on the beach swimming in the gulf for weeks after it premiered.