This week, as part of its recognition of the 25th anniversary of the show Blue's Clues, the Twitter account for Nick Jr. posted the following video from the show's original host, Steve Burns:
Yeah, um, what's up with this?
This is a weirdly unnerving video for a number of reasons. Burns himself seems like a decent-enough fellow, but in the context of this video he seems positively unsettling.
What's with the soft-spoken, somber address? What's with the casual infantilization of his viewers ("all the fun stuff," "look at you, and look at all you have done," "some of it has been kind of hard")?
Why was it necessary for this man to deliver a strange, nostalgic, borderline-consolatory message to grown adults about a children's television show?
The video was immensely popular—it's within shouting distance of the top 30 most-retweeted tweets—and it was very positively received by many.
Yet nobody's just coming out and admitting the obvious here: The whole thing is weird and kind of inexplicable and disquieting. Right? I can't be the only one who feels that way.
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