新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：Steve From ‘Blue’s Clues’ Is Listening to His TikTok Followers
新闻日期：2024-09-18
Steve Burns 生存状态公布：他并没有在2000年代初死去。
Burns 是 Nickelodeon 儿童电视节目《蓝色线索》的主持人和明星，从1996年到2002年出现在屏幕上。离开节目后，关于他死亡的谣言一直流传不息。（实际上，他曾与 Flaming Lips 合作过。）
该谣言最终被证明是错误的，因为他于数年前重新在社交媒体上露面。
现居纽约 Catskill 地区的 Steve Burns 现年50岁，偶尔上传 TikTok 视频。他最近的一则视频获得了2400万个观看次数，内容是一位坐在椅子中假装聆听观众的人。
拥有近3000万粉丝的 Burns，在他的评论区里，TikTok 的观众会留下关于他们生活的真实而脆弱的评论。他的私人短信非常复杂，有时候涉及黑暗话题，但他认为 TikTok 是一种很美好的平台，因为观众们可以互相支持。
Burns 分享了他离开《蓝色线索》的原因，说他自己已经感到疲惫不堪。从1996年到2002年，他每天都在参与每一帧的拍摄。
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原文摘要：
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Steve Burns is alive and well. He did not die a tragic and mysterious death in the early 2000s, as some have falsely claimed online. Steve Burns is doing just fine.
You probably know him simply by his first name, which is how he introduced himself to countless children and adults as the star and host of the Nickelodeon children’s television show “Blue’s Clues” from 1996 to 2002. After his departure from the show, rumors of Mr. Burns’s death swirled and followed him for years. (In reality, he was, among other things, working with the Flaming Lips.)
That was finally put to rest a few years ago when he re-emerged on social media. These days, Mr. Burns, now 50, can be found in the Catskills region of New York, where he lives a quieter life and finds time to make the occasional TikTok — a recent video in which Mr. Burns simply sat and pretended to listen to his viewers was particularly popular — for his nearly three million followers.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Hi, Steve. Where are you picking up this phone call?
I am technically off-grid up a little mountain in the Catskills full time. I was in New York City for more than half my life, but I left to live up here.
When you say you’re “technically off-grid,” how off-grid are we talking?
I harvest all of my own photons every day, so I’m not connected to the electrical grid in any way. I’m not like, you know, sustenance living up here. There’s a supermarket 15 minutes away. I actually wish that I was a little more remote than I am.
Let’s talk about your TikTok. You joined a few years ago and your whole thing is that you actually don’t say very much in your videos. Why is that?
They are deliberately simple. I try to do as little as possible on TikTok other than deeply listen. About three years ago, I did a little shout-out video for Nick Jr. celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Blue’s Clues,” which I just improvised. I didn’t write it. I just kind of stood in front of the camera and said what was on my mind. The concept there was I wanted to continue the conversation that I started a zillion years ago with everyone. Let’s just scale it up, you know, now that we’re much more like peers.
It really worked.
I didn’t expect it to resonate at all. I thought that audience thought I was dead.
Then you made your own TikTok account.
Scott Hoying from Pentatonix said, “You need to get a TikTok immediately.” And I said, “What is TikTok?” I looked at it and said, I’ll just check in. I’ll just literally make it about you. And so I just said, “Hey, what’s up? How are you?” And I just listen for one minute. And it was kind of a social experiment in a way.
Seems like the experiment is working. One of your most recent videos got 24 million views.
I was the recipient of a negative internet rumor for a long time. Everyone thought I was dead for a while. I was kind of an urban legend. And that hurt, to be honest. And it kind of messed me up because that was happening while the internet was just sort of beginning to internet. No one, including myself, was kind of prepared for the degree of consensus that it represented. When a zillion, trillion people all think you’re dead for 15 years, it freaks you out. I just kind of wondered, Is it possible to use the internet backward? Instead of creating micro-harm in aggregate, that is actually corrosive, can we just use it in positive ways?
Viewers leave very honest and vulnerable comments about their lives on your videos. What are your DMs like? Do they get dark?
It does get pretty intense and some of it’s dark, but my favorite thing about TikTok is that what I’m doing is incredibly simple. Everyone else is doing all the work. And what really gets me is when someone posts something dark, simple, something grim, and everyone else comments to support them. I think that’s really beautiful. And it’s happening just because some middle-aged bald dude in glasses is paying attention. I’m not doing anything that everyone else can’t do.
Why did you decide to leave “Blue’s Clues”?
I was just exhausted. I wish there was a sexier answer. You have to keep in mind that the show was all filmed on a green screen. A blue screen for me because my shirt was green. I was in every take of every shot, every day, with no other actors or props or anything, just sort of standing in a void for years and years.
You’ve talked before about struggling with mental health.
My real job was listening. Most children’s television talks to the camera, right? That’s kind of an established convention. But what “Blue’s Clues” did that I think was really a breakthrough is we listened. I worked really hard on making that as believable as possible. And that was becoming more and more challenging every day to do. The entire time I was on that show, I was struggling with undiagnosed, severe clinical depression and I didn’t know what was going on. That made my job extra hard.
What are you up to in the Catskills these days? I remember reading online that you sold your Brooklyn apartment a few years ago.
I profoundly regret getting press for that. Nothing felt more invasive than that. I’m a very private person, generally and that really felt yucky. It is late September, so it’s firewood time. I’ll be processing firewood for next month. I’m not doing much in front of the camera. I’m a musician. Most people don’t know, but I wrote and sang the theme song to “Young Sheldon.” I do music stuff for TV. I run around and I’ve been speaking a lot about mental health at universities. I’m about to drop a podcast that will be very much in line with what you see on TikTok.
