Yahoo Lifestyle Steve From 'Blue's Clues' Comforts Fans After The Election Without Even Saying Anything
Fans of Steve Burns are taking comfort in his latest video after Tuesday night’s presidential election.
On Wednesday, the former “Blue’s Clues” host, 51, shared a surprisingly poignant one-minute TikTok clip where he walks up to a wooden fence in a sunny field with two coffee mugs.
In the wordless, caption-free video, Burns sets down one of the mugs, as if to offer it to the viewer, and leans against the fence, looking contemplatively into the middle distance. He lets out a breath and sips from his own mug. Then he looks at the camera and nods in apparent sympathy.
It’s one of Burns’ periodic “check-in” videos, where he plays the part of an understanding friend and invites the viewer to let him know how they’re doing. (In a way, it’s an extension of Burns’ work on “Blue’s Clues,” where he’d directly address the audience every episode for help solving the day’s puzzle.) By Thursday, his latest video had been viewed more than 6.3 million times, with many people interpreting it as a response to former President Donald Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris ― and an acknowledgement that the election results have been painful for many people.
“I bet you didn’t think you’d still be raising us all these years later, Steve, but thank you for still being here,” one person wrote in the comments.
Another person wrote: “Neither of my dads checked in on me today. But you did Steve. Thank you.”
Speaking to “Today” in April, Burns said he wants to recapture the compassionate tone of “Blue’s Clues,” which he hosted on Nickelodeon from 1996 to 2002, for his now-adult audience.
“My hope is that I just come off as a fellow passenger on the struggle bus, an ally,” Burns explained. “It’s just like, ‘Yeah! Hey, me too. I’m right there with you. This is hard.’ I’m still trying to figure this stuff out. And I still struggle, all the time. I am not a person who’s trying to present himself as having the answer, but I am trying to model active, deep listening as part of the solution.”
He went on to note: “I think people right now really want to be spoken to as an adult from a place of joy from their childhood. I don’t know exactly why, but it does seem to be in the zeitgeist.”
