Perhaps that's the answer to why we have no scuba celebrities. The explorers and frontliners are cool until they die doing it and then they get called nuts.
Why Aren't There Scuba Celebrities?
- Thread starter Vegan Shark
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I am going to omit the key names in this response. I did some cave diving a couple with someone a couple of years ago, and this person has borderline celebrity status in the cave diving world. We talked about a pretty well known (for a while at least) video that featured him and some other famous divers. In the video, they find the skeletal remains of a diver from long before. The video suggests that this was a surprise, and the identity of the remains was unknown. He told me that it was not true. He knew were the remains were, and he knew who it was. He had found them years before, and he was respecting the family's wishes to have them remain there. He then wistfully said that now he was once again the only one who knows where that body is, since every one of the friends he was diving with in that video was now dead.
There was a famously published photo shoot that also featured this diver. Pretty much everyone else involved with that shoot is dead now, too.
agesilaus
Contributor
By everyday standards, of course he was nuts. Sane people don't try for depth records. Was Mallory nuts? How about Joseph Walker the first man to reach space (in a X15)? Any of these people are insane by normal, take no risk, people.
Realize that by today's diving community he would have been considered a fool.
I understand the need for pioneers, as well as the desire to do crazy things( trust me I have been there ), but a lot of folks die to become famous in inherently dangerous sports/activities.
Chasing a depth record has nothing to do with skill. It has to do with desire, logistics and luck. A 10 year old could do it...it doesn't make anyone special.... Infamous---maybe...special--nope.
CT-Rich
Contributor
Celebrity and risk takers are not the same thing. If you look at sports celebrity, there are really two ways to reach it. First, be an amazing athlete. The second is to be an amazing personality. Plenty of good athletes are successful as celebrity for what they do off the court or track. Bill Nye is a science geek/celebrity. Tim Tebow was a mediocre Football QB who became much more famous than his athletic skills should have, because of stuff he other than playing football (in the end he flamed out, but...) A few athletes have long careers after leave the field because the drive that made them interesting as athletes can also make them interesting as characters.
A engaging scuba celebrity does not always have to end up dead a half mile from a cave entrance. Steve Erwin, was well on his way to becoming that type of celebrity. He had a big personality and communicated his enthusiasm readily to others. Yes he did die, but not because he was taking massively insane risks. He was just unlucky. But to have a scuba celebrity breakout into the main stream he is not going to be insane.
A engaging scuba celebrity does not always have to end up dead a half mile from a cave entrance. Steve Erwin, was well on his way to becoming that type of celebrity. He had a big personality and communicated his enthusiasm readily to others. Yes he did die, but not because he was taking massively insane risks. He was just unlucky. But to have a scuba celebrity breakout into the main stream he is not going to be insane.
Octopusprime
Contributor
Rich... Great points...there are plenty of great athletes that are not celebs. A celeb is someone known by the masses and not necicarily the best at what they do... Look at the ?Kardashians? They are not good at anything but huge celebs...
becoming a Celeb is more about being a great personality and be willing to talk to the media and create a buzz with out being stuck on your self...maybe that last part is not a necessity. Lol
becoming a Celeb is more about being a great personality and be willing to talk to the media and create a buzz with out being stuck on your self...maybe that last part is not a necessity. Lol
Rich, Steve Irwin died because he was molesting the wildlife....which is as pretty insane risk when you consider the wildlife that he chose to molest over the years. If he never handled dangerous animals, nobody would have a clue who he was.
CT-Rich
Contributor
Irwin actually was good at what he did. He took calculated risks, but he had a pretty sophisticated view of the animals he interacted with. There are plenty of people that run zoos, relocated animals and he had the showmanship to make something of it. Did he molest the animals? Yes, but most of the guys that do this type of work are driving crap trucks and smell perpetually of snake piss. He turned it into a wildly popular educational TV empire, big difference.
Sheck kept doing crazier sh*t until the odds killed him. Irwin was killed pretty much by an animal that seldom causes fatalities.
Taylor Swift is pretty, talented singer, a lot of other girls are too. She knows how to connect with her audience in a way few others can. That is what scuba needs, a face that connects with masses, not another corpse in a cave.
Sheck kept doing crazier sh*t until the odds killed him. Irwin was killed pretty much by an animal that seldom causes fatalities.
Taylor Swift is pretty, talented singer, a lot of other girls are too. She knows how to connect with her audience in a way few others can. That is what scuba needs, a face that connects with masses, not another corpse in a cave.
Octopusprime
Contributor
I don't know, I don't really buy this celebrity just needs "a great personality / willing to talk to the media and create a buzz". In some fields maybe, but not scuba. Just not a wide enough or unified enough demographic. Plus, what buzz? I learned to scuba dive over 30 years, and the slightly painful truth is that not a massive amount has changed in the sport over that time. Sure we got nitrox and dive computers, and the gear is better made and more comfortable these days. But buzz is hard to come by - "Wow, that is cool!" moments are pretty rare. Our scuba diving celebrity would be more like a bit of a lame infomercial - "But wait, there's more!"
If I am going to tune in on TV or watch somebody's podcast about scuba diving, there needs to be something interesting going on, and I don't mean some marketing fluff about some dive destination or the Mk III brand of some regulator. I need something with a bit of action to it. In scuba that pretty much means either exploration of something new (preferably wrecks, but I can settle for caves), finding marine life that no one knows about, or something which creates human drama.
I just don't see any scope for Kim Kardashian type "please stare at my ass and wonder at my cluelessness" figure as a scuba celebrity.
If I am going to tune in on TV or watch somebody's podcast about scuba diving, there needs to be something interesting going on, and I don't mean some marketing fluff about some dive destination or the Mk III brand of some regulator. I need something with a bit of action to it. In scuba that pretty much means either exploration of something new (preferably wrecks, but I can settle for caves), finding marine life that no one knows about, or something which creates human drama.
I just don't see any scope for Kim Kardashian type "please stare at my ass and wonder at my cluelessness" figure as a scuba celebrity.
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