CT-Rich
Contributor
DI 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.
I don't think selling scuba is about selling Kim K's ass. Can't stand the woman (Jessica Alba though....). However, look at astronomy, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking are all rock star personalities in a fairly abstract realm of science. Hawking engages people partly because of his personal story, the others because they could communicate their interest to a wider audience. None of them are Nobel Laureates, but they can make science accessible, much the same way Cousteau could, and he was also not the greatest of marine scientists.