Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter: Xer, geek, generational marker

But the only video everyone is talking about is the one that depicts Irwin's death. For all the handwringing over whether the video "should" be seen, there's more then enough graphic description to be found in the news articles posted online -- "Crocodile hunter Steve Irwin pulled the barb of a bull stingray out of his chest with his hands moments before succumbing to the deadly blow," the British Guardian was delighted to share, and I pick on it entirely at random from among the approximately 18 million similar references in the global English-language press. It's enough to almost make you question these outlets' motives: they want to be lurid enough to engage humanity's basic morbid curiosity without being so lurid that they get criticized for making us realize what a bunch of horrific vultures we all are.

Not that it matters. If the tape exists -- and by all accounts it does -- then it will almost certainly end up on the Net, and sooner rather than later, unless there isn't a single person with less than unimpeachable integrity among all those, from police to coroners and so on, who'll have access to it. Not to impugn anyone's honor, but that seems unlikely. Paul Levinson, chairman of Fordham University's Department of Communication and Media Studies and an acquaintance of mine from my science-fiction-convention-going adventures, is quoted thusly in the Australian press: "The key point is once there's something on film, it's impossible to keep it contained." And not to impugn Paul's judgment, but you don't have to be a media critic to know that.

And it's when that video gets loose that we'll really start to see some interesting generational dynamics at play. Now, to me, Steve Irwin was that crazy alligator guy who made the most insane movie ever, but apparently to little kids, he was like unto a god. Check this, from the Australian Herald Sun:

KIDS CRYING INTO PILLOWS

Steve Irwin had such an impact on children many parents believe his death will be a landmark for kids as the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Princess Diana were for adults.

Many younger Australians were grieving for the Crocodile Hunter as if they had lost a member of their family, parents say.

"This guy has been in our lounge room for years," said one Sydney mother who has been consoling her tearful primary schooler since breaking the news the TV wildlife enthusiast had died.

She said her nine-year-old son Louis repeatedly asked, "Is he really dead?" and then cried all night.

And it's not just Down Under where the kiddies are in mourning, either. From the Patriot-News of somewhere in Pennsylvania:

IRWIN'S LOSS LEAVES VOID FOR STUDENTS AND EXPERTS

Wrestle with this: The guy who wrestled crocodiles is gone.

That's what children had to do during the weekend as they learned that Steve Irwin, television's famed "Crocodile Hunter," had been killed by a stingray.

"I didn't believe my brother when he told me," said Julia Imholte, 15, of Dickinson Twp. "It was kind of like he had been doing this forever."

Irwin's death could well be a generational marking point for Millennials (kids now of school age, from kindergarten through college), like how Xers remember where they were when they heard that the shuttle Challenger had exploded or, a closer analogy, that Jim Henson had died. And they may take the lesson of Irwin's life and death -- be passionate, but not so passionate that it gets you killed -- to heart, and so feed the swing away from Xerishness risk-taking and cement Millennialish caretaking. And the impact of that lesson will depend on whether they ever see the video of his death. As everyone who watched video of Challenger or the World Trade Center knows, nothing is really real unless you see it on TV... or YouTube. And then you never forget it.

(Technorati tags: Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter, Millennials)