Why the freakout over former Blue's Clues host Steve's return?

The Daily Beast

The video of Burns that Nick Jr. posted earlier this week, commemorating the show's 25th anniversary, "was so sweet, and of course people felt emotional and validated by it," says Kevin Fallon. "But the strange part was how quickly it escalated from 'this very nice internet thing' to a hysterical news story. Major publications started to report the video as fact, that Burns had returned from decades of silence to clear up the mystery of what happened by explaining that he went to college. But the thing is: Burns was never silent, and he didn’t leave to go to college. This video was him in character as Steve, explaining Steve’s story. It isn’t—and was never—his own...I guess I’m just marveling at how quickly we all took a sweet and sentimental—and scripted—segment and took it at face value as real-life fact. It would be like, I don’t know, assuming whatever plotline Grace Adler had on the Will & Grace revival was Debra Messing’s actual life. Left unaddressed, I guess, was that in the years since Steve went to college we became knee-jerk online reactionists who forgot about the necessity of following all the clues and engaging in critical thinking (maybe even in a Thinking Chair) before jumping to conclusions."