Why Titanic Kids never disembark

Obsessed with the ship of dreams? You're not alone.

113 years ago, this week.

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The Titanic sunk 113 years ago this week (this past Tuesday, to be exact!), but I’d wager you already knew that, thanks to a Titanic Kid in your life.

As a card-carrying Titanic Kid since ca. 1996, I have always found it fascinating that generation after generation, there are always children who make the Titanic their whole personality, from the details of the ship and how the events of April 14, 1912 unfolded to what happened after the 705 survivors arrived in New York City¹—and that doesn’t even touch the movie! Or movies, I should say: I grew up on the 1953’s Titanic and 1958’s A Night To Remember².

The most curious, interesting, and remarkable quality of the Titanic is its ability to repeatedly find its audience, regardless of age and era.

Just last week, The New York Times ran a piece trying to explain the ship’s enduring appeal, suggesting the disaster helps young kids process complicated topics like death, loss, and destruction. But in my opinion, they only explored one facet of the Titanic Kid phenomenon. There are so many different ways to fall down the Titanic rabbit hole, whether you’re in it for the design, the mystery, the tragedy, the archaeology, or something else entirely. The Titanic is by no means a one-size-fits-all obsession, as a recent video of mine on Instagram and Tiktok made clear.

@notenoughangersWere you obsessed with the titanic? I want to hear from you! #greenscreen #titanic #history #sinkingship #gildedage

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I can’t remember what introduced me to the disaster, but by the second grade, I was fully hooked on a collection of Titanic books, novels (Dear America, anyone?), computer games, and as many documentaries (on VHS tapes, obviously) that I could find. It honestly was just a coincidence that my second-grade obsession coincided with the release of the film, which only stoked the fires of my interest with its exacting and monumental recreation of the ship.

Inside the Titanic was the best. However, I think we can all agree that the Eyewitness books raised a whole generation.

True to my Taurus nature, I was captivated by the ship’s grandeur: the largest, most luxurious vessel in the world. I poured over every photo of the first class rooms with ornate woodwork, stained glass windows, and expensive furnishings. Even if 7-year-old Robert wasn’t aware, I loved the formality and the lifestyle that those rooms supported. I wanted to know what the smoking room was used for, how dinner was served, and when exactly would people use the promenade deck and the grand staircase.³

I always loved the Veranda Cafe most.

Then there’s the mystery of the disaster, which feels as close as we can get to a real-life legend⁴. There’s something almost mystically fateful about not only what happened but when it happened—punctuating the end of the Gilded Age, just before the first World War. It all seems too eerily exact, as though it was written in the starry night that watched over the sinking. True Titanic Kids will be quick to cite the novella The Wreck of the Titan. Published in 1898, it is about a ship called The Titan, the largest, fastest ship in the world, which sinks in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. With not enough lifeboats, most of the passengers and crew on The Titan perish. Wild, right?

Over a century later, there are still so many unanswered questions about what exactly happened that fateful April night. There’s no absolute record of the sinking, no photos, no videos, no recordings—even the iceberg damage on the wreck is hidden beneath the sediment on the ocean floor. The mystery of the Titanic can tumble with new documentaries, like the one released last week offering a fresh take on how the ship broke apart, a detail that wasn’t even confirmed until the wreck was located in 1985 by Robert Ballard.

A well known sketch by survivor Jack Thayer made shortly after the sinking. Thayer was one of the first to say the ship broke in half.

Some survivors were quick to say the ship broke apart, but accounts were inconsistent, likely because it was pitch black in the middle of the Atlantic in those final minutes after the lights cut out.

Truly cannot imagine floating in the middle of the Atlantic not knowing if anyone was coming to save you.

As I’ve gotten older, my interest has shifted toward the individual accounts of the sinking, since each one is so different and makes the ship spring to life in personal ways. There are some incredible video interviews on Youtube, like one with a firecracker of a first class survivor Edith Russell, who believed a clairvoyant stuffed pig compelled her into a lifeboat:

Or Frank Prentice, who was 23 years old and working in the purser’s department. He offers one of the most poignant stories I’ve come across as he was one of the very few saved from the water:

I shall probably dream about it tonight. Have another nightmare. You’d think I’m too old for that, but you’d be amazed. You lie in bed at night, and the whole thing comes ‘round again.

— Frank Prentice, Age 90

When I posted my video about Titanic Kids on Tiktok and Instagram, I wasn’t expecting it to receive such an overwhelming response. I don’t know if I can speak for Titanic Kids everywhere, but I’d say that talking about the Titanic nonstop as a 7-year-old isn’t exactly a one-way ticket to unbridled popularity. After my video amassed over 460,000 views and 2,400 comments across both platforms, it was so heartwarming to be surrounded by like-minded people from all over the world, sharing why they were interested in the disaster.

“The tragedy of it all got me—it was the grandest, most opulent ship and it sank its first time out, the husbands staying behind, the band playing… I loved how dramatic it all felt to me as a 5 year old.”

“The out of reach under water archaeology, the. mystery, the ghostly nature of the resting site.”

“I was obsessed with the systems breakdown. Like how one action or inaction led to a chain reaction.”

“The opulence and greed and then demise.”

However, one of the most popular comments on the video really stuck with me: “We’re obsessed, because we were there,” they said. “We were all people who were once on the Titanic.”

1. Fun fact: They were housed in The Jane Hotel, which is now home to the new location of San Vicente Bungalows.

2. Titanic Kids of today will never know suffering through having to watch black and white films with historically inaccurate interiors and a sinking scene where the ship doesn’t break in two. It would only be after Robert Ballard located the Titanic wreck in 1985 that it would be confirmed the ship broke in half.

3. Almost 30 years later, my interests have not changed.

4. I feel like I don’t need to recount the Titanic disaster, but: The largest, most luxurious ship in the world, deemed to be unsinkable, founders after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage as it carries the world’s richest and powerful to New York. With not enough lifeboats, most of the passengers perish.