captain gastro here
white cotton gloves are least effective gear you can wear to protect yourself from hot stuff, espacially steam. They suck the steam and condense it while still being at "uncomfortable" temperature.

There are 3 main reasons for white cotton gloves.

1. Protect the good you are handling from fingerprints etc.
2. Show off how clean you can handle tasks that unexperienced would not master without messing up. (may be the case in the video you saw)
3. snobism.

So yes, very nice fullfillment of ste-phans hard task for this month imho!