For those of you who don’t know Ken Bone, he is the latest sensation that the internet chewed up and spit out after his 15 minutes of fame. However, he is famous for absolutely no substantial reason. Bone was an undecided voter in the second presidential debate and simply asked a question about the candidates’ energy plans. And, for some reason, America deemed him our next sweetheart. Move over, Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock!
After asking the question about the energy plan, the internet went a little crazy for Ken Bone. Memes were created and he gained 248 thousand twitter followers after having only seven (two of which were his grandmother) before his appearance. CNN declared him “the real winner” of the second debate, which is pretty much saying that you can put on a red sweater and ask one question to beat the two presidential nominees in a debate.
I watched the second debate again in order to try to figure out why Ken Bone gained so much popularity and I really can’t find a reason why. Megan Garber from The Atlantic says that part of the reason America took to him was because of his Midwestern accent, his name and his red sweater, which he only wore because he split his pants of his suit before arriving to the debate. If that’s all it takes to become America’s sweetheart, we are clearly in some desperate times.
No internet sensation success story is complete without a bit of capitalism. Because of his instant, out-of-nowhere and irrational internet success, Ken Bone landed a deal with uberSELECT where he gets Uber credit for helping to advertise of the company’s new high-end car service. Costume stores immediately started selling packs of his famous red sweater and a fake mustache. The sexy version of his costume sold out in four hours on Yandy.com. You can also get one of his “Bone Zone” shirts that have him pictured in the style of Obama’s “Hope” poster and has a sweet little letter from the man himself: “I don’t believe in political parties, I just believe in parties. This is my OFFICIAL and ONLY limited edition shirt. America, I’m with you. Sincerely, Ken”
Heartwarming, I know.
However, his unreasonable popularity took a hit when it was revealed that he commented some pretty racy things about Jennifer Lawrence’s leaked nudes. People started claiming that he was all that was wrong with the average American voter and “an ignorant bonehead.” In the span of a week, he went from being an undecided voter to an internet sensation to the face of the failure of the election.
Although his Reddit comments were creepy, he didn’t know that he was going to be famous for asking a simple question and wearing a red sweater. He could have never guessed that America was so desperate for a new face of hope that we would pounce on the first “cuddly” looking guy at the debate to be our new savior. It was the media’s own doing. With the internet frenzy that buzzed around the #BoneZone, he gained a sensationalized popularity and was torn down just as fast. Meredith Bennet-Smith of Quartz sees the situation like “…when the cool jocks in high school would ‘adopt’ a nerd for a day, let him eat lunch with them and then, just when he was starting to feel comfortable, duct-tape him to the flag pole.”
Ken Bone was in the limelight for a shorter time than “Alex from Target” and with that quick fame, what do you do? You capitalize your success, obviously. However, Bone may have invested in his brand a little too quickly considering his fame fell as quickly as it rose. At the end of the day, we have to remember that the 34-year-old undecided voter is still debating whether or not to vote for Trump. When you think of it that way, it’s a little easier to see where his Reddit comments came from and not think of him as America’s Sweetheart — a title he did nothing to deserve and that we are a little too quick to give out. He’s just a guy in a red sweater.
