The Father, the Son, and the Himbo Spirit.

In Ken We Trust

I am not religious but I always grew up believing, on the 7th day, God created Himbos. This was to make up for the creation of man. At this point in time, himbo culture does paint itself as more of a religion, something to worship, something to pray to. The freshest example is that of Ryan Gosling’s character in Barbie, whose birth name you might recognize as And Ken (his himboness wavers in the movie but we know the true Ken). This sudden spike in representation brought about the continued hunt for himbos in my search bar.

I thought the himbo was simply a stupid hot person. One clearly and most certainly written by a woman. But those are really the bare necessity of the archetype. A true himbo has three shining qualities. Stupid and hot are, of course, the first requirements to even start the process of earning the title. The third adjective in their DNA, however, is what separates man from myth.

Image By Gerta Gerwig

For example, when you take stupid, hot, and self-centered you get Johnny Bravo. Who, is nowhere close to gaining the himbo crown. Or Danny Zuko, who is stupid, hot, and superficial which almost costs him Sandy. That is until she transforms herself to the image of his liking. The ghost of a Himbo, Ken is rolling in his Mattel box. Don’t you see how important that third adjective is? It’s like the himbo particle. It’s responsible for the entire makeup of the himbo in question.

It can be a very amazing thing or a very annoying thing. The more adjective a man carries the less himbo he becomes. The himbo requires a simple mind, a three-adjective man makes the best himbo, the more we divulge into a character, the more complex he becomes, and the farther he falls from himbo heaven. A himbo is a delicate mix, like all the best things in life too much of a good thing, can turn the himbo sour.

Before Ken, there was George of the Jungle, Hercules, Kevin Beckman (Chris Hemsworth in the 2016 Ghostbusters), and even Freddie from Scooby-Doo. But not all himbos fully embody the spirit of himboism. Much like my discussion of the Brunch BF, we can break it down. When I presented the brunch boyfriend I presented it as a scale, to me the only way to categorize a himbo is with a tier.

Think of it like this, the brunch boyfriend doesn’t require specific traits to be labeled as a brunch boyfriend. What allows someone to be a brunch boyfriend is the ability to meet the needs and gel with the group in question. So say my boyfriend wasn’t a brunch boyfriend in my New York circle, he has the potential to be a brunch boyfriend in my Connecticut circle because the needs of each group vary. The needs are unique to the people the potential brunch boyfriend in question is with. That’s why I said previously, every brunch boyfriend is a good boyfriend, but not every good boyfriend is a brunch boyfriend. It’s like any relationship in the world. You have to figure out how you get along with someone to decide who they are in relation to you. The scale I made was based on outward persona and my belief in a person’s ability to appeal to the masses. Based on pop culture and how they have treated significant others in the past, I placed them on the scale where I deemed them fit. A person can move up or down on the scale in many ways, for many different reasons, and that means each Brunch Boyfriend historian will place leading men at different points on their own brunch boyfriend scale.

Unlike brunch boyfriends, a himbo is characterized as such for very specific traits. These traits are not dependent on the person they are with, they are like a job requirement. The more himbo traits you have, the more you embody the himbo spirit. For this reason, categorizing a himbo is more like a tier. The more traits a person has that fit himbo ideology, the higher the tier. Therefore, while tier assignments will vary slightly, there will also be more of an agreement on who goes where, especially for the top himbos. Most himbo historians will agree Ken is a god-tier himbo. While George of the Jungle and Kevin Beckman are tier two himbo. If Ken is God, then George and Kevin are something like Jesus Christ.

The story of a himbo is one you’ve heard many times. It doesn’t have a lot of variation. The traits that occur in the stereotypical himbo are simple and straightforward. They are dumb, hot, and loyal. Those three characteristics are the essence of what makes the himbo so appealing. The good traits are of course hot and loyal. Adding both reminds me of those tricky questions you might see on Twitter where you can only pick two amazing things from a list of four amazing things. Something like:

Pick 2 desserts to eat for the rest of your life:
Ice Cream
Cake
Donuts
Oreos

by picking two delectable foods you are acknowledging that two equally enticing desserts must be left behind. It’s a test of character. In this way, these questions say you can have your cake, but you can’t eat the ice cream too. The Himbo is a way to essentially have it all. In most cases, there is a belief that a hot guy is an asshole, or a loyal guy is unattractive. Or whatever traits you pick out the perfect boyfriend hat, no matter what you do there’s always something missing. It’s how we frame anyone, there must be a catch. We can see people as black and white and only exert a certain roundness and sympathy to ourselves because we know the inner complexities. Other people are flattened down for simple sorting. Himbos are often just flattened characters so we can project whatever we want onto them. What they lack is used in their favor for us to mold into the dream man with zero flaws.

I believe the stupidity of the himbo archetype is used to reinforce the flatness of the character. While no one hopes to be seen as brainless I believe it’s essential to the success of mass appeal. If a character has so little to offer in terms of opinion, then we can mold them into whatever fantasy we desire. We can do whatever it is we want (say no to advances, have a really amazing career, move across the world without worry) and the himbo doesn’t object, he cheers you on. If someone like Ken walked into our lives and suddenly there was a man who supported and listened to us and didn’t treat us like the old ball and chain, then life could be a dream in some way. The himbo character is often so flat that their needs are really just an extension of our needs. In this way, the “perfect boyfriend” is in our grasp. So many people can love one character like Ken or George of the Jungle because he offers so little that we assume he thinks the same as us. He has no controversy.

I can’t however talk about the himbo without talking about the bimbo. The bimbo was born to aid the male fantasy and the himbo the female. There are many reasons why the bimbo and the himbo are different and why one appears to be much more sour. It’s obvious that both reflect what men and women seek out in a partner in terms of fantasy. A bimbo is a hot stupid woman, who essentially is submissive and dismissive. In most stories I hear of a bimbo, she really is there for arm candy, the flattened-out character of every archetype found in the cool girl monologue. Like the himbo, men can project whatever they feel onto her. When I talked of the qualities of a himbo after stupid, there were some very nice qualities, flat but at the very least nice. However, the nicest quality needed to be a bimbo is hotness, which immediately places all value solely on looks.

Many will say it’s the same, but a distinct quiet violence threads itself through the bimbo. She is kept in place and will accept mistreatment because she is too stupid to know better. Written by a man, the bimbo is the reminder that no matter where we go, even in the most intimate relationship we may find ourselves in, women are to be controlled. To be viewed only from a place of desire and of course, held to the highest of beauty standards. It reminds me of that quote from The Great Gatsby, where Daisey hopes her daughter is a fool, so she can’t see how terrible she is being treated. A bimbo can’t know any better, and yet it’s all her fault too.

I understand why a man wouldn’t want to be called a himbo. To compare the insult of being called a himbo and the insult of being called a bimbo though, is apples and oranges. It makes sense that men would assume women immediately judge their capabilities when seeing how standardly hot they are. It’s what women so often are flattened down to by men. Women don’t flatten a man down to the first thing they know about them. Yes of course they objectify men but the point of a himbo is not to have arm candy, the underlying core reason the himbo was created was so women could feel loved.

The best part about the himbo is that they aren’t real. They aren’t actually what we desire. A himbo is a man child, who has no other ambitions or duties. His happiness is solely based on the person he is in love with, and requires constant attention. Most movies or fantasies don’t take into the downside. I, however, do. I don’t think most people actually want a himbo. I think they want a fantasy, an easy one to muster up, simple and clean. It’s like a crush, sometimes it’s just fun to think about what could be without reality in the mix. The reality is though, all the downsides to having a himbo boyfriend, are common reasons for a relationship to fail. In order for the fantasy to work we need the himbo to stay perfect. In order for a relationship to work, you have to begin seeing the person you love instead of the fantasy of them you created in your mind, and you have to love them anyway. The himbo is textbook perfect, and his flaws are so intertwined with his virtues it would be impossible for him to exist while attending to the flaws.

No one walks into a relationship and expects smooth sailing constantly, but the himbo gives us the chance to imagine a perfect world. There’s no stress when we see a himbo in whatever media we are consuming. No passive misogyny, or male-centered content, no violence. We need this fantasy in order to accept reality and to have a little hope that someone out there could be flawed, but also a beautiful himbo in essence. Relationships are extraordinary for their complexity, by holding out for a full-blooded himbo you’re putting all your faith in something that will never be real. The closer we get to a tiered himbo, the less realistic it is to search for this ideal man in real life. Picture it as a declining graph, the higher the himbo, the less realistic he is. The closer we get to a real man the less himbo he will be. But the himbo particle is very strong sometimes and creates the himbo essence in leading men.

That is where I turn your attention to the float zone or men with too much inner workings to be a tiered himbo. Now this is the man of your dreams. The most beloved male characters across all media are labeled a float zone himbo. People like Steve Harrington, Gomez Adams, Phil Dunphy. I said before being a himbo is not something you can sorta be, and I suppose the float zone gives that impression but these people contain a certain je ne sais quoi that gives them a hint of himboism. Like people who pray before going to bed even though they’ve never been to church. There’s an aura about them that protects them from failing women everywhere. These are the people we would feel safe with in an elevator, the men who love their wives with unwavering passion, the men we hope to marry even with all the damage that comes with being human. These men are flawed but himbos anyways. This is where reality meets fantasy. A man who is unplottable on the himbo vs the world graph.

I don’t want this to seem like Elizabeth Bennet’s
"Men are either eaten up with arrogance or stupidity. If they are amiable, they are so easily led they have no minds of their own whatsoever.”

I know for a fact that there are a lot of great men, I know it because I plotted the brunch boyfriend scale after all. I can feel it in my bones, those are great men. I know that a good man is sometimes actually much easier to find. I also know that we can find the working girl’s himbo out walking the earth if we really truly desire to.

There is hope, that’s always what himboism is about. If you truly believe in the himbo then you can pray to Ken because he is always rooting for our happiness. In some ways, this sect of religion is really a romantic one. It asks us to believe that somewhere on this earth there is a man waiting for us. He might not be a Ken, but he might be a Steve Harrington which, I think is something to hope for. Stand-up comedians, actors, and writers alike, all always paint their significant other as the last person on earth they want to go home to. It is my least favorite case for love. Will there be fireworks or excitement at every possible moment in your life? No! But we can do our best to have a good time anyways. The float zone himbo connects the venn diagram of fantasy and reality. He is the perfect mix of excitement and love we carry from our imagination, with the flaws and complexity needed to create a long-lasting relationship. Each night I say my prayers to Ken that all who are deserving to, receive their float zone himbo on a silver platter.

“Dear heavenly Ken, thank you for my float zone himbo that I am about to receive, and the lifetime of love and happiness and devotion one might assume was saved simply for the movies. For he is better than fantasy and reality all at once, aken."