Feminist Ryan Gosling. Ryan Gosling and puppies. Ryan Gosling as the dude in The Notebook who, like, totally sees into your soul and builds a house for you because he said he would and is great in bed. More than any other male celebrity, it’s started to become apparent that we might have completely made Ryan Gosling up in our heads.
‘I understand if you’re in a movie and you say something like, “I'll be back”, you own that. But I never said it,’ he said at the SXSW Festival Panel on Friday. He was, of course, referring to ‘Hey Girl,’ the words that have broken a million meme-hearts simultaneously.
Of course it’s not that big a deal that he didn’t say it, because we all secretly know that Feminist Ryan Gosling was started by someone who isn’t Ryan Gosling – and it’s never been based on anything the actor ever really said.
But it shows how one meme plus one memorable rom-com can create an entire personality that grows completely out of control. Look, the fact that Ryan Gosling has never said the words ‘Hey Girl’ made headline news everywhere. It’s newsworthy. Why?
Because with The Notebook came the idea that he was Noah and then with him being Noah, came the memes until we all genuinely believed that Ryan will treat you right and support your feminist views and loves cats and is cute like a dog.
‘When we compare ourselves, and selectively attend to favourable qualities – say, candidness – a subconscious bond is formed because that celebrity has taught us a life lesson,’ explains Dr Arthur Cassidy, ex Big Brother shrink and current media psychologist.
‘They’ve helped us feel good about ourselves, or given us something to aim for. We fall in a kind of love with them.’
See, it’s not our fault. Our goddamn brains are selectively attending to Ryan Gosling and making us go all gooey, despite the complete lack of all facts. As in, we’ll never know what he’s actually like because he’s a really good actor. Only Eva Mendes knows. And, obviously, other people who know him. She’s not the only one.
And maybe that’s a good thing, because, as Dr Cassidy adds, the more we know about them, the more likely we are to turn. Let the backlash begin.
‘Ultimately, they’re successful and we are not, and the moment we reject this fake, non-reality that they’re living in, we reject them and it becomes a kind of hatred because we once loved them. We switch and change,’ he says.
Maybe it’s best we all just stay in this fake reality, then, because anything’s better than witnessing a Ryan Gosling backlash. It would break too many hearts, and we’d all cry like the time we found out Leonardo DiCaprio parties with Robin Thicke and is therefore nothing like Jack Dawson.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.