{"id":15954,"date":"2020-06-26T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-strange-innocence-of-the-himbo\/"},"modified":"2020-06-26T18:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T15:30:00","slug":"the-strange-innocence-of-the-himbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-strange-innocence-of-the-himbo\/","title":{"rendered":"#The Strange Innocence of the Himbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The Strange Innocence of the Himbo<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

Welcome to\u00a0Elements of Story<\/strong>, a biweekly column about narrative tropes, what they mean, and why they just won\u2019t go away.<\/em><\/p>\n
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If you\u2019ve been on Twitter<\/a> lately, odds are you\u2019ve seen some commentary about \u201chimbos.\u201d Coined by Rita Kemply in a 1988\u00a0Washington Post <\/em>article, a himbo <\/strong>refers to an attractive man more chiseled than the statue of David<\/em> who has very little going on between his ears. Paragons of himboism include Kronk from The Emperor\u2019s New Groove<\/em>, the titular character of\u00a0George of the Jungle<\/em>, early-career Matthew McConaughey, and, depending on the Marvel movie in question, Chris Hemsworth\u2019s Thor.<\/p>\n

The word itself masculinizes the word \u201cbimbo,\u201d a dismissive term for an attractive, unintelligent woman who is often very sexualized yet naive. \u201cBimbo\u201d itself actually initially referred to men \u2013specifically dumb, brutish men \u2014 until the 1920s or so, when it suddenly shifted to its current meaning for reasons unknown.<\/p>\n

The use of himbo in 2020 has diverged a bit from Kemply\u2019s original descript<\/a>ion. In her article, she identifies two subspecies. The first is Himbo erectus<\/strong><\/em>, \u201cless a character than a hormone,\u201d a beefcake lacking the emotional bandwidth for a relationship that goes beyond scratching an itch. Most characters played by Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris are prime examples of this subtype. The second is the Himbeau sapien<\/em><\/strong>, the natural yang to the yin of second wave pantsuit feminist figure. He\u2019s a hunk with limited intellect who doesn\u2019t mind taking orders because that\u2019s a whole lot easier than having to figure things out for himself.<\/p>\n

While the term himbo is making a comeback, Kemply\u2019s original definitions are quite specific to the particular pop culture moment of the late 1980s. The himbo of 2020 is still hunky and not very bright, but now the key appeal is his earnest sweetness: he\u2019s a golden retriever in human form.<\/p>\n

A quick Google Trends search indicates himbo appreciation has been on the rise since last year, but in recent weeks a particularly wild Tweet destined to go down as a milestone in \u201cWorst Twitter Takes\u201d history thrust himbos into the spotlight. The post, which attempted to decry the term as \u201cableist\u201d and \u201cpredatory\u201d in \u201cfetishizing someone\u2019s supposed lack of intelligence,\u201d even comparing himbo love to pedophilia, has ironically enough only inspired a major outpouring of himbo love and support for himbo lovers.<\/p>\n

Some of the many himbo appreciation posts that have cropped up since see the \u201cHimbo Renaissance\u201d (Himbonaissance?) as a sort of counterpoint or backlash to the prevalence of the \u201cSmart Asshole\u201d: bad boy and antihero types who will steal your heart and then stab you in the back without missing a beat. There is definite merit to this observation, but, if anything, it actually undersells the connection between the himbo\u2019s limited intellect and his heartthrob allure.<\/p>\n

Himbo appreciation posts often list his status as a safe, non-threatening option as a cornerstone of his appeal. What this commentary usually fails to address is exactly why\u00a0<\/em>we all seem to be in agreement that himbos are so harmless. After all, the standard himbo is built like a brick house, and having cotton fluff for brains factors in very little when it comes to one\u2019s ability to, say, throw a punch.<\/p>\n

The himbo\u2019s harmlessness also represents the most unique aspect of his appeal, a sharp contrast to most other swoon-worthy masculine archetypes who exude a sense of danger. This column has previously discussed the old-as-dirt allure of the darkly tempting \u201cdemon lover\u201d and his most popular variant, the Byronic hero. The himbo ultimately feels safe not because he\u2019s dumb so much as because he\u2019s not smart, and intelligence, as can be seen in other seductive archetypes, is correlated with danger. The reasoning goes like this: smart (and sexy) is dangerous, therefore not smart is not dangerous, i.e. safe. Technically, this argument is logically fallacious \u2014 it\u2019s known as denying the antecedent \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t stop it from being a very pervasive pattern of thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a sense, the himbo stands as the antithesis of the demon lover. Byronic heroes brood, and being so stuck in your own head necessitates something going on up there. They might be notorious for making terrible choices (see: Heathcliff, Ross Poldark, Kylo Ren), but their stupidity is the sort one finds in people who are technically clever, just all the dumber for it because they mistakenly presume their intellect is beyond the influence of their various mental health issues and not the other way around. Come to think of it, \u201cclever\u201d might be a strong word. Let\u2019s just call Byronic heroes and company cerebral\u00a0<\/em>and leave it at that. The point is they do a lot of thinking and brooding and stewing in misery. It\u2019s worth noting that this dumb sexy is safe versus smart sexy is dangerous contrast is even more pronounced in feminine archetypes \u2014 a key difference between the guileless bimbo and the treacherous femme fatale.<\/p>\n

A wide range of tales falls into the pattern of depicting the dangers of seduction in terms of knowledge and trickery. Lust might be listed as one of the seven deadly sins, but the original<\/em> sin was being seduced by the promise of knowledge. In the Biblical story of the fall of man, the snake seduces Eve into eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Greek mythology is full of trickster tales of gods seducing mortals and fellow deities alike under false pretenses, often leading to unpleasant consequences for the seduced. The list goes on.<\/p>\n

The himbo is endearing because being a one-thought-at-a-time kinda guy means he can\u2019t have ulterior motives. If you\u2019re getting romanced by a himbo, you know it\u2019s for real. He\u2019s inherently innocent. Kronk, a himbo par excellence if there ever was one, comes across as affable and utterly blameless despite being the villainous Yzma\u2019s henchman in The Emperor\u2019s New Groove.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The danger of seduction, whether as depicted in folklore or film noir, is the danger of falling for false pretenses, of your desire being used against you to lure you into a trap. The appeal of the himbo is unmarred by the prospect of danger lurking beneath the surface because he does not have the depth necessary to present such a threat. In being attractive while lacking the cunning to weaponize his assets, the himbo stands out as the most easily lovable of romanticized masculine archetypes.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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“#The Strange Innocence of the Himbo” Welcome to\u00a0Elements of Story, a biweekly column about narrative tropes, what they mean, and why they just won\u2019t go away. If you\u2019ve been on Twitter lately, odds are you\u2019ve seen some commentary about \u201chimbos.\u201d Coined by Rita Kemply in a 1988\u00a0Washington Post article, a himbo refers to an attractive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[28232,1354,28233,1361,28231],"class_list":["post-15954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-archetypes","tag-columns","tag-elements-of-story","tag-movies","tag-the-strange-innocence-of-the-himbo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}