Bon Iver Erotic Stories: Move Over, Ryan Gosling
So Long, Ryan Gosling: There’s a New Hipster Heartthrob Meme in Town. Say Hello to the Burly, Bearded Mug of Bon Iver — A. K. A. Wisconsin Musician Justin...
So long, Ryan Gosling: there’s a new hipster heartthrob meme in town. Say hello to the burly, bearded mug of Bon Iver — a.k.a. Wisconsin musician Justin Vernon — who is the subject of the latest one-off Tumblr that’s gaining traction: Bon Iver Erotic Stories. The blog — boniverotica for short — couples pictures of the artist in full sensitive-beefcake mode with outdoorsy, naughty, hilarious fantasies of what life would be like as Bon Iver’s lover.
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A few samples:
“I’m at the farmer’s market with Bon Iver. We can’t decide which artisan cheese we like the most! We propped our bicycles against a bush and made love by the creek and then had raspberry pie.”
“Bon Iver heard me cough from the other room. I heard the door slam, and moments later he returned: with armfuls of lemongrass, humanely terminated free-range chickens and fresh greens, and he whipped up a soup to cure me. As he spooned it into my mouth, he kissed my throat and whispered, ‘That was a close one, baby.’”
“Bon Iver made me a dreamcatcher with feathers he collected on our nature walk. I dreamed about him – until he woke me up by gently biting my neck.”
The site is the brainchild of a trio of Colorado twentysomethings, Alice Warren-Gregory, Anna Sawyer and Alex Finkel; the idea first came up when they were driving home to Boulder from Denver a week ago “at like 3 a.m.” and started talking about a recent Bon Iver video. “I was gushing about it, and we all started gushing about it, and we realized that we found Bon Iver inexplicably sexy; we just wanted to ravish him,” Sawyer tells TIME. “Including Alex, who is a very confident heterosexual young man.”
They started making up erotic stories about Bon Iver and texting them back and forth; on Tuesday, they launched the Tumblr and by Thursday it had gone viral. “In about 3 days we’d had about 100,000 visitors,” says Sawyer, “which is amazing.” At the moment, the three of them write all the content on the site, although they say they’ve received a high volume of submissions, some of which “are comedy gold.” Let’s be clear on that point: the site is a parody, and Sawyer and Warren-Gregory are not the kind of romper-wearing artisanal cheese fanatics they emulate online. Warren-Gregory is an attorney, Sawyer is a content marketer for technology company (Finkel is the co-founder of a tech startup called Trendsttr). Although as Sawyer notes, “We do live in Boulder, Colorado, so we’re familiar with the lifestyle.”
As for the artist himself, Vernon received a Best New Artist Grammy earlier this year and has been parodied on Saturday Night Live by Justin Timberlake, so the trio assume he’s got a pretty good attitude about the whole thing. “If I were Justin Vernon, I would be flattered,” says Sawyer. They have, however, heard from Vernon’s girlfriend, singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards. Her comment? “A girl can dream.”
—with reporting by Tim Morrison
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Chloe Bennett explores the intersection of pop culture, streaming entertainment, digital trends, and contemporary lifestyle. Her weekly commentary reaches thousands of culture enthusiasts.
