Kenergy

About

Kenergy, also spelled Ken-ergy, is a slang term coined by actor Ryan Gosling, who portrays the doll Ken in the 2023 movie Barbie, to describe the quality of carrying the vibe of that character and having "Ken" traits. The term, a portmanteau of "Ken" and "energy," has been said by Gosling in multiple interviews about the film. The word caught on online in mid-2023 and has been used in multiple memes about the movie leading up to its release.

Origin

On July 12th, 2022, Entertainment Tonight published an exclusive interview with Ryan Gosling in which he joked about Chris Evan's character in the movie The Gray Man referring to him as a "Ken doll." Gosling responded, "[It's] not an insult at all! I'm proud of that. I have that Ken-ergy that you can feel, obviously," apparently referencing both the dialogue and the upcoming movie Barbie in which he portrays Barbie's boyfriend, doll character Ken.^[1]

I have that Ken-ergy that he could feel, obviously. I still feel like the Ken-ergy is alive.

On July 13th, 2022, CNN International mentioned the catchphrase in a tweet^[2] about the interview (shown below).

On July 19th, 2022, MTV News published an interview with Gosling in which he again used the term (shown below). The interview accumulated over 330,000 views on YouTube^[3] in one year.

It's been cathartic. There’s always been a Ken inside of me. It’s the role I was born to play, I’ve had this Ken-ergy if you will, and the Ken-ergy is alive in me now.

On July 19th, 2022, the film news Twitter^[4] account @DiscussingFilm tweeted the quote, with the post gaining over 1,000 retweets and 10,000 likes in one year.

Spread

Ryan Gosling continued to use the phrase, along with other Ken-based puns such as "kenough" and "kenning" in interviews about the film in 2023. On April 25th, 2023, film news Twitter^[5] account @FilmUpdates tweeted a quote of Gosling saying, "I doubted my Ken-ergy." The tweet (shown below) received over 8,900 retweets and 130,000 likes in three months.

Following the tweet, memes using the phrase started gaining popularity online. For example, on April 25th, 2023, Twitter^[6] user @kendallhosseini posted a meme referencing Kendall Roy from Succession that gained over 920 retweets and 15,900 likes in two months (shown below, left). On April 26th, iFunny user HeavenAscensionDIO posted a screenshot of the tweet, captioning it, "The Kenergy is in all of us, we just haven't discovered it yet." The post (shown below, right) gained over 4,600 smiles in two months.

As Ryan Gosling continued to use the expression in more interviews, memes about it continued to appear on Twitter, iFunny and other sites.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References