Popping culture: Jonah Mowry is a real person

Last Sunday, I posted this open letter to Jonah Mowry after watching his video. The video, which was posted in August, seemed to have garnered a lot of attention in the past few days. In my letter, I wrote:

I don’t know if you’re real. This is the internet after all. But for the sake of argument, let’s say you are. I hope you are.

And then today, I saw this:

So what does this mean? It means he is real. It means things may have gotten better for Mowry. It means that he’s still a kid in the eighth grade who chews gum when he makes videos. It means that he’s like a lot of youth at that age, developing and understanding himself and how he expresses that.

I still believe in what I said in my previous post. Jonah needs the support he’s receiving. Lots of kids do. My letter to him was open, because I believe everyone needs to hear words of support. Not just eighth graders with YouTube accounts and occasional uncanny connections to the cultural zeitgeist.

Everyone.