Isa Verputten
2025
(LONG) LIVE BONNIE BLUE
An ironical poem or comment to the ideologies of Charlie Kirk and Bonnie Blue
Dear Bonnie,
With your beautiful blonde hair. I would like to brush it. But only if you would like me to. I would ask
you. If you would allow me. Hair by hair. And I would brush out all the tangles in your hair without
hurting you. I would take my time and not rush. Just as I sometimes force men to brush my hair. It
makes me feel safe and sweet when they do it.
When men get asked what colour nail polish we should paint our nails, the answer is often light blue.
The baby, lovely blue that seemingly reminds us of a kind of innocence. The innocence of this colour
then manifests itself on the nails when listened to this innocent wish. This projected innocence, also
projected from an seemingly innocent desire, can now be seen on the ten fingertips. Openly visible to
the rest of society, showing how innocent they are. The blue colour that is actually generally assigned
to men. The sweet, innocent men. Only they deserve the sweet, innocent colour that we consider to
be baby blue. Not those tough men, no, we are talking about those sweet, innocent male babies or
toddlers or preschoolers up to the age of about 6. After that age, the colour becomes green or
something. Only baby blue is the colour they wanted to assign to women. We could try to say that it is
a perfect manifestation of the deeply internalised disapproval of women. The colour we want to
assign to women is the sweet, innocent colour of men. Because perhaps what we want most is for
women to be innocent men. Sweet, innocent men. So, my dear Bonnie Blue. Where did you get the
connection to give yourself the name blue? When did this happen? Do you also want to be sweet and
innocent, just like all of us? Did you also want to be that nail polish colour? Bonnie I think you're
sweet. I want to be able to call you Bonnie. I like you even more without assigning the colour blue to
you. I think the name Bonnie is enough. But Bonnie Blue is a very good name. You chose it very well,
is what I want to say to you. It is a perfect exercise in a kind of alliteration. Maybe that's why I think
about you so much. Your letters look beautiful. Your name reminds me of a little girl who lives on a
farm and runs around in a dress and little rainboots among the cows and the smells and the chickens
and the ducks, with two loving parents and maybe a brother or sister.
But you had sex with 1057 men in one day. You have strayed so far from what we agreed was
innocent. You have crossed all boundaries of what we wanted the innocent light blue nails to
represent. Perhaps you are the most perfect version of innocence. And I still love you. And I truly
believe you are innocent. But I must admit that I believe most people are innocent, actually all of
them. It's my outlook on life. And the fact that I attribute innocence to you as a quality may not mean
that you actually are innocent. But to me you are. And so to you too. Perhaps blue is the only colour
men know. Perhaps they see the whole world as blue. And everything I see as orange is actually
blue.
I would like to write here that I have dreamt about you, but unfortunately that is not yet the case. I
recently read that you also consider yourself innocent. At the same time, I don't want to give you a
platform because you promote all kinds of things that I don't think I support. But I can't help being
fascinated by you and your strategies, right down to the colour. And I'm not doing all of this as a
statement, generically. There is no underlying political battle I am looking to wage with this. Perhaps
an internalised one, sure. And I am well aware that by saying this, I am making a political statement.
According to you, women have too much time on their hands. And that is why it is primarily women
who criticize you and not men. You said women no longer know what to do with their time and
therefore take it out on you. You are so innocent, Bonnie, and so fragile. Opinions hurt when they are
close to home which is why you think you receive a lot of hate from women. You are making a call
from inside the house. I also saw that you have an IMDb page. They tell me that you were born on
the 14 of May, 1999. I found out here that you're 28 days younger than me. We're connected,
Bonnie. You must feel this too. I know you're thinking of me too.
This is where I’m gonna be, let me pleasure you, are the words you told all the barely-legal boys
starting university. You are deliberately targeting university hotspots in order to advertise to young
men and encourage them (to sleep with you). Does it ring a bell.
We are lonely together, Bonnie.
Byung-Chul Han once said that the reaction to a life that has become bare and radically fleeting will
occur as hyperactivity, hysterical work and production. According to him it will lead to a society of
work in which the master himself has become a labouring slave. In this society of compulsion,
everyone carries a work camp inside. One is simultaneously prisoner and guard, victim and
perpetrator. One exploits oneself. (Han, 2015) Bonnie, in this case, is the perfect example of homo
economicus. She has seen a market. And I breathe blue.
There is nothing else we can do other than optimize ourselves to burnout. The human inside of you,
my sweet Bonnie, seems to have been lost a little. Sometimes. You are putting yourself in dangerous
position for the attention economy, so you can fully optimize yourself as number one creator.
Sometimes I felt sad to hear you got incredibly ill after the 1057 men. Meanwhile you are exactly the
entrepreneurial woman that Margaret Thatcher created in the 1970s. Bonnie, sweet Bonnie, you are
the animal laborer. You have the work camp inside. You are the slave and the master at the same
time. When we live in an age where we are obsessed with social darwinism, performing your gender
as its own construct in neo liberalism and capitalism is the most optimal thing you can do (financially).
Bonnie, you are a baby wrapped in blue.
With kind regards,
Isa Verputten
Han, B. -C. (2015). The burnout society. Stanford University Press.