Food

We’re So Sorry: Colonel Sanders Bondage Hentai Is a Thing Now

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Bettina Makalintal
Brooklyn, US
kfc's virtual influencer colonel wearing a white button up shirt, glasses, and showing a stomach tattoo that says "secret recipe for success"
Photo Courtesy KFC

I thought that peak Horny Food Media was the comments section of Bon Appetit’s Andy videos, where lusty reactions from viewers (e.g., “Andy is the whole meal ”) are so frequent that the magazine now literally sells a shirt that says “Thirsty for Andy.”

But I was wrong. Earlier this week, KFC debuted the Virtual Influencer Colonel, a younger, hipper colonel that’s apparently entirely computer-generated and meant to mock real, human influencers. In images of him flexing in the gym, prepping a meal, and caressing a horse (the millennial Horse Girl market is real), he looks like your standard Tinder dude who definitely still rocks an exposed ankle in the winter and will dip out on you after three dates without a word—and even has the bro-y lower ab script tat to prove it.

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It’s very uncanny valley, but the horny internet logged the fuck on anyway. The brand debuted the colonel on Monday and unleashed a guttural sigh of longing in the form of some very thirsty headlines. “Colonel Sanders is CGI and Here to Bone,” said the Takeout, “Yes, We’re Horny for KFC’s New Colonel,” wrote Out, “KFC Has Turned Colonel Sanders Into an Instagram Thirst Trap,” added Esquire, and “KFC's 'Virtual Influencer Colonel' is pretty damn hot,” claimed Mashable. Twitter dubbed himdaddy,” in addition to commentary that’s perhaps too explicit to quote.

And, of course, by Thursday, people had drawn the hipster colonel half-dressed, in bondage, and flexing against a giant, feathery cock (the chicken kind, obv). In another, he pulls back his too-small white vest to reveal a muscular chest and a little yellow chick. In yet another, he’s totally shirtless. Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but it’s a reminder that Rule 34 is very, very real.

I can’t tell if the fact that he’s fake makes the thirst better or worse. It’s perhaps better in the sense that an actual person won’t forever be associated with being the face of “hot” Colonel Sanders—but worse in that maybe being horny for a CGI food mascot is the reality that we deserve.