It’s looking like the people have found a new Hollywood boyfriend, and he isn’t what we’re used to. Coming off Conrad Fischer and Garrett Graham, the pretty boy era is coming to a close, and the girls, gays, and theys are all for the bad boy effect. Enter: Jon Bernthal.
The 50-year-old actor is nowhere near new to Hollywood, but he is certainly new to everyone’s TikTok For You pages following the debut of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Bernthal has long been blessing Marvel fans’ eyes with his role as Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, but it is a pretty known fact that Marvel fans and Spider-Man fans aren’t always united, thus Bernthal is new to a lot of people. All this being said, Bernthal is honestly the furthest thing from all recent heartthrobs that the girlies have been gushing over.
With an incredibly manly and almost violent demeanor, Bernthal, and more specifically his character Castle, has brought back the people’s love for a bad boy. However, Bernthal’s effect on the media is going way beyond the typical TikTok edits that we’ve seen in past years. Specifically, the Castle “wrong text message” or “fake text messages” trend has had the internet in an absolute chokehold.
The trend consists of creators making fake text threads between Castle and the watcher/reader of the video. But it doesn’t end there as the text threads will typically paint Castle as being a figure in the reader’s life, whether it be their neighbor, dad’s best friend, or my personal favorite, their boss. That being said, the text messages aren’t always super accurate to the character, but there are some that really focus on embracing Castle’s character and trauma, as well as his role as the Punisher.
In addition, there is also the wrong text trend. This trend spans outside of just Bernthal and Castle, but he is certainly a prominent character used. Essentially, the creators will show text messages between the reader and Castle and/or Bernthal, and then a text message between the reader’s significant other. And then exactly as the trend suggests, the reader’s character sends a flirty message or photo to Castle and/or Bernthal instead of their significant other. While people love the trend and think it is insanely creative, especially when it has the significant other as someone else in the Marvel universe, it would be a lie to say that the trend didn’t make people anxious about sending a “wrong text” here and there.
The thing, though, is that these trends aren’t the only thing keeping the love for Bernthal alive. A lot of people in the media have expressed that they like him because he is very manly and on the older side of celebrity crushes, which is something we haven’t been seeing a lot of in the media these days. Not to say older men aren’t holding it down in the celebrity crush world, they just have taken a back burner with all of the coming-of-age book adaptation romances that have been coming out recently.
To go even further, it definitely shows that the media loves to find someone they can “fix” because for anyone who knows Castle and his story, you know he needs extensive therapy. This just goes to show that the girlies don’t want a perfect man, but one with layers, depth, and possibly some deep-rooted traumatic issues.
What makes the trend so unique is that the stories revolving around Castle are so far from who Bernthal really is as a person. The actor is notorious for being an absolute sweetheart to fans and the media, constantly showing off that he is a softie at heart. Fans have notoriously brought up his big heart due to him having his wife’s nickname tattooed on his chest.
It doesn’t look like Bernthal will be leaving the public eye anytime soon seeing as Avengers: Doomsday is coming out in December; his career as an actor is nowhere near finished. Who knows? Maybe the more characters he plays, the more “fake text message” options we’ll get in the future.