All right, Kentucky, we’ve got the most popular governor in the country.

I’m not measuring this in T-shirt sales, political polls or even that cringe-worthy story in Salon titled “Govern Me Daddy: Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear a clean-cut sex symbol for the coronavirus age."

This isn’t even about the bartering that other states have been doing on social media for the leader of our modern-day 5 p.m. fireside chat-esque coronavirus updates. Sorry Tennessee, we won’t give you Andy for Dolly Parton, and Georgia your offer of Paula Dean and Coca Cola really falls short.

This is genuinely about how much people “like” him.

Since March 1 our new governor has gone from being a virtual nobody on the national stage to running along-side folks like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey's Phil Murphy. These are the kind of people who run states with populations more than double the size of our commonwealth.

Chris White, our numbers and stats guy in The Courier Journal newsroom, had some fun this week running Beshear's Facebook "wins" against every other governor in this country on a tool called CrowdTangle, a tool that tracks interactions across public social media accounts around the world.

And yes, he’s winning.

We “like” him quite a bit, and in some cases, we “love” him, too.

Beshear started March with just 10,650 likes to his official Facebook page, and after social distancing had truly set in, that number ballooned to 223,377 as of Sunday, making his the fifth-most-liked governor’s page on the platform.

What’s more, he has picked up his following more quickly than anyone else. His page has seen a 1,997% increase in likes, making it the fastest growing, and the 212,727 new likes he has picked up that period trail only Cuomo. The second-fastest-growing governor’s page by percentage, belonging to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, grew 607% since March 1 and picked up just 85,248 new likes.

Not bad for just three months in office.

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He also ranks No. 1 in love reactions to his posts during that time period. He clocked in with 348,786 “loves,” ahead of runner-up Cuomo at 324,891 and nearly double New Jersey’s Murphy, who is third with 187,594 in that period.

Those three, too, are shuffling the podium in most interactions, which includes all reactions, shares and comments. Beshear clocked in there at third, with Cuomo in first and Murphy in second. Not bad when you consider how much smaller Kentucky's population is compared to both New York and New Jersey.

Beshear’s Facebook videos had more than 3.4 million views while broadcasting live — tops among governors — and his 16 million overall video views make him the second most-watched governor behind only Cuomo, who has more than 18 million.

As Sally Fields might say, they "like" him, they really "like" him.

Of course, there are hundreds of variables that allow our Kentucky governor's numbers to boom, so I reached out to his media team to see what their strategy was during all of this.

Believe it or not, they had more important things to tackle than patting themselves on the backs for likes, comments and live views.

There is a pandemic after all.

So instead, I checked in with a guy who's got a different glimpse about just how many people "like" Kentucky's governor.

Jeremy McFarland launched his Facebook group “Andy Beshear memes for social distancing teens" in mid-March, and last month the online community dedicated to positive news about our governor has grown even more rapidly than Beshear's page itself.

It started as a way to lighten the mood, but in just one day the group garnered 7,000 people.

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By its two week anniversary, the page had 200,000 members and was fielding as many as 10,000 post submissions a day.

I won't even try and count how many "likes" that is but believe me it's thousands.

These memes — common images that evoke emotion but tell a different story through the text that it’s paired with — have been painting our governor as a protector, a caregiver and an overall hero.

He's Kermit the Frog tucking in a tiny teddy bear that's "the whole state of Kentucky."

His 5 p.m. chats with the commonwealth are that morning coffee that calms your anxiety.

He's Mr. Rogers kindly addressing the whole neighborhood that is Kentucky.

He's Batman and Virginia Moore, the sign language interpreter he appears with every day, is his Robin.

And they've been coming in so fast that it's nearly impossible for McFarland and his team to keep up with them. That much "love" can be tough to manage.

When I asked him where it comes from, he told me it goes back to Andy's leadership. Kentucky and Washington state both announced bars were closing on March 16, he told me, but Kentucky was in a much better position when it made that move. Washington had reported it's first COVID-19 death two weeks earlier at the end of February. Beshear announced Kentucky's first death that same day.

Shutting down businesses isn't an easy call, but McFarland says the way that Beshear is approaching it feels uplifting in a time of crisis.

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"The reality is that we’re all going through something really traumatic not just as a state or country but just the world," McFarland told me.

Speaking of the world, they're in on this "love" fest, too.

Beshear's popularity has stretched well past the Bluegrass State's borders. The bulk of the meme group's members come from Kentucky and the United States, but when we spoke, McFarland's stats showed he had 75 people from the United Kingdom involved. There were large contingents from nearby places like Ohio, Indiana and Georgia, too.

Remember how I said other states were making offers for Andy? They're doing it in posts on this page.

The thousands of Kentuckians floating around in this online Andy fan club haven't taken anyone up on a trade offer. They even turned down Florida and Disney World.

Seriously, who wants a theme park they can't use while it's closed for a pandemic. No one. Come on, Florida.

Laughs aside, the group isn't meant to make light of the pandemic, McFarland told me, but rather to offer a little humor to the public and support of our governor in this incredibly difficult time.

When I hung-up with McFarland a few minutes later, the prime emotion I took away from him in between absurd talks of trades and the onslaught of memes was just plain gratitude.

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And he sees through the thousands of messages and posts every day just how many other people are feeling that for Kentucky's governor, too.

"I think it’s a good message to other politicians and leaders throughout our country that you can make these hard decisions and people will still support you," McFarland said. "We’re getting messages from people all over the world that are appreciating the gentle and consistent leadership he’s showing."

Features columnist Maggie Menderski writes about what makes Louisville, Southern Indiana and Kentucky unique, wonderful, and occasionally, a little weird. If you've got something in your family, your town or even your closet that fits that description — she wants to hear from you. Say hello at mmenderski@courier-journal.com or 502-582-7137. Follow along on Instagram and Twitter @MaggieMenderski. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/maggiem.