This is an obituary for a fictional persona: Ken Bone, America’s Red-Breasted Hero.

This Ken Bone of our imaginations was born on Sunday, during a presidential debate, when the American public saw him and decided that he was more important than whatever those two nameless individuals running for president had to say.

The real Ken Bone is still alive and well, of course.

To prove it, he has tried, like any enterprising American, to capitalize on the country’s feverish, bewildering affection by accepting some sort of sponsorship deal from Uber, creating his own “Bone Zone” T-shirt line, and conducting an interview with the people of Reddit on Thursday. Judging from his active account history and the breadth of Mr. Bone’s discussions, they are his sort of people.

The media coverage has been so intense that it inspired one journalist to write existential poetry. In just a few short days, Mr. Bone broke Chewbacca Mom’s land-speed record for permeating our consciousness.

But the pendulum of adoration must always swing back, it seems.

Chewbacca Mom, whose real name is a lot less fun to say than “Ken Bone” or “Bone Zone,” made the transformation in the eyes of some to a symbol of racial privilege, or maybe an avatar of our modern tendency to award provocative people with gross amounts of money for doing very little. It all depended on who was watching, who was writing, and what they felt.