Poor Sean Kehren.
It wasn’t long after the 22-year-old Minnesota delegate starting tearing up at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night that he instantly became a meme — and not a flattering one.
The internet largely interpreted a screenshot of the crying Kehren, a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as exemplifying the “Bernie bro.”
That stereotype usually refers to an obnoxious white dude who — though there are plenty of legitimate, non-sexist reasons to criticize Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — tends toward misogyny when going after Clinton and her supporters.
People not only called him a “Bernie bro” but mocked him as “sad Robin Hood” and “crying Peter Pan” due to the Robin Hood-like hat he was wearing, which some people wear to express support for a “Robin Hood tax” on Wall Street.
But it turns out that, like most people on the internet, the people making fun of Kehren had no idea what they were talking about.
“I was getting emotional over the fact that [Sanders] was doing his best to unify the party and I think that’s such a noble cause,” Kehren told Yahoo News. “Bernie has led a revolution, he’s led a movement, and now that movement has to get behind the party.”
In other words, while social media users portrayed him as a whiner with unadulterated hate for Clinton, he’s pretty much the opposite of that. In fact, Kehren told Yahoo he plans on voting for Clinton in November.
Even if he had been crying over Sanders losing the nomination, that by no means would mean that Kehren was a “Bernie bro” or a jerk, or a bad person in any way. Numerous other Bernie supporters cried as he spoke at the DNC, and footage shows many were women, defying the “bro” label.
Did we mention Kehren is also a certified hero? In May, with the help of two other people, he pulled a woman out of a burning car after the vehicle crashed into a tree, saving her life. He told the Star Tribune at the time that his mother, who works as an emergency medical technician, had set an example of the importance of helping other people.
Um, yeah, so stop making fun of this dude.