Bon Iver vs. Bonnie Bear
Grammy Woes: Best New Artist goes to Bonnie Bear! Or was it Bon Iver?
Wait, who won Best New Artist at Sunday’s Grammy awards ceremony? Was it Wisconsin-born, indie soul-man Bon Iver (pronounced BONE ee-VER, a critical element to this story)? Or was it an adorable cartoon bear who wears a pink overall dress and flies around with a helicopter hat?
After the award was presented, Twitter became flurried with users confused over just who the hell this Bonnie Bear was and what business she had beating out Nicki Minaj.
And understandably so. It’s easy to see why those outside the hipster-elite were a little confused when Carrie Underwood — who also mispronounced the name — presented the Grammy for Best New Artist to Justin Vernon, the bearded frontman for Bon Iver, who didn’t appear too thrilled about winning the award.
In a moment of innocent ignorance, Twitter user @M0betta wrote, “Bonnie bear won! go Bonnie Bear who ever that is! Lmaoooooo.” The tweet was passed throughout the interwebs, both sincerely and mockingly, revitalizing Tumblr meme who is Bon Iver and kicking off the way more entertaining trend of photoshopping Vernon’s head on to cartoon bears, like so:
The newly anointed Grammy winner was never really taken with the ceremony to begin with. Two weeks ago he cancelled his performance at the event with an indie-cred gleaning, “fuck you." and taken from his acceptance speech, “When I started to make songs I did it for the inherent reward of making songs...” As in, not for some shallow awards show.
In even more relevant Bon Iver news, ACL Live has confirmed Vernon and his band will be in town April 25th for their first taping at The Moody Theater, a venue perfectly suited to the band’s haunting, atmospheric sound.
And to be clear, there will not be any flying, cuddly bears at the show, just a man who was confused for one.