'He's just Ken.' New 'Barbie' posters shading Ken lead to memorable memes

If she's a Barbie girl in a Barbie world, then where does that leave Ken? Well, a running joke from Greta Gerwig's upcoming "Barbie" movie that has taken over social media asks just that.

"Barbie" stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as the famous doll duo Barbie and Ken. The movie's colorful poster has the line, "She's everything. He's just Ken."

People are creating memes using the tagline to describe what they think are incredible women, both real and fictional, paired with lackluster men.

There are other Barbie and Kens in the movie, played by a long list of performers, ranging from Simu Liu to Dupa Lipa.

Cast posters for the Barbies continue the pattern, writing colorful descriptions like, "This Barbie is a doctor" and "This Barbie is a mermaid." The Kens? Well, they’re "just Ken."

Even though little is known about the plot, the movie is already generating chatter for everything from flipping gender roles (and subtly making fun of Ken) to Barbie's feet (really).

The movie's tagline in particular is not losing steam thanks to Twitter. A Ken, according to Twitter, seems to be a woman dating someone who doesn't match her excellence.

"They were the true, 'She's everything ... and he's just Ken,'" someone tweeted with a picture of Elle Woods and Warren Huntington III, her eye-roll of a college boyfriend in "Legally Blonde" who discouraged her from applying to Harvard Law School. She ended up applying, enrolling and graduating near the top of her class.

Another meme came with Katniss and Gale in "Hunger Games," the love story that never happened because she dated Peeta to save the country. Gale never got over it.

Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles, now King Charles, were also meme'd. Charles was critiqued for his public love triangle with Diana, a widely beloved royal, and Camilla, now queen consort.

Meredith and Derek in "Grey's Anatomy" also reached this point when he was still married to Addison but clearly in love with Meredith. He did, eventually, get divorced and married Meredith. They later had three children.

Apparently Laurie from "Little Women," another Greta Gerwig film, is "just Ken."

So is Billy Dunne from the recent adaption of "Daisy Jones and the Six."

Is your boyfriend just Ken? Based on the lineup of people playing Ken, that might not be the worst thing.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com