Key Sentence:
- Sweet in his cot position in Seattle, Rob Kenny cries out for God. His YouTube channel “Papa, how come?”
- It went viral last May and plunged the 57-year-old introvert into a world of unbearable excitement and panic.
Kenny released his first video shortly after the coronavirus pandemic became known. He wants practical advice (“How to fix most working toilets”) and emotional support (“I’m proud of you!”). But in a time of isolation and loneliness, his messages resonate with the more than 30 or 40 subscribers he looks up to at a time when the world yearns for connection. Less than two months after its first post, it exceeded 1 million subscribers.
“It was terrible,” said Kenny. “At first, I didn’t see it as anything great.” Therefore, amid a flood of media inquiries, audience comments, and business opportunities, he seeks advice. While “Good Morning America” referred to him as the “father of the Internet,” followers flooded him with stories about their parents, broken relationships, and traumatic experiences. “It breaks my heart,” Kenny added, “that so many people need my channel.”
The seeds for his videos were planted in Kenny’s turbulent childhood. When her parents divorced, her father was granted custody, and her mother was legally declared incapable of parenting because she turned to alcohol while struggling with anxiety and depression. Shortly after, Kenny’s father met another woman. Over the weekends, she stockpiled groceries for her kids and then left them driving for a week. A year later, she brought her children together to deliver a devastating message: “I’m done raising kids.”
Kenny, the seventh of eight children and then 14 years old, moved with his 23-year-old brother into the 280-square-foot trailer in Bellevue, Washington. Her teenage experience was filled with anger, sadness, and confusion as she vowed never to cause such pain to her children. The stakes widened when he realized he wasn’t the only child without a father, so he doubled down and decided to help others who need a father figure.
As he grew older, Kenny, whose primary job was to sell, started a family with his wife Annerley, including 26-year-old son Kyle and 29-year-old daughter Christine Ponten. But once Kenny was in his early 50s and felt he had accomplished his goal of raising two good adults, the empty nest was gone. Nevertheless, he thought he still had a lot to do and went on to the second part of his vow: helping others. “I honestly believe he was brought to earth as a father,” Ponten said.