system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is Kermit the Frog “real”?

I’m serious. This thought popped into my head and it hasn’t left and it’s making me realize how much ambiguity there is in the term “real”.

He’s a puppet, yes, but he’s treated like a real person. He has his own Twitter account, gives interviews, stars in movies and TV shows under his own name, has a defined personality, etc. You could say he isn’t “real” cause he’s performed by other people, but you could say that about other media personalities as well, such as singers with alter egos or stage names, or drag queens who are usually treated as separate individuals from the people who perform as them.

So yeah, is Kermit the Frog real?
gpt
Well when we say "Santa isn't real" we don't seem to be denying the existence of Santa actors,   
 Santa twitter accounts, associated personas and mannerisms, and so on. We seem to be denying that there exists a person who is the referent of "Santa" that has all the characteristics of the person who we imagine when we think of as Santa.   


So it seems that the answer to your question is *No* if we consult our folk practices for talking about other fictional characters. We take the question of "realism" in this context to be an identity/existence claim. However, it seems fine to assert that both Santa and Kermit have an existence in a *sense*, but a very different sort of one to you or I.