but i used an internet meme! i can't be wrong

Um, What are you talking about? Ken is mid tier.

Um. Maybe at the more casual levels of play, lol.

The best Ganondorf in the entire world can't beat a pretty good Metaknight. Just saying.

The reason you see shotos online is because people are more used to them so they pick them. Ryu/Akuma/Sagat are probably the top 3 but outside of that the other shotos either are mid-tier or lower. I think some people pick Sagat because he's easier to play and somewhat overpowered, but the reason you see so many Kens and Ryus are probably more to do with them being iconic to the Street Fighter series and people generally liking them more than the other characters. Capcom can make Ryu and Ken the worst characters in the game but it's likely people will still play them because they still like Ryu and Ken. Zoning and fireballs are a huge part of Street Fighter IV so if you don't enjoy that aspect this really just may not be the game for you.

I couldn't find anybody I liked to play as in IV so I quit playing after a month.  I'm getting Super since I know I'll enjoy playing as Deejay but well he's awesome so yeah.

..

Fixed for you.

By the way, how can you love the speed of Street Fighter IV?  It seems so... slow.

Umm, dude, Ken is very low third tier and very midling. The reason you can't win as El Fuerte is because you're not very good with him. A better player would probably beat you day in and day out with El Fuerte no matter who you played with. Ken is easy. You win with Ken because you don't have to try as hard. Simple as that.

Oh please, I forgot that anyone that isn't perfect with every fighter automatically sucks at the game.

Listen, I get that I'm not great at the game but I was good enough to breeze through the hardest difficulty and get through a lot of the training with El Fuerte.  Yeah, I didn't get though all of it but I'm had a good enough grasp on the game to be better than not very good.

And I only picked Ken because he was one of the Ryu clones and only three letters and couldn't fit more than that in the thread title.  I realize I could have just put Ryu, but I didn't want to because I just hate Ken.  I've hated him since playing the game on the SNES so I take any chance to hate on him I can.

I don't get why people are so thick headed that they can't accept that a game is incredibly unbalanced even when Capcom themselves say it's unbalanced and if someone isn't perfect at it, they must suck.

@WoW-- I just like the speed of the game, not too fast, not too slow.

I shall fix all of your troubles and answer all of your problems regarding SFIV with just one name my good man twesterm: Sagat.

If you're ever having problems, if you're ever in a pickle, just remember that name... Sagat.

Yeah, but that goes back to my original problem-- I don't like playing as Sagat.  He isn't fun for me.

And I'm not saying I hate every character, I'm just saying it sucks that there's a small group of characters that are the good characters and you either have to play as one of those characters or not win.  Sure, I can pick one of the characters I like but the problem is in 20 matches, 18-19 of those will be against the same small set of characters that will almost always beat me because those characters are better and then 1-2 of those will actually be another character and those will be fun.

Thinking back to one of the other fighting games I really got into, Tekken Tag, there were tiers of characters but it was still more or less balanced.  Sure, I would cheese people with Hwaorong when I felt like being a dick, but then I would also always own everyone with Kunimitsu even though she was one of the worst characters.  All the characters weren't equal, but they were close enough so you could actually have some sort of variety.

@OP:
Ken? Barbie's gay boyfriend? What's he doing in SSFIV?