Is conventional flow a real, physical thing or is it something we made up?
Is conventional flow a real, physical thing or is it something we still use for historical reasons?

It's a model we use to describe flow of charge. &quot;All models are flawed but some are useful&quot; - and this one is very useful.

Electron flow is the actual current flow and the textbooks are the other way because of benjamin franklin ...

It is true that the mobile charges in metals are electrons but it is not always the case. In other situations the mobile charges are positive ions.
Don't get hung up on this. You don't need to think about electrons for most electronic engineering. Just volts, amperes, watts, ohms, henries and farads will get you a long way.
Give Benjamin some capital letters - even if you think he got it backwards.