Well, the fact that they have about the same calories per gram doesn't mean that they're equally healthy. The fat in bacon is almost all saturated.
Bacon is probably more filling per calorie though, so you'd be less likely to gain weight snacking on bacon than potato chips.
The evidence that saturated fat is bad for you is dubious. However there is good evidence that processed meats are bad for you, even though every test of possible causal pathways has failed so far.
There's a lot of background mess in our mental pictures of the world. We try and be accurate on important issues, but a whole lot of the less important stuff we pick up from the media, the movies, and random impressions. And once these impressions are in our mental pictures, they just don't go away - until we find a fact that causes us to say "huh", and reassess.
Here are three facts that have caused that "huh" in me, recently, and completely rearranged minor parts of my mental map. I'm sharing them here, because that experience is a valuable one.