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JD Vance: author, hillbilly, meme icon. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that when this guy walks in a room, eyes are on him and ears are turned, if for no other reason than good source material for comedy gold may be incoming.
The U.S. Constitution famously does not define the role of the Vice President, and in the 2010s, Joe Biden, then a member of the Obama administration, offered a novel theory of what that could actually be: A meme.
But if Biden’s memehood was a first draft, in a brief window of time JD Vance is already proving to be a master of the art. His donut shop ambivalence, debate side-eye, or wild youth may all come to mind here, but for the purposes of our deep dive, we’ll actually begin with…
I Don’t Really Care Margaret
JD Vance’s first interview as vice president came on January 26th, 2025 in the form of a Face the Nation appearance, where among other topics, they talked about immigration. JD brought up the case of an Afghan National living in Oklahoma who planned a terrorist attack in 2024, and Margaret replied that in that specific case it wasn’t clear if the Afghan was radicalized before or after coming to the U.S., JD countered with “I don’t really care, Margaret.”
Pretty instantaneously, this meme exploded onto the scene as a way to mock someone else’s boneheadedness, or otherwise shut down a conversation without ever having to actually prove anything.
Which brings us to the next one:
JD Vance’s Couch
On July 15th 2024, an X user posted that Vance “might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to fucking an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions.” He cited Hillbilly Elegy to back up his claim—but specifically a page that had nothing to do with what he was talking about.
Not that that mattered, of course. This tweet was viewed over 1.8 million times before the poster set their account to private, but before they did so, they also followed up with Buster Baxter’s “go on the internet and tell lies” meme—a nod to the fact that they were intentionally making this up as a joke.
But people were already running with it—the Associated Press published an article debunking it, but then retracted said article saying it “did not go through [their] standard editing process,” which to a lot of people was sketchy and/or hilarious.
Meanwhile, Tim Walz even got in on the fun, saying on stage “I can’t wait to debate the guy…that is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”
All that was fun for its absurdity, but two months later came another moment just as ridiculous.
Baby Face JD Vance
In October 2024, Congressman Mike Collins posted this post of a photoshopped JD Vance’s official congressional portrait—chiseling his jaw, and otherwise chad-ifying him.
This almost immediately led to another X user going the exact opposite way, making his cheeks chubbier, and face generally rounder. They offered to intensify the image for every 100 likes—ultimately stopping after 18 versions.
Following the debate with Tim Walz, another X user posted another template: This time, with Baby JD against the debate’s blue backdrop. Then in February when Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy met with Trump and Vance in the Oval Office, in the middle of a particularly heated moment, JD interrupted the presidents, asking, “have you said thank you once?”
X user @TheMisterFrog jumped on the opportunity. In a tweet that said “YOU SHOULDA SAID PWEASE,” they gave memers the world around a whole new avenue to make fun of JD Vance.
Your personal politics aside, you have to admit that whether he’s arguing with journalists, trying to assert dominance over eastern Europe, or just chilling at home, when JD goes for it, he really goes for it.
Chaos is a ladder. And when we see these edits, we’re reminded that nobody knows this better than JD.
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