If you, like me, are still among the pathetic few rattling around the wheezing corpse that is X, you probably recognize the latest harbinger of unprecedented times: Bizarre distortions of Vice President JD Vance’s face, getting exponentially weirder with every slash of this administration’s saber.
Let’s start with the classic form: Swollen jaw, eyes bulging, perhaps some light accessorizing.
Then we get into the permutations of the genre. There are nods to the humanities, finding inspiration in arts and sciences.
Ancient civilizations get a shout out…
…as does modern film.
Some images depict Vance as another person.
Many reference other memes, the shoulders on which bloated JD Vance stands. There are levels to this, people!
Here we see the format turned on its head, surprising us with a Fabio-style Vance.
And here we appreciate Vance’s place in conversations about national security.
It’s not the first time Vance has found himself as the meme of the moment. As you may recall from the campaign days, an X user tweeted a parody of Vance writing about fornicating with a couch in Hillbilly Elegy. The joke tweet went viral after the Associated Press posted and then took down a story titled, “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch.” It created a will-they-won’t-they dynamic on the Internet for some time, though, let’s be clear, there’s no actual reference to cushion lust in the book.
I’m not sure what any of this says about the state of it all. But I do know that it makes for an interesting question: Would you rather everyone post bulging distortions of your face or think you had sex with a couch?
Daniella Byck joined Washingtonian in 2022. She was previously with Outside Magazine and lives in Takoma.
