Being the current Vice President of the United States you’d expect that JD Vance would be in the news for a new piece of government policy or communication with a foreign official, but instead it’s his seemingly incredibly ‘memeable’ appearance that has taken social media by storm.
If you’ve spent any amount of time on X (formerly Twitter) in the past couple of weeks, there’s a high chance you’ve seen some form of JD Vance – even if you might not have realized it at the time.
The internet has gone wild with edits of the Vice President’s face, putting him in a number of different hilarious formats to the point where he almost becomes unrecognisable, but it all began from a Republican congressman.
Georgia congressman Rep. Mike Collins posted a bizarrely edited image of Vance on his X account, where it appeared as if he’d used retouching software to make his features more ‘chiselled’, or ‘yassified’ – which refers to the almost comical beautification of photos through apps like Facetune or FaceApp.
Lots of people found this particular edit comedic and odd at the same time – especially as it came from a politician – but things really began to spiral after Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s meeting in the White House.
While the meeting itself was incredibly heated and involved a serious discussion surrounding the future of Ukraine’s conflict with an invading Russian army, one user posted another edited image of Vance where he appeared more chubby, almost baby-like, with the caption: “YOU SHOULDA SAID PWEASE.”
This opened up the floodgates for everyone to outdo each other when it came to creating JD Vance-themed memes, especially those that evoked a similar fattening effect to his face.
People have ‘babified’ his official government photo, turned him into a Minion, a Furby, and even a cartoonish child holding a lollipop. Others have tanned or reddened his skin, made him bald or gave him an afro, and even transplanted him onto a number of recognizable movies and video game characters.
“I have completely forgotten what the real JD Vance looks like at this point,” remarked one user alongside what is likely the most popular and widely used JD Vance meme, and that’s certainly easy to understand considering the speed and creativity that the internet approached this concept with.
It’s even got to the point where a cryptocurrency – named ‘Pwease’ – themed around one of the childlike Vance memes has been made, echoing the official coins made by the President and the First Lady following the inauguration.
Many are now branding the joke ‘over’ after Vance himself jumped in on the act, as the Vice President posted a photo of the Leonardo DiCaprio Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ‘pointing meme’ with his face upon on X.
Some have responded to this by editing the photo even further in the style of former chubby transformations, with others taking it as a call to continue pushing the boat into the absurd.
Perhaps we’ll reach a ‘Ship of Theseus’ moment with JD Vance memes, where they’ve been edited and transformed so much that there’s little to no fragments of the Vice President left anymore.
