Why the internet loves making fun of JD Vance

When it comes to memes on the internet, Ohio Senator JD Vance is the gift that keeps on giving. Whatever Vance’s prep strategy for the upcoming vice presidential debate, we know at least one thing: We’re likely to get a few memes out of the event.

The internet can’t agree on who he reminds them of

Part of Vance’s memeable nature is owed to the fact that, according to the internet, he’s got plenty of doppelgängers. And unfortunately for him, many are far from flattering. “Honestly I was going to make a joke about JD Vance looking like John Wayne Gacy but . . . this is uncanny” one user posted on X alongside a side by side of Vance and the notorious serial killer. Another user added to the pile-on by commenting: “Just as likable, too.” 

Others contended that the Ohio senator “looks like an air fried Scott Disick,” the former boyfriend of Kourtney Kardashian, or the “Son of Bob and Phyllis Vance of Vance Refrigeration” (a reference to two characters from the hit show The Office).

The time he took his vegetarian wife to a butcher shop

Ever tactful, JD Vance took his practicing Hindu vegetarian wife, Usha, with him to a butcher shop as a campaign stop in Pennsylvania this month. During the visit they discussed with the shop workers the process of breaking a cow down into parts to cook and sell. During the painful interaction, Vance ">explains that Usha, despite being a vegetarian, “loves this stuff,” and often tells him to “get the beef tongue” while dining out at restaurants. Usha, for her part, didn’t say much. 

A TikTok creator posted a clip of the uncomfortable moment, adding, “I’m not saying this is schadenfreude but I’m not not saying it.” One user commented under the video, “Usha, blink twice if you need help.”

Or when he tried to order donuts like a normal person

Back in August, the Ohio senator made a stop at a Valdosta, Georgia bakery which went viral for all the wrong reasons. He introduced himself to a server who immediately said she did not want to be filmed. Things didn’t get much better from there. 

“I’m JD Vance. I’m running for vice president,” Vance tells the donut shop worker, who flatly replies: “OK.”

“We’re gonna do two dozen. Just a random assortment of stuff here,” he continues while browsing the selection of treats. “Everything. A lot of glazed here. Sprinkle stuff. A lot of cinnamon rolls,” Vance adds. The rest of the interaction is about as toe-curling as you can imagine. “Fire your whole team. They clearly hate you. This is TV production 101, and they failed it,” comedian W. Kamau Bell wrote in a post on X.

It’s almost impressive how incapable Vance is at normal human interaction—and it’s part of what makes him so memeable. This inauthenticity also shows up in his politics from being “never a Trump guy” to Trump’s VP pick. It’s cringey—and it’s hard to look away from. 

We can’t not mention the couch memes

When Vance was announced as Trump’s VP pick, X user @rickrudescalves posted that the senator had admitted to having intimate relations involving a couch in his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy. By the time it was confirmed to be untrue, it was too late. The internet had run with it. 

The meme was quickly adopted by the Harris campaign. “JD Vance does not couch his hatred for women,” the campaign’s official X account posted in July. “JD no that’s not what intersectional means,” one X user declared the best of all the couch jokes. 

Countering the allegations, the Associated Press decided to run a fact-check column with the headline, “No, JD Vance Did Not Have Sex With a Couch.” They later retracted the article, allegedly because the post failed to go through the AP’s “standard editing process.” 

“Damn imagine getting turned down by a couch,” one X user wrote.

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