This Week in Schadenfreude: I've Got Wild Staring Eyes
There are more than a few obstacles to a potential J.D. Vance presidency, and among those is that he puts off
a vibe that we would describe as... creepy. Maybe that's not fatal; Richard Nixon put out a similar vibe, and we
know what happened with him. In any event, in the last couple of weeks, since the performance with Volodymyr
Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, the Internet has absolutely exploded with memes meant to emphasize Vance's
weirdness. Some are meant to be funny, but the predominant aesthetic is actually "surreal." We thought we'd
share 10 of them:
- Say Pwease: Did we mention that many of the memes also infantilize
Vance?
- The Lollipop Guild: It's not entirely clear from this specimen, but this
one is inspired by The Wizard of Oz.
- The Candy Man Can: And this one, of course, is inspired by
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- Big Giant Head: If you look closely, you can see that someone has actually put
together a meme generator that allows users to easily make grotesque versions of Vance's head. This one
looks very much like Little Face from Dick Tracy.
- Here's the Story...: This cultural reference will presumably reach its expiration
date in the not-too-distant future, since the show has been off the air for 50 years. But we're not there quite
yet.
- Animated, Part I: This one was created by Mike Winkelmann, who is a very prominent
graphic artist, and who works under the name BEEPLE. It's actually animated; the couple shown walks forward,
and Vance's smile slowly becomes more cherubic (or more menacing). You can see it
here,
but you have to have an Instagram account. It's really quite mesmerizing, and cutouts of just the curly-haired Vance are
EVERYWHERE right now.
- Animated, Part II: This one is also animated, and is also quite mesmerizing. It actually
shows a 360-degree rotating Vance bust, which blinks. You can see it
here;
again, you have to have an Instagram account.
- Better Dead than Red... Headed?: Not funny, but "Ginger Vance," as this one is
titled, is definitely surreal.
- The Real J.D.: This one circulated after the non-SOTU, of course.
- The Dark Side: We had Dark Brandon, soon we'll have Dark Vance.
- Vance Responds: The Vice President, for his part, has seen the memes and says he likes them
and finds them funny. He posted this to eX-Twitter, in response (if you don't know the reference, it's Rick Dalton from
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood).
In addition to Vance's "ha, ha" response, some right-wing commenters have opined that: (1) these memes actually help
Vance by making him relatable, or (2) that Vance benefits from the memery getting played out right now, such that it
will be old hat and boring by the time he runs for president.
For our part, we don't believe any of this. We don't think Vance likes being mocked relentlessly on the Internet any
more than Nixon liked being mocked on Laugh-In, despite claims to the contrary. We also don't think that memes
that present him as strange, grotesque and childlike make him relatable. And we definitely don't think that Vance memery
can ever be played out. Anyone who says that is unfamiliar with the many and varied notions that the world's meme
creators manage to come up with, once they are suitably inspired. And Vance, after his shameful behavior with Zelenskyy,
clearly inspires them. (Z)
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