The JD Vance meme has reached its peak. Across social media, grotesque, exaggerated images of the US Vice President flood group chats and Discord servers. His face swells, his eyes widen into a vacant, menacing stare, and his chin stretches in unnatural ways. Sometimes, he clutches a giant lollipop. Other times, he mutates into a McNugget, a nuclear explosion, or a decaying Darth Vader. And often, he simply says, “pwease.”
Vance’s transformation into an internet spectacle is both a reflection of his public image and a continuation of a long tradition—Vice Presidents as figures of ridicule.
Dan Quayle never escaped his infamous “potatoe” misspelling, Al Gore was mocked for his stiffness, and Kamala Harris faced relentless viral clips exaggerating her laughter. But Vance’s meme-ification feels different, more extreme, more surreal.
His digital form has evolved. Early memes fixated on his smoky eyes and round cheeks, but the dominant version now is something monstrous. He has become a kind of Cabbage Patch Doll left in the sun, an uncanny, bloated figure that transcends political lines. The bizarre nature of the meme has found traction among conservatives, liberals, and even extremist corners of the internet.
The phenomenon echoes the internet’s obsession with Pepe the Frog in 2016. Pepe, once a harmless comic character, morphed into a symbol hijacked by the far right. His “final form,” the Groyper, became an icon for white nationalist figures like Nick Fuentes. Vance’s meme transformation carries some of the same chaotic, shape-shifting energy—an amorphous, ever-expanding in-joke with no clear political allegiance, just a deep undercurrent of derision.
Vance, who has long been a target of online ridicule, is no stranger to internet-driven humiliation. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was once the subject of a parody so convincing that mainstream outlets reported a false rumor about him and a couch. The memes now tap into that same instinct: a deep, collective urge to turn Vance into a grotesque caricature, as if mocking him exposes something deeper about his nature.
Vance himself has acknowledged the memes, telling The Blaze that he finds them funny. But in the endless cycle of internet culture, his amusement might not last long. Because whether he likes it or not, JD Vance has become something more than just a politician—he’s now a spectacle, a symbol, a meme whose bloated form may never fully deflate.
