Why weird JD Vance memes have taken over the internet

Ironically enough, a divisive moment in the Oval Office last weekend seems to have brought the entire internet together. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy  visited the White House on February 28, ostensibly to hammer out plans for a peace agreement between his country and Russia, he probably didn’t expect to get berated by both Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The ensuing, historically fiery exchange appeared to catch him off guard. 

Similarly, most people watching the spectacle play out on live TV were probably not expecting Vance’s role in the meeting to explode into a meteor shower of memes among people of all political stripes. But that’s exactly what has happened.

“Have you said thank you once” https://t.co/kCNfr59RAn pic.twitter.com/01mm34xg1u

— New Liberals 🌐🇺🇦 (@CNLiberalism) March 1, 2025

Anyone wandering around X at just about any moment this week is bound to come across images of Vance’s boyish face enhanced to look cartoonishly cherubic. (The surrounding beard adds a perverse dissonance.) The meme pokes fun at how petulant some say Vance came across by getting angry at Zelenskyy for his apparently insufficient gratitude over U.S. aid, which Vance himself had nothing to do with. The archetypal version features an altered Vance sitting smugly in the Oval Office, with the caption: “You have to say pwease and tank you, Mistow Zensky.” As a result, the word ‘pwease’ is now so associated with both the Zelenskyy meeting and the meme that followed, some X users now refer to Vance as ‘the pwease guy.’

The origins of the JD Vance meme actually predate the doomed Zelenskyy meeting by many months. It began last October, when Republican Congressman Mike Collins tweeted a photo of Vance that had been digitally altered in a flattering way. X users noticed the “yassified” portrait and responded by going in another, decidedly less-flattering direction. With ever-weirder alterations to images of Vance’s face last fall, the kindling for the “pwease” meme spread around the firepit of the internet. All it took was Vance going aggro in the Oval Office to light a match underneath it.

For every 100 likes I will turn JD Vance into a progressively apple cheeked baby pic.twitter.com/WgGS9IhAfY

— 7/11 Truther (@DaveMcNamee3000) October 2, 2024

Throughout this past week, the JD Vance meme continued to evolve, branching out into stranger spaces. It now includes pop culture figures such as Pennywise, the clown from It; the Teletubbies; and the oafish village boy holding a lollipop in Shrek Forever After, along with political leaders including Kim Jong Un, but also increasingly esoteric and abstract variations. (Vance as Las Vegas’s The Sphere, anyone?) However, what may be most strange about the meme—which has gotten so ubiquitous, many now claim to have forgotten what Vance’s actual face looks like—is its bipartisan appeal.

Obviously, left-leaning social media users are into infantilizing the vice president. Not only is it a chance to mock the opposition, but an indirect way to show support for Ukraine in their war with Russia. It’s no wonder popular accounts like the anti-Trump media group Meidas Touch and even The Daily Show have gotten in on the action. Less obvious is why Vance’s supporters are also into it. Polymarket, a MAGA-friendly, Peter Thiel-backed betting platform, has put Vance memes in multiple tweets throughout the week—and many of the vice president’s fans suspect the hyper-online Vance is enjoying his own memedom. (At least one reporter’s account backs that up.)

“actually i think it’s good that people are making me look insane” is a very funny way to play this https://t.co/IYHs4Q4hql pic.twitter.com/CJ0eC3NKZW

— rat king 🐀 (@MikeIsaac) March 6, 2025

It’s unclear exactly why the online right has embraced a meme targeting one of its own. The most generous explanation is that they’re still ebullient from last November’s victory, and secure enough in their party’s current dominance to admit these images are funny. Another possibility is that the 4Chan-bred, meme-savvy faction of Trump’s base never much cared for Vance—either because of his former resistance to Trump or for more disgusting reasons—and are happy to throw him under the bus for the sake of some lulz. Some X users, however, claim their embrace of the JD Vance meme is a way to neutralize the left’s use of it. If Vance’s supporters are also in on the joke, the logic suggests, they can’t also be stung by it. (As when liberals repurposed the Biden-bashing “Let’s Go, Brandon” into the Dark Brandon meme.)

While some X denizens seem pleased that the meme is bringing both sides together, others seem to see it as a zero-sum meme war. When the Never Trump conservative PAC, the Lincoln Project, tweeted Weird Vance after Tuesday night’s congressional address, one user responded, “It’s only funny when we do it,” and added a slur for good measure.

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https://www.fastcompany.com/91292059/why-weird-jd-vance-babyface-memes-have-taken-over-the-internet?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss