The New Yorker:

By Jessica Winter

J. D. Vance’s politics have taken a striking hard-right turn since his best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was published in 2016; Vance went from disparaging Trump to snagging the V.P. spot in less than a decade. As soon as he joined the Republican ticket, Vance, and his public persona, began to build up a Dan Quayle-like residue of gaffes and negative charisma, thanks to a string of awkward campaign-trail moments, along with a pornographic meme (it involved a couch) so inescapable that the Associated Press ran and then retracted a piece, debunking it. And, once Trump’s second Administration was under way, Vance appeared to be eclipsed as Trump’s second-in-command by Elon Musk, whose doge force took a chainsaw to vital government funding and services.

But then, on February 28th, Vance tag-teamed with Trump in the Oval Office ambush of Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine. All at once, Vance had made an obstreperous return to the center of the national stage—and so did the memes. It was as if the entire internet had spontaneously rededicated itself to the belief that Vance was put on this earth to be memed. For weeks, Vance-related photo edits blanketed social media. Yassified Vance. Emo Vance. Minion Vance. Furby Vance. Chubby-kid Vance in a propeller hat, holding a lollipop. Vance with the beard and curly tendrils of a cult leader. These Vances were so varied and so plentiful that they started to interact with one another and cross-pollinate; their identities blended and melted into a psychedelic, pixelated goo that leaked into every corner and crevice of the web.

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