Over the last week, JD Vance has been at the center of a meme storm, as the Vice President has become the face of a trend. The memes have been doing the rounds ever since the torrid Oval Office meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which at some point turned into a screaming match between the Ukrainian leader and Vance.
Somewhere amid all the shouting, JD Vance asked Zelenskyy, “Have you said thank you once?” While he might have been of the opinion that Zelenskyy was ungrateful, the Ukrainian President has conveyed his gratitude to the United States for its support on multiple occasions.
The White House, however, made JD Vance look like a strong leader who wasn’t hesitant about cornering an ungrateful ally, posting a picture of the moment on its X (formerly Twitter) handle. Irrespective, this particular question posed by Vance kickstarted a meme trend.
“Have you said thank you once?” –@VP JD Vance pic.twitter.com/kDu0o6gDd4
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 28, 2025
Notably, one of the first memes to go viral under this trend was a picture of Vance (with an enlarged face) from the heated meeting with Zelenskyy. The post was captioned, “You have to say pwease and tank you, Mistow Zensky.”
You have to say pwease and tank you, Mistow Zensky pic.twitter.com/OOVPIdtrVf
— Barflugnarven🇻🇦 (@barflugnarven) February 28, 2025
Since then—be it a round-faced baby, a toddler in a propeller hat with a huge lollipop, a minion from the film Despicable Me, an alien, the painter Bob Ross, an emo rocker—JD Vance was seen in just about any variant that one could imagine!
here’s a thread of every jd vance edit ever created pic.twitter.com/80KEinQwkg
— e l l a 🇨🇦 (@blondehotcoffee) March 4, 2025
While the initial phase of the meme trend stuck to the jokes revolving around the aforementioned caption, what followed was a wave of posts that began to irk users. A netizen aired his frustration, saying, “Twitter is f— unusable. I’m trying to get updates on whether World War 3 is on but all I’m seeing are fat JD Vance memes.” Another user wrote, “I have completely forgotten what the real JD Vance looks like at this point.”
Given its virality, the memes inevitably caught Vance’s eye, and while one might have expected a fiery response from him, his response was quite surprising. Sharing Vance’s response to the memes, Conservative reporter Julio Rosas wrote, “I can confirm VP Vance has seen many of the memes/edits of his pictures and thinks it’s a funny trend.”
🚨: Landed back at Joint Base Andrews with Vice President Vance. I can confirm VP Vance has seen many of the memes/edits of his pictures and thinks it’s a funny trend.@theblaze
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) March 6, 2025
The response shouldn’t really come as a shock, though, as the Vice President himself is into meme-posting. JD Vance, just a few days ago, shared a meme to insinuate that Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia and allegiance to Vladimir Putin were mere conspiracy theories.
https://t.co/GvmelSD8kF pic.twitter.com/qDD4ARMtDd
— JD Vance (@JDVance) March 3, 2025
Downplaying his anger or taking the memes in stride could also be Vance’s way of disempowering the trolls and critics, as a fiery response from his end would only further instigate them and birth more memes.
