Ever since Donald Trump announced J.D. Vance as his running mate, American citizens have been keen to know more about the VP prospect, which in turn has led to some uncomfortable details coming out—including, yes, the couch rumor.
Social media has been littered with jokes and memes about the former Marine veteran fornicating with a couch, the origins of which can be tracked to a July 15 X post by @rickrudescalves, which mentioned:
can’t say for sure but he might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to fucking an Inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, hillbilly elegy, pp. 179-181).”
X/@rickrudescalves
A quick glance at pages 179-181 of Vance’s memoir confirms that there is no mention of Vance having sex with a couch, instead describing his experience at Ohio University. Still, the rumor kicked off by the tweet led to multiple credible websites coming up with their version of fact checks and explainers, as the barrage of memes gained traction over time instead of being doused by these articles. The author of the tweet has since then deleted his account, presumably because of the traction it was generating.
The rumor of Vance having sex with a couch can be added to the long list of fabricated stories that are repeated so often online that they are often perceived to be true; a recent example is the “Lea Michele can’t read” meme or the age-old speculation about Stevie Wonder not being blind. Funny enough, the Vance gossip is not even the most unusual thing to have happened in the ongoing election race, which has involved one of the candidates almost getting assassinated.
Last Week Tonight host John Oliver dedicated a fair part of his latest episode towards this online gossip, using it as an opportunity to let his displeasure known against the Republican candidate:
“It is not in his book, but I think the reason it spreads so fast might be that A, nobody read that f**king book, and B, it was incredibly easy to believe, because if you ask me to draw a man that f**ks his couch, 10 times out of 10, I’m drawing this guy.
Last Week Tonight/John Oliver
It’s not even been two weeks since Trump officially announced Vance as his VP pick, and the Ohio senator has already managed to land in a soup multiple times, both directly and indirectly. A clip from his appearance on Tucker Carlson from three years ago—which shows Vance calling Kamala Harris, Pete Buttegeig, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “a bunch of childless cat ladies”—has been going viral, as has the cringe-worthy Diet Mountain Dew joke he made at a rally on July 22.
The latest in a series of rumors involving Vance is that he wears eyeliner and seems to be a part of an online investigation where X users are adamant that the vice president candidate uses the cosmetic. A TikTok user has even claimed to identify the exact shade that Vance allegedly uses, and it remains to be seen whether the Yale alum will respond to this absurd public inquiry or not.
Published: Jul 30, 2024 03:00 pm