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JD Vance’s Online Reputation Graduates from Couch Lover to Dolphin Porn Enthusiast

First IKEA, now SeaWorld. J.D. Vance has had two "sex scandals" in a little less than a week.
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So far, J.D. Vance is having one of the roughest Vice Presidential nominee launches of all time. Less than a week after Trump picked him as his running mate, the internet exploded with rumors that Vance likes to fuck couches. Now, after the initial novelty of this accusation has worn off, people have moved on to another unfortunate insinuation: Vance likes to watch dolphin porn.

It’s been hard to avoid the viral (and, as far as we know, untrue) rumor that Vance has sex with couches. It emerged a couple weeks ago due to a since-deleted post on X that claimed his Hillbilly Elegy memoir included a passage alluding to cushion-related coitus. This claim was fake. But that didn’t stop the internet from totally running away with it.

Now, a new rumor has emerged, though this one is based—at least partially—on something Vance actually said. It originated via a RawStory article from February titled “J.D. Vance ridiculed for accidentally revealing explicit dolphin-based search history.” The article was based on a tweet Vance had posted involving a screenshot of a video that purported to show a woman having sex with a dolphin: “Maybe the internet was a mistake,” the Ohio Senator joked.

Web users were quick to point out that the words “dolphin” and “woman” were highlighted in the screenshot, which suggested that Vance had intentionally searched for the video. It’s not clear whether Vance did actually search for dolphin porn, though it is true that if you enter keywords in X’s search box, results will come back with those words highlighted.

Since social media users are like piranhas who rabidly search for their next ego-rupturing joke, the news cycle has swiftly pivoted from Vance’s supposed love of upholstery to his supposed love of watching women bang dolphins.

As was the case with the couch-fucking rumor, the dolphin-related Vance memes have swarmed the web with wild abandon:

 

Even before he started getting accused of being sexually aroused by furniture and sea creatures, Vance was struggling to overcome the mimetic nature of the internet. A viral clip that was circulated last week showed Vance awkwardly rambling about Mountain Dew at a campaign rally in Ohio. “I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday, and one today, I’m sure they’re [Democrats] gonna call that racist too but — it’s good,” Vance said, enigmatically. This non-sequitur led to a lot of confused silence from the audience, and the video was swiftly used to insinuate that Vance was a loser with no political charisma.

Of course, Vance is in good company. Every political candidate with any real proximity to the presidential race has been properly roughed up by trolls. Kamala Harris had the coconut tree and what can be, unburdened by what has been. Biden has the rumor that he’s actually dead. Trump has…well, Trump has a lot of stuff. To be a politician in this day and age is to be ritualistically (and algorithmically) hazed by the internet. The lucky, like Trump, skate through unscathed and even manage to spin their most ridiculous, viral moments into campaign gold. (In Kamala’s case, the coconut meme has turned from embarrassing to something her supporters embrace.) The not-so-lucky (like Vance) just turn into national jokes. It remains to be seen whether Vance can pull himself out of his current reputational nosedive, or whether he’ll just graduate to some wacky new perversion next week.

 

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