I don’t understand how this made up story by one guy makes it to international news. Don’t people say bizarre untrue things on social media all the time?
Can someone explain the process of one tweet becoming an international sensation. Was the guy tweeting a movie star?
Can my tweet saying Camilla Harrison enjoyed sitting on a chair become a meme?
If I could explain why some things go viral while others don’t, I wouldn’t tell you, I’d be too busy with my multi billion dollar ad agency.
Yeah, some things just take off. It helped that he put the page numbers in his cite; which is pretty funny, people believed that Vance wrote about having sex with a couch for three pages.
This is being discussed here:
The tweet that started it all was an obvious joke and the author never intended it as anything but a joke.
From the article:
This is exactly right. Vance almost certainly did not, actually and factually, fuck a couch. But you look at him and listen to him for more than a few seconds, and he clearly is a person who could have fucked a couch.
Hence, the reference catches on.
Yeah, he looks like someone who would do coitus with a couch, and that’s all it takes.
This whole thing has shades of Santorum.
As I said before, it’s the modern-day equivalent of “Richard Gere stuck a live gerbil up his butt” or “Elton John got rushed to the emergency room and they pumped a gallon of semen out of his stomach” or “Marilyn Manson had his bottom ribs removed so he could suck his own dick”. It’s the sort of thing that feels like it could be true, implausible as it is, because you look at that person and think to yourself “Yeah, I could see them doing that”.
Which as John Oliver pointed out, betrays that most people have not and will not actually read the book, or bother borrowing a copy to look and check.
But yeah, for some people, a made up cite will work by perverse psychology: “they wouldn’t just make up something then cite specifically where to look it up”.
Technically, he was rumoured to have fucked a rubber glove embedded between couch cushions, as opposed to the couch itself.
Safe sex with the sofa seems prudent.
And it bears repeating. JD Vance did not fuck a couch.
As a matter of fact this is so important I’m going to say it one more time. Just to make sure everyone understands
JD Vance did not, in fact, fuck a couch.
But he’s the kind of guy who could have.
And that’s just a little weird.
Can he prove that?
I think not.
Teenage boys, young adult men, possibly old coots are bound to do anything.
(Except maybe Dopers …wait, what am I sayin’?)
Does anyone really literally believe the couch story?
As noted, it’s taken off because of Vance’s overall weirdness. He’s weirdly obsessed with childless women. He is incapable of giving normal responses to fairly basic questions. He’s running mates with a guy he not all that long ago was describing in the most scathing terms including (allegedly) “America’s Hitler”. His treatment of his wife as a political pawn is weird, while he attempts (and fails) to criticize the dynamics of the Walz’s marriage.
Honestly, he should be grateful the criticisms of him are light and comic and related to an obvious fiction, because the alternative would be to constantly point out what a genuine creep he is.
Exactly. “He fucked a couch” is not literally true and while it’s possible some people may ascribe some factual belief in it they are a decided minority. Rather, “he’s a couch-fucker” is shorthand for “he makes my skin crawl but rather than allowing that weirdness to unnerve and frighten me I’m going to mock and dismiss him.”
I would say that a huge part of why it went viral is that it fits the narrative about him. As people say, he’s just weird enough that you could believe he might have done this, not realizing how weird it is. (Talking about it, at least.)
But another reason it’s taking off is that Democrats are embracing shitposting and other Gen Z and Zoomer (younger millennials) styles of communication online. It feels like Democrats are finally engaging in social media in the same way Republicans would make their memes popular.
It’s the more extended version of the “weird” meme. All of it is is about the idea that Vance has this uncanniness about him, like he’s trying to pretend to be “normal.” And this seems fair game since he is himself so willing to completely change his views to fit his audience.
Have you ever seen a picture of the guy?
The main reason it’s taken off is the reaction.
Sure, put up a one sentence denial and move on. Maybe put in a joke to indicate he has a sense of humor and can laugh at himself like a regular guy.
But Vance (and a lot of folks in that political camp) is remarkably thin-skinned. It doesn’t matter that nobody literally thinks the story is true. The idea that somewhere, somebody just might think it is true is enough to set him off. He can’t help but object vociferously and at length. And when that doesn’t work, try to counter-punch rather than take the L and move past it.
And when normal people see a massive overreaction like that to an obvious joke, they can’t help but keep poking.
Vance is not a trans-sectional!
Of course he’s not.
Besides, it wasn’t a couch, it was a love seat.