Recently I’ve read that Vance did not, as some believe, have sexual congress with a piece of furniture, nor does he use eyeliner, as has been claimed by his detractors. Is there a factual basis to either of these claims? Vance’s supporters seem to be denying that he wrote anywhere about the sex stuff, but on the other side, others seem to claim that he did write it but it was deleted before publication–is that accurate? If so, how can it be proven what was and what wasn’t in a deleted draft? Or is the whole thing sheer speculation?
As to the eyeliner, his eyes do look funny to me, but I haven’t read any claims specifically that he does apply eye makeup of any kind. Has anyone closely compared photos of his eyes before and after he supposedly started using eyeliner? Or is this simply a rumor or innuendo with no basis in fact?
I’m no fan of his, but neither do I want to indulge in spreading rumors with no basis in fact, so anything factual will help straighten me out on either charge.
No one thinks that Vance had sex with a couch. But Dems will continue to bring it up (or at least allude to it) because he’s so weird that it certainly seems plausible.
I haven’t seen that claim, at least not seriously. Dems are just having fun using the “some people are saying” nonsense that Fox News et al have been using to spread misinformation for decades.
First, the Republicans have a history of telling outrageous lies about their opponents. (Remember Pizzagate? Birthers?) So there’s no moral issue about telling outrageous lies back at them.
Second, Republicans genuinely have done some outrageous things. The Republicans really did try to overthrow the government and hang people. Kristi Noem really did brag about shooting her own dog. Donald Trump really has bragged about how he could commit rape or murder and talked about his sexual attraction to his own daughter.
The bolded words “dolphin” and “woman” on the post does indeed indicate that Vance was searching for posts with those words. When typing in a word on the search bar in X, the results always show that word in bold in post captions that come up.
Yes there is, and it bothers me that Dems are doing it. And i don’t even care whether someone used a couch while masturbating. That’s barely even unusual for a teenager, especially a boy.
But i don’t want the Dems to fall into the hole of inventing stories and being untrustworthy that the Pubs have fallen into.
To be clear, it’s not a lie. It’s a joke. When newspapers reported it was fake, it made it worse, because it was now funny that anyone spent time trying to debunk it.
There’s a reason why it’s such an innocuous claim. If he had done it, he’d just be like many other guys. The humor was in the idea that he’d actually write about it. But, even if he had, no one would have been hurt.
I posted earlier a skepchick article on the use of shotposts to shut down people.
Not saying you have to agree with her, but I do think she makes a good case for why it isn’t the same thing as spreading misinformation.
To me, the most telling part of the story is how quickly it spread.
The original joke post quoted page and verse from his memoir, but nobody bothered to look it up before repeating it as fact. Perhaps once it was realized as a joke, the repeats were simply for the humor value, but it spread as taken to be valid.
I believe it was Geoffrey Household who said that anyone who’s automatically assumed to be the perpetrator of a practical joke deserves it when they are blamed for something. Perhaps the same applies to the victim - anyone who people automatically believe some untruth about, probably deserves it in some way.
The problem is that people take something at face value if it appears truthy, in presentation and content. A similar example is Trump’s “pee tape” allegation. On the say-so of one person with possibly an axe to grind or a client to impress, a joke spreads like wildfire.
I agree the Dems should not stoop to disreputable tactics, but when it has degenerated to a joke that everyone(?) knows is untrue, a joke is a joke and it never hurts to play it for a laugh, as Walz did the other day.
And, when one legitimate news site posted “JD Vance did not have sex with a couch”, then removed the story to replace it with “JD Vance did not write about having sex with a couch”, that added to the joke - that their journalistic integrity couldn’t say with 100% accuracy that he had never had sex with a couch, but they could show that he never wrote about having sex with a couch.
Nestor Carbonell always looks like he’s wearing eyeliner as well. He’s actually joked about it in the past. There’s a video out there somewhere of him running late for an interview or something. When the camera goes looking for him, he’s in his dressing room putting eyeliner on.
I believe him that he’s not, but, it really, really does look like he (Nestor) is wearing it.
As I understand it, once it was called out to be false (as in, not printed in his book) the same people who were inclined to spread the first rumor/joke then came up with the “no it was in the first printing of his book” rumor/joke to allow it to continue.
Yes, this. No one actually believes it, but it’s utterly hilarious watching them flounder trying to counteract the kind of made up bullshit that they’ve been pedalling for years. So we’re going to keep talking about it.
It was a skit that was done for Comic-Con in 2009, for the panel about the show Lost. All copies of the video I could find online were bad, this was the best I could find. I’m not sure there’s an “official” video available anywhere (if so I failed in finding it).
But yeah, he’s another example of another man with naturally dark eyelashes.
My WAG is that the practice of wearing eyeliner comes from a history of people trying to imitate that natural feature some people possess. We are so familiar with the practice of wearing eyeliner that when we see someone who has it as a natural feature, it’s assumed that eyeliner was involved.
There’s a difference between wearing guyliner and having thick eyelashes. Big difference. This is approaching Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day) level, and I don’t think Billy Joe would deny it.
