This article is SATIRE. Quotes, attributions and facts are fictional.

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. –The controversial Vice President to a highly contested presidency. Author, attorney and ex-Marine. The man who’s proving that hillbillies can rock guyliner, too. You know him, you may or may not love him: VP James David “JD” Vance. Yet, in light of his recent appearances, it seems Americans don’t know the politician as well as they’d thought. The nation was shocked when Vance’s piercing, doll-like gaze burning into their screens looked nothing like his social media presence.

“I saw Trump walk out. I was expecting to see Vance with him. You know, he has a round face, red cheeks, kind of like a baby?” said shocked Rossmoor resident Agnes Martin. “But no, it was some other guy with the same haircut and suit. Like he was supposed to be Vance. But I’m not stupid.”

Vance, still sporting his emo-inspired eye makeup and chronically unsettled appearance, seemed to be a cheap copy of the images of him seen on Instagram. Americans took to Instagram and other social media platforms to discuss their findings, only to discover that they all had alternative interpretations of what Vance was meant to look like.

“How does someone put weight on that fast?” said commenter and self-proclaimed “looksmaxxer” Jeffrey Huang. “Vance had this incredible jawline, like a Greek god. Now, he just looks like some guy.”

Surveyed Instagram users described numerous different images of Vance, seeming to spark disagreements between them over who was correct and thus who was the biggest JD Vance fan.

“Okay, we know Vance has a really big head and fat face, unkempt beard and long curly hair,” user Linda Caulfield said, arguing with commenter Jeremy Sanchez. “I know Vance better than you do. That’s not him.”

Sanchez fired back, “Sure. (JD Vance) is bald and doesn’t have a beard! You’d know that if you were a real patriot.”

Ultimately, the impassioned, Vance-thirsty commenters came to an agreement; either Mark Zuckerberg was letting misinformation spread on his beloved site, or Vance was testing them.

“Well, to me, it would make sense. (Vance) could’ve been pulling our legs. That’s nothing new. You can’t believe everything you see on social media. He was testing us to make sure we knew that,” Huang said. He emphasizes that he exclusively views reliable content, which is how he heard the news of the “Roswell alien abduction” and “Elon Musk announcing the Cyber Bike.”

A group of Reddit users believing Zuckerburg is at fault are considering a class action suit for defamation, fearing that due to the photos “liberals” will no longer take Vance seriously. If he doesn’t strike them down with his mysterious “meta-algorithm” first, expect a follow-up on this information.

So, JD Vance, plastic surgery fanatic or social media genius? Even if it took them days to sniff it out, Instagrammers have determined the latter. Now, to figure out what the VP truly looks like, because it seems the days spent on Instagram instead of watching Vance’s TV appearances have returned Americans to their confusion. What color were his eyes again? We may never know.