ABSTRACT
Although usually gregarious, Vice President Joe Biden appeared more animated than usual when facing vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, on October 12, 2012. Throughout the debate, Biden repeatedly smiled, smirked, laughed, and gestured wildly in disagreement and disbelief at several of Ryan’s remarks. This performance – whether an embodiment of frustration, aggravation, or mockery – disturbed the normative standards of appropriate demeanor within vice presidential debates (Zak, 2012). Biden’s behavior became a focal point in social media discourse and, thus, the perfect subject of Internet memes. The iconic moments when Biden grinned and laughed during the debate were commented on, captured, and widely circulated as divisive (and often hilarious) Laughing Joe Biden memes.
