Overview

Air Force One J.D. Vance Meme Spoof or Air Force 1 J.D. Vance Meme Drawing refers to a prank in which someone spoofed flight data on ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) for a Boeing VC-25A (a military version of the Boeing 747, modified for transporting the U.S. president and famously known as "Air Force One") to recreate the J.D. Vance babyface edit meme in which Vice President J.D. Vance is altered to have long curly hair and a fat face. The unknown prankster performed the stunt in late January 2026, drawing the image above President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The drawing of the meme was first noticed as it was halfway finished, with numerous posts sharing it going viral over the following hours and days.

Background

Around 1:15 a.m. EST on January 28th, 2026, X / Twitter^[1] user SR_Planespotter tweeted the earliest known mention of the J.D. Vance meme being drawn above Mar-a-Lago by someone spoofing flight data on ADS-B. The tweet included the half-drawn image alongside the original meme of VP J.D. Vance, edited to have curly hair and chubby cheeks staring into the camera, noting the call sign of the aircraft as "VANCE1."

The tweet quickly went viral and received over 1 million views, 7,200 likes, 460 retweets and 60 replies in a day.

Roughly an hour later, SR_Planespotter tweeted^[2] again, noting that the artwork on the flight tracker site had been completed, showing a finished version of the J.D. Vance meme. The tweet garnered over 226,800 views, 3,800 likes and 20 replies in a day.

Developments

Second Drawing

On January 29th, 2026, additional posts began to spread online about a second spoofed flight pattern emerging that also drew the J.D. Vance meme, this time using two different planes, including one with the call sign "Vance2."

Early that day, X / Twitter^[3] user TheIntelFrog posted the second Vance meme drawing, receiving over 47,800 views, 1,200 likes, 140 retweets and 20 replies in seven hours.

Online Reactions

The spoofed flight tracker drawings of the J.D. Vance meme garnered numerous reactions and posts online in late January 2026 as word of them spread online.

On January 28th, 2026, X / Twitter^[4] user JConcilus replied to a tweet about the initial VANCE1 artwork, explaining details of the prank and how it was purportedly pulled off. The tweet received over 21,100 views and 500 likes in a day.

That same day, YouTuber^[5] Aaron Rheins uploaded a video to his channel, titled "JD Vance Meme Drawn by Air Force One," discussing the event, garnering over 2 million views, 70,000 likes and 460 comments in a day. He also posted the clip to his Instagram,^[6] receiving over 154,000 likes in a similar timeframe.

Various posts referencing the viral prank also appeared on different subreddits in late January 2026, including posts to the subs /r/Destiny^[7] and /r/WhitePeopleTwitter.^[8]

On January 29th, 2026, X / Twitter^[9] user thenewarea51 shared a video of Vance2 spoofing another meme on ADS-B, receiving over 40,400 views, 1,100 likes, 100 retweets and 30 replies in five hours.

Related Memes

J.D. Vance Edited Face Photoshops

J.D. Vance Edited Face Photoshops, also known as J.D. Vance Face Edits, J.D. Vance Photoshops and Rare Vances, refer to numerous photoshop edits of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance. Meme creators initially gave VP Vance a "babyface," making his cheeks chubbier and giving him childlike exploitable signifiers. Edits also surfaced en masse after the 2024 Vice Presidential Debate and after Vance's official Vice Presidential portrait in early 2025, when he and President Donald Trump took office. Popular edits included a Bald J.D. Vance, a GigaChad J.D. Vance and an Age Filter J.D. Vance, among others. By February 2025, a plethora of J.D. Vance Face edits had been shared online, inspiring discourse about people forgetting what VP Vance actually looked like. The term "Rare Vances" to describe the edits stems from the Rare Pepes. Also, J.D. Vance reportedly saw the meme trend and believed that it was funny. He later tweeted one of the memes showing himself as actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

J.D. Vance Babyface Edits

J.D. Vance Babyface Edits refers to several photoshops and edits of photographs depicting U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance in which he is given exaggerated baby features to his face, such as large cheeks and lips and smooth skin. For instance, the Bald J.D. Vance meme showed Vance with a bald head and a rounder face. The edits were a part of the larger J.D. Vance Edited Face Photoshops, also known as Rare Vances. The J.D. Vance Babyface edits were widely circulated on social media in October 2024 and continued into early 2025. In March 2025, Vance's "Have You Said Thank You Once?" quote sparked more use of the Babyface edits.

Search Interest

External References