Internet Nostalgia

Let’s Revisit Diamond Joe Biden

His appeal was there from the get-go, if we’d stopped laughing at him enough to see it.

Welcome to part 24 of our Internet Nostalgia series, which looks back at phenomena that captured the internet’s imagination and attention for a fleeting moment and then vanished as everyone moved on to something else. This series looks back at those olden times and what they told us about the internet and ourselves. If you have a suggested topic, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. Last week: “Don’t Tase Me, Bro.” This week: Diamond Joe Biden.

When: 2009–19.

The Story: When Barack Obama picked Joe Biden to be his running mate in 2008, the general consensus, even at the time, was that he needed to pick a guy who knew how Washington worked, who had been there for years, who was part of The Establishment, who was … well, who was an old white guy. Sen. Joe Biden was exactly that guy. But what was funny about Joe Biden was that he was always saying things he shouldn’t, that he was a little bit too blue-collar brash in a way that was a direct contrast to Obama. It was difficult to figure out a way to satirize Barack Obama; it still is. It was not difficult, in 2008, to satirize Joe Biden.

Thus, The Onion created Diamond Joe, or Uncle Joe, or Trans Am Joe. Their satirical Joe Biden was a classic boomer, one who only cared about muscle cars, sleeveless shirt and domestic brews. As The Onion themselves put it: “Eight years of killer tuneage, knocking back tallboys, and hunting for trim with the most buck-fucking-wild hombre to ever work in the White House.” My lord, this picture:

This is nothing what Joe Biden is like, nothing like he was ever like, but it was consistently hilarious because it got at an emotional truth about Biden: He really did seem like the sort of Regular Guy who was always speaking his mind, whether he should or shouldn’t. Biden himself benefited from the joke and even played into it, once claiming he washed his car shirtless, something I very much doubt to be true.