“Subverting the Punchline: If your name is JD Vance, You Might (Not) be a Redneck …” by Willie Carver and Sarah Ratliff
J.D. Vance, the 2024 GOP Vice Presidential nominee, junior Senator from Ohio, and best-selling author has emerged as a lightning rod of controversy in Appalachia for his claims to both represent and know the remedy for the problems of the region.
In 1993, Jeff Foxworthy released the album You Might Be a Redneck If. As Appalachian writers from the mountains of eastern Kentucky we both knew it well because, like many rural white Southern and Appalachian folks, each of us owned and memorized it. Foxworthy’s jokes poke fun at Southern and Appalachian culture, language, and even some social issues affecting the regions. Southerners and Appalachians – many falling squarely into the category of redneck – tend to like self-deprecating humor, tend not to take some things too seriously, and are often happy to be included in a national conversation of any form, since we tend to be ignored. And–after all–Jeff Foxworthy, born in Atlanta, was one of us.
Jeff Foxworthy’s redneckitude aside, the jokes may have been about poor white rural folks living in the South and Appalachia, but they weren’t necessarily written only for us. Even the first three jokes make clear that they lack culturally idiosyncratic nuance meant to draw chuckles uniquely from the subject of the punchline:
“If you've ever been on television more than five times describing what the tornado sounded like … you might be a redneck.”
“If you've ever cut your grass and found a car … you might be a redneck.”
“If your dad walks you to school because you're in the same grade … you might be a redneck.”
The images conjured–the accented and unsophisticated person on the news, the unkempt and unruly yards of the poor, the uneducated poor Southerner–are all not only known outside of the region, some were even created outside of the region. The ignorant hillbilly stereotype originated in coastal cities to generate classes of whiteness (Harkins, 2003). In other words, self-described hillbillies and rednecks may have purchased the album, but the target audience extended well beyond us.
It is precisely because of Foxworthy’s success that the Appalachian response to JD Vance’s recent pick as a vice-presidential candidate for Donald Trump has been so loud and so forceful; we’ve grown tired of definitions of us coming from outside of us being used to harm us. In the immediate aftermath of the vice presidential pick, social media became flooded with JD Vance jokes that soon codified into a recognizable form: jokes that mean to define Appalachia as something entirely outside the knowledge or experience of JD Vance. So popular are the memes and jokes that even usually reserved Kentucky governor Andy Beshear has twice mocked Vance in the last week (first with a “He ain’t from here” quip that directly borrows from punchlines, and later in a mock apology to Diet Mountain Dew for having associated it with Vance (Stowers)).
In his 2016 Hillbilly Elegy, Vance, like Foxworthy, uses stereotypes created outside of Appalachia (the lazy, listless, violent, drug-addicted hillbilly) to make money off a national audience. The similarities end there. Foxworthy sells stereotypes as well, but, Foxworthy, one of our own, uses relatively light-hearted listening that carefully employs a conditional conjunction if to demarcate between some southerners and hillbillies and other southerners and hillbillies, all while endearing both groups to the listener. Vance, however, a rustbelt politician, takes on an identity that isn’t his to give himself permission to humiliate and harm it. He sells a political narrative in the form of a biography meant specifically for a national platform, a narrative that defines an entire socio-ethnic group of people as the economic and moral problem in America. And Appalachians ain’t having it.
To illustrate how Appalachians have reclaimed the narrative, we’d like to share jokes and memes created and shared by us, two Appalachians from eastern Kentucky, who have helped popularize the form. Ratliff may have very well invented it–or at least co-invented, since the zeitgeist came so quickly that it appears to have risen naturally from a collective subconscious desire to fight back. For the sake of fairness, since it is difficult to ascertain the origins or authors of many jokes because of this collective cultural phenomenon, we have only included jokes and memes created by the authors.
The new jokes, shared widely on social media and in dollar store parking lots, unite conservatives and progressives in Appalachia who are reclaiming the punchline. The jokes, which poke fun at Vance’s lack of authenticity, linguistic awareness, and social understanding, nod to the sorts of jokes told about us by intentionally subverting the form. The jokes claim many of the same topics as Foxworthy’s jokes or Vance’s seething complaints about us – poverty, drug use, or being unruly – but do so with such specific punchlines that often only those living the lives with which Vance falsely identifies might totally understand the subtext that often shifts the obvious meaning.
And, of course, the joke is on him. These jokes bring together, build up, and not only won’t be sold to a national audience–they most likely won’t be understood by it.
Appalachians love to joke about serious concepts; poverty in Appalachia is a serious concept. The fun of the following jokes for those living in or having lived in poverty is the sense of community and the wit that comes from being able to laugh with others who know your experience. They don’t mock poverty so much as they acknowledge community and celebrate shared wit. Obviously, then, the jokes mean to exclude Vance:
Somebody asked JD Vance if he liked Natural Light and he said, "I suppose it beats fluorescents."
JD Vance don't know Mountain Holler from Mountain Lightning.
JD Vance ain't never ate Ramen somebody already stole the seasoning packet out of ... and it shows.
JD Vance thinks em buckets in the fridge is all actually got Cool Whip in em.
JD Vance thinks a dime bag is a very specific coin purse.
JD Vance has never seen a "good Christian woman" drink a whole six-pack in one sitting ‘cause she "has a kidney infection" - and it shows.
JD Vance don't know his food stamps by their colors. And it shows.
JD Vance ain't learned how to stomp a pop can in one move, and it shows.
JD Vance has never heard, "You close that fridge cause that's gotta last till the end of the month." And it shows.
Other jokes look at culturally specific information that almost no one outside of Appalachia (or sometimes even eastern Kentucky, which Vance claims as his identity) might have enough familiarity to understand. The form and shape of the jokes make it obvious to any reader that a joke is happening, and while some are accessible because of the shape of the form, some, like the Hindman and Borderline jokes, are only accessible to those who understand their cultural significance. Some reference geography:
Somebody asked JD Vance if he knew Leslie or Floyd County and he said, "No, but I'm sure they're nice people."
JD Vance thinks Morehead is an adults-only website.
JD Vance thinks Hindman is a position in football.
JD Vance thinks Pigeon Forge is a Revolutionary War camp for birds.
JD Vance has never been to the Borderline.
JD Vance doesn’t know how to pronounce the following words: Versailles, Monticello, Athens, Daviess
Others consider food and drink and the traditions surrounding them:
JD Vance got invited to a pig roast … so he prepared some jokes.
JD Vance saw this and asked if they had a menu in English.
JD Vance's mamaw offered him a jar of chow chow and he thought she was trying to give him a container filled with a sturdy dog from China.
JD Vance thinks Moon Pies are something astronauts have for dinner.
JD Vance ain't never once foundered hisself on neckbones and taters.
JD Vance thinks white lightning is a nickname for a basketball player of European descent.
JD Vance doesn’t eat Fischer’s bologna…he eats Oscar Mayer.
JD Vance has never eaten a Double Kwik pizza roll.
JD Vance doesn’t like soup beans and cornbread.
JD Vance prefers goetta gravy over sausage gravy.
JD Vance has no idea what greased up thing a feller had to touch for a chance at $50 at the Slone Mountain Squirrel Festival.
Others focus on linguistic differences and language traditions in Appalachian English:
JD Vance's mamaw said he ought notta talk with them old drunks cause they was a sorry bunch a heatherns.
JD said, "Well, grandmother, I'm glad they feel bad about it."JD Vance thinks a young’un is some kind of European scallion.
A boy from Jackson said to JD Vance, "Hey buddy, do you chew?"
JD said, "Of course. I don't want to choke while swallowing."
JD Vance has Googled "Do frogs have hair?" And "frog hair + fine + meaning"
JD Vance doesn’t call the end of a road the “main end.”
Real photo of JD Vance after a girl from Jackson told him he needed to wash his bloomers.
JD Vance's mamaw said, "JD, it's time to shower!"
and he thought she was telling him to give his cousin some of his name-brand apple juice.
JD Vance has had to Google "swarping."
JD Vance's cousin asked for this and he went looking for a tall, vertical, supportive architectural structure.
JD Vance heard that his aunt tanned his cousin's hide and imagined she made him a boutique leather wallet.
JD Vance's mamaw said, "You keep that up, buddy, and I'm gonna wear you out!"
He assumed she was going to introduce him to a new fitness routine.
Others focus on artistic, religious, and other cultural features unique to the area:
JD Vance thinks a Barbara Kingsolver is a mixed drink.
JD Vance heard his religious aunt was dancing in the Spirit and imagined she was waltzing with a ghost.
JD Vance's mamaw said they couldn't go swimming cause it was dog days.
He assumed that was like adult swim for canines.
JD Vance doesn’t know what it means to be a seventh son of a seventh son.
JD Vance doesn't know what it means when you find an all-black wooly worm.
JD Vance doesn't know which side he's on.
JD Vance heard his mamaw got the spirit in church and assumed she was returning with a fine brandy.
JD Vance has never been to Dollywood.
JD Vance has never been riding on a strip job.
JD Vance has never been cussed out by a grown woman for saying a cuss word. And it shows.
JD Vance thinks that the tv show “Hellier” was real.
JD Vance calls it a violin.
JD Vance doesn’t know anything about Eula Hall.
JD Vance was given a string and a June bug and didn’t know what to do next.
JD Vance thinks Melungeon is an exotic fruit.
A final type that varies slightly from the jokes that aim to exclude through idiosyncratic knowledge focus on familiarity with unpaid work, i.e. the difficult manual labor of the poor that is done to maintain homes and land, work that Vance’s hyper-capitalist approach doesn’t acknowledge or attribute value to in Hillbilly Elegy.
JD Vance heard his mamaw had been weedeating and assumed she was on a grass-based organic cleanse.
JD Vance's papaw said, "Hey, JD, go out back and get me that post-hole digger."
And JD said, "Sure, grandfather. What's his name?"
J.D. Vance thinks WD-40 is a tax form for stealing money from the poor.
JD Vance has never been cussed at for cutting away too much of the tater when he peeled it ... and it shows.
Kentucky novelist and community organizer Robert Gipe once said, that “rural people relish in language because it's so rich but so cheap.” To these writers, he hit the nail firmly on the head. JD Vance jokes fall well into an Appalachian tradition of using what you’ve got and turning it into art. A well-aimed JD Vance joke is a work of cultural subterfuge, of politically intentional work, of culturally specific art that, like all good Appalachian art, reminds us of where we come from so that we might not, like JD Vance, get above our raising. Just as our ancestors made some of the world’s best food, like biscuits and gravy, soup beans, or cornmeal-fried poke out of the cheapest ingredients, so do we move forward taking something so cheap we all have it–common experience and words–and turning it into something useful, something nourishing, something beautiful.
In that vein, we’d like to end with a work of art written by Megan Yellig Drofrehurt, the Appalachian wordsmith responsible for this exquisite piece of literature. If you can read it all and don’t need a translator … you might be a redneck (and are certainly a hillbilly). We won’t bother offering a translation for JD Vance. Surely, with his money, he can pay some real Appalachian to explain it to him.
“JD Vance is a carpetbagging sumbitch who got his money making a joke of our homeplace.
Truly, a ten pound turd in a 2 pound bag, that guy.
I’d fistfight JD in a parking lot with my buttcrack out in front of the police, God and everybody. Would still walk him like a dog if he ever got to feelin’ froggy.
I guarantee he’s a grade A pussy who ain’t worn nothin’ but Dockers and tight whites with his name on ‘em in sharpie since 1997. ‘Ol bootlickin’ ass.
That is the most polite way to express how I feel about that Great Value hot dog of a human being.”
–Megan Yellig Drofrehtur
References:
Foxworthy, Jeff. (1993). You might be a redneck if [album]. Warner/Reprise Country.
Harkins, A. (2003). Hillbilly: A cultural history of an American icon. Oxford University Press.
Stowers, Shannon. (2024). “Kentucky's Beshear follows up on 'He ain't from here' comment, JD Vance, possible VP role.” WCHS. https://www.wchstv.com/news/local/kentuckys-beshear-responds-to-he-aint-from-here-comments-jd-vance-possible-vp-role
Drofrehtur, Megan Yellig. (2024). “JD Vance.” Facebook post. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/FLatijfNTowuRDGm/
ABOUT SARAH: Sarah is a proud hillbilly who was raised up Elkhorn Creek, Kentucky. She is a Professor of Social Work, Pikeville Pride board member, and Vice President of the “He Ain’t Even From Here” club (Gov. Andy Beshear, President). Sarah likes long walks on the river bank, collective bargaining, and reminding grifting outsiders that they are not welcome in Appalachia and do not speak for us. Above all else, Sarah is proud of her Appalachian heritage and inspired by the efforts and sacrifices of those who came long before her–including but not limited to: the coal miners and wives of coal miners in Harlan and on Blair mountain, Eula Hall, bell hooks, Lige Clark, and a thousand granny witches and seventh-sons.
ABOUT WILLIE: Willie is a queer hillbilly. He is also an advocate, Kentucky Teacher of the Year, and the the author Gay Poems for Red States, named a Book Riot Best Book of 2023, a Top Ten Best Book of Appalachia by Read Appalachia, an IndieBound and American Booksellers Association’s must-have book of 2022, a 2023 Top Ten Over-The-Rainbow book by the American Library Association, a 2024 Stonewall Honor Book, and is a current 2024 finalist for the Whippoorwill Book Award. Willie has an MFA in creative writing at the University of Kentucky. His story has been featured across US media, including ABC, CBS, The Washington Post, and Good Morning America. His advocacy has led him to engage President Biden and to testify before the United States Congressional Committee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. His creative work has been published in 100 Days in Appalachia, 2RulesofWriting, Young Ravens Literary Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Harbor Review, Smoky Blue Literary Magazine, Miracle Monocle, Good River Review, Salvation South, and Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide.