Before we begin, let's make one thing clear, the man in the photo above is Diamond Joe Biden, The Onion's beloved and infamous portrayal of Vice-president Joe Biden. How closely he relates to the flesh and blood vice-president is up for debate, but The Onion's styling seems to have bred a certain mystique about actual Biden and his behaviors.
The Onion's Joe Biden fancies cheap beer and nights of debauchery, actual Biden reportedly does not drink alcohol and was one of the youngest people elected to the senate at age 29. Autobiographic tales of the latter are now preserved in The Onion's first e-book, The President of Vice, which was released last week.
An excerpt from Chapter One: "I got squeezed out into this crazy world in 1942, give or take a year. Bit iffy on my exact age, cuz I spent a hell of a lot more time celebrating my birthdays than counting them."
Chad Nackers has been with The Onion since 1997 and is the chief consultant on all things Biden-related. Nackers said the now-beloved Biden character really came into form for a story that involved stripping down the vice-president and photoshopping him in front of the White House, washing a Trans Am.
"That's where Biden really formed into this multi-faceted character who is part dirtball metal-head guy, part creepy uncle," Nackers said.
He told the Guardian that even though Diamond Biden and actual Biden are almost opposites, there might be more to Biden than his clean cut exterior.
"If you look at that smile he has – he's got that big, flashy smile – there is sort of a devious twinkle in his eye," Nackers said. "So you look at that and you think, huh, there's something here."
Other media outlets have certainly grasped this vibe as well, though it's unclear if they were inspired by actual Biden or The Onion's Biden. Talking Points Memo made a video of Biden welcoming Senate members at a 2013 swearing-in ceremony that is cut to show Biden in a way that is similar to his Onion counterpart.
The Office of the Vice President posted a response to The Onion from its official Twitter account that also lent credit to The Onion's caricature. The post includes a photo of Biden standing next to a Corvette and text that said Biden actually prefers that car over a Trans Am.
"So that's the thing, he is into a muscle car still," Nackers said. "This guy, he sort of is real, maybe we just amplify it – we cover the stories that the rest of the mainstream media tend to skip over."
Nackers said Biden is "more of an old-school Onion character," and likened his actions to the paper's portrayal of Bill Clinton during his presidency (Clinton Suffering From Senioritis, White House Sources Say, October 2000).
"He [Clinton] sort of functioned as this man of many hats and could go into almost any situation," Nackers said. "I think Biden, he's similar to that, except for, his view in The Onion is a little more narrow."
The Onion's Joe Biden took over the site's Twitter account during the vice-presidential debate in October 2012 and responded to questions in a Reddit AMA last week to promote The President of Vice. Most of the questions were related to sex though some were related to politics.
Reddit user AlabasterWaterJug: "Besides yourself, which Cabinet member parties the hardest?" The Onion's Joe Biden: " [US secretary of energy] Steven Chu is loaded from his Nobel prize money. He has a killer stereo system in his house, great for blasting jams."
That same crass, bro-tastic voice was used in The President of Vice. The Onion's Alex Blechman had to "wrangle" Biden for the project and said that the worst part of creating the book was "getting Biden to turn in his pages in on time."
"Deadlines, angry editors, it doesn't matter, keeping his Trans Am polished and running smoothly is his number one priority," Blechman said. "Also, you know, helping Barack, that's also important to him."
After working so intimately with The Onion's Biden, Blechman identified what he likes about the character. "I think it's just wonderful that someone in such a great position of power is still able to throw back a brewha with the other guys, I think that's what people like about him," he said.
The Office of the Vice President did not respond to emails for comment, but Joel Goldstein, a law professor at St Louis University who is regarded as the leading living scholar on US vice-presidents, thinks Biden finds The Onion caricature funny. "My guess is that he genuinely thinks it's funny and that even if you didn't the worst mistake you could make is being offended by it," Goldstein said.
He said that ridiculing the vice-president is different from the president because it is an "awkward office."
"Your primary role is to help advance somebody else's agenda," said Goldstein. "So you are defending somebody else and you don't have the opportunity to say exactly what's on your mind."
He thinks one of the reasons the Biden character might work is because the behaviors he is doing are so different from those of the actual vice-president. Biden is heavily involved in work to disengage from Iraq, fiscal-cliff talks and is leading a task force on gun violence. "There is quite a distance between the caricature that they're presenting and what one reads in the news pages, especially recently," Goldstein said.
The characterizations are also a distinct departure from comedic portrayals of Biden's predecessor Dick Cheney. "I don't recall anybody parodying him shirtless washing his car, it would've been more he had Bush out washing his car," Goldstein said.
