About

Mike Pence Is Race Bannon is a series of Fake History-style image macros featuring screenshots of the cartoon character Race Bannon from the 1960s animated television series Jonny Quest with captions falsely identifying him as a violently homophobic version of United States Vice President Mike Pence. Additionally, the series bears many visual similarities to 60s Spider-Man image macros.

Origin

On January 17th, 2014, the Indianapolis, Indiana news sites Nuvo posted a picture of Pence next to a screen capture of Bannon titled "Breaking news: Mike Pence is still Race Bannon" (shown below).





Spread

On July 16th, 2016, YouTuber Family Man uploaded a video titled "VP Mike Pence is Race Bannon," featuring footage of the cartoon character spliced in with Pence's introduction at a Trump rally in Westfield, Indiana (shown below).





That day, a photoshop of Bannon edited with a Pence-themed "Make America Great Again" logo reached the frontpage of /r/TheDonald, gathering upwards of 2,700 points (76% upvoted) and 160 comments prior to being archived (shown below, left). On July 31st, 2016, Redditor MakeCaliGreatAgain uploaded an image of Pence and Bannon with the caption “Donald Trump Will Make Anime Real“ to /r/The_Donald (shown below, right).





On February 27th, 2017, Redditor Fedora_Youth uploaded a Fake History image macro of Bannon holding two children on a beach with the caption "Mike Pence breaking up gay marriage of refugee and US Citizen" to /r/dankmemes (shown below, left). Within four days, the post gained over 26,200 points (85% upvoted) and 240 comments. In the coming days, many similar image macros reached the front page of /r/dankmemes, depicting Bannon as a violently homophobic version of Mike Pence (shown below, middle, right).





Meanwhile, several posts urging viewers to invest in "Mike Pence memes" reached the front page of /r/MemeEconomy. On March 1st, the @rMemeEconomy Twitter feed posted a collection of Pence as Race Bannon image macros, noting that the memes were "surging" and advised investing due to their "limited normie appeal" (shown below).





Various Examples





Search Interest

Know Your Meme Store

External References