Between 2009 and 2019, The Onion staff consistently portrayed Biden as an outrageous character who shared almost nothing with his namesake besides the title of vice president of the United States.

Instead, the publication portrayed Biden as a blue-collar "average Joe", an affable "goofy uncle", a muscle car driver, an avid fan of 1980s hair metal, a raucous party animal, a shameless womanizer, a recidivist petty criminal, and a drug-dealing outlaw.

Commentators noted that the character likely reinforced public perceptions of Biden as a political figure with populist working-class appeal and a good-natured, easy-going disposition.

In 2016, Mitch McConnell referenced the character on the Senate floor in a speech tributing the departing vice president amid the presidential transition of Donald Trump.

The Onion had a few noteworthy instances of consistent characterizations over time prior to Biden, such as portrayals of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole in the 1990s.

[7] Nackers felt that Biden's easygoing persona struck a dramatic contrast with the more intense, sinister demeanor of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

[5] Asked about the genesis of the character, The Onion's founding editor Scott Dikkers said Biden had "this great inappropriate, older buddy wild child kind of vibe.

When writing Biden articles, Nackers would play music by bands like Mötley Crüe and White Lion to evoke memories and details that could inform the character—a technique The Washington Post compared to method acting.

[13] According to New York Times journalist Jeremy W. Peters, the Onion staff wrote Biden in "one of two molds: Boozy and brash, or slick and over-sexed.

"[12] In 2013, the direction of the character took a turn in articles that depicted him as a criminal and gang member; this arc deepened the following year, as Biden became a drug dealer and user, particularly of cannabis.

"[21] Mark Leibovich said part of the character's plausibility stems from the contrast between Biden's image and those of his contemporaries, posing the rhetorical questions: "Would The Onion put a shirtless John Kerry washing a Trans Am in the driveway of the State Department?

[18] Other comedians and satirists tended to portray Biden as a well-meaning buffoon prone to gaffes, exaggerating the politician's actual or perceived traits without making outlandish embellishments.

[24] Jim Downey—a comedian and longtime writer on Saturday Night Live—described the Onion parody as somewhat risky, because it implicitly relies on the audience's understanding of how dissimilar it is from the real Biden.

[12] Similarly, the scholar Nicholas Holm said the character's humor comes from two things: the "sheer unlikeliness" of his traits, and the extreme contrast with "the gaffe-prone and folksy, but generally affable, public presentation of Biden.

[26] One of the Onion's Twitter accounts, @OnionPolitics, live-tweeted the October 11, 2012 vice presidential debate between Biden and Republican candidate Paul Ryan.

Mike Pesca, host of the podcast The Gist, said he considered the Onion's Biden to be one of "the great comic characters of our day" alongside Homer Simpson, Gob Bluth and Tobias Fünke of Arrested Development, and Selina Meyer of Veep.

[40] Marc Hogan at Pitchfork listed "The 20 Best Onion Articles About Music" and included "Biden Huddling With Closest Advisers on Whether to Spend 200 Bucks on Scorpions Tickets".

The New Yorker's Katy Waldman wrote that the Onion's articles about Biden "made hypermasculine tropes look not only unthreatening but delightful" and "were the satirical equivalent of petting the Labrador on the head".

He also tended to express relief that the character was so radically different from his actual personality and poked fun at the Onion Biden's affinity for the Trans Am.

Metaxas, who was the event's keynote speaker, was making small talk with Biden before his speech and asked the vice president if he was aware of the Onion pieces.

[22] The Onion's Biden did not reply to the real one's tweet, but it did respond to a Reddit user's question about the Corvette: "I think there's some imposter out there spreading bad shit about me.

Historian Edward L. Widmer said Biden's public embrace of the Onion and other parodies helped to signal his sense of humor and show "a quality of humanity.

[18] In the journal Critical Studies in Media Communication, Don J. Waisanen and Amy B. Becker wrote that Biden responded approvingly to comedic portrayals that reinforced his "folksy" public image, which further cultivated that perception.

In 2014, Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg Opinion attributed Biden's image to a combination of The Onion's character and the vice president's own actions and personality.

Brian Feldman at New York magazine wrote that "Biden-joke pedants might point out that the butt-rock-loving Biden of the Onion would probably not be a Wu-Tang Clan fan," but @blippoblappo's tweet "nevertheless carries with it the same myth-making potency: an image that it feels more true than the actual truth.

During the presidential transition of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell referenced the character in a December 2016 speech to the Senate floor delivered in tribute to Biden.

"[71] In June 2019, while giving testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on the topic of "deepfake" imagery, former FBI agent Clint Watts discussed The Onion's manipulated photo of Biden washing a car shirtless.

After he tweeted some of his recent thoughts about the character, Vice published a full op-ed by Garden titled "Area Man Regrets Helping Turn Joe Biden into a Meme".

I wish we had looked more at his actual career in politics—which includes opposition to busing as a way to integrate schools and support for predatory financial institutions—and tried to really puncture him, rather than just turning him into a clown.

Recent articles have tended to focus on real-world developments in the presidential race, such as his frequent gaffes, and issues like public concern over Biden's age and mental acuity.