A top Donald Trump staffer has shared a toe-curling post using an old Tumblr motto to try to look badass in the wake of Vanity Fair’s astonishing White House feature.
Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, 49, posted a heavily edited photograph of government officials, including himself, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance, taken for the multi-part story
The magazine wrote a series of articles centered on key administration personnel, leading to astonishing revelations from his boss, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who likened Trump to an alcoholic and said Vance was a fan of conspiracy theories.
“You want to make me the villain?” the video states against a picture of the officials. “Fine, I’ll be the villain in your story, just don’t forget the f–king chapter where you created me,” it continues before breaking into a heavily base-boosted cover of Eurythmics’s “Sweet Dreams.”
The slogan is an ultra-online meme that has been circulating in internet communities for more than a decade. Its exact origins are hazy, though it’s thought to have begun on Tumblr, a social media platform historically loved by teenagers.
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) December 18, 2025
As is often the case with internet culture, it has been reused, reimagined, and rejigged countless times, all leading up to the moment it ended up on Scavino’s X account.
A variation of the motto even appeared in Netflix’s Shadow and Bone series, where “Fine, make me your villain” was uttered by a character called The Darkling, a wielder of virtuoso power who uses sinister magic to twist a nation for his own gain, blighting the lives of all who live there.
Scavino’s meme, which is pinned to the top of his feed at the time of writing, wasn’t made by him.
It was created by the Dilly Meme team, which was behind Trump’s bizarre “Fear the Reaper” AI slop video featuring him in a hood and wielding a bell, alongside Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, dressed as the Grim Reaper.
The post comes amid a tough week on the internet for Scavino, who publicly expressed his displeasure at people being mean about his haircut in the Vanity Fair shoot, after it was likened to that of a member of the Hitler Youth.
An image of it was posted on X by CNN commentator Adam Kinzinger, which was then commented on by PAC The Lincoln Project, which said, “This Hitler youth a– haircut…”
“They know exactly what referring to me as Hitler does with 2.8 million followers,” Scavino fumed. “These are some sick and twisted bastards…” he said in a post just before midnight.
Scavino, who in September used the White House Lawn as a set to film his seemingly choreographed proposal to State Department Director of Art in Embassies, Erin Elmore, wasn’t alone in his fury at the Vanity Fair images.
His fiancée’s boss, Rubio, hit out at the close-ups, saying, “It is obvious to most people that Vanity Fair deliberately manipulated pictures.”
Photographer Christopher Anderson has clapped back, however, telling The Independent, “Very close-up portraiture has been a fixture in a lot of my work over the years. Particularly, political portraits that I’ve done over the years. I like the idea of penetrating the theater of politics.”
— Erin Elmore, Esq. (@ErinElmore) September 25, 2025
Since the images dropped, officials have been trying to own the shoot. In a post on Wednesday, Rubio shared a photo of himself standing with his hands at his sides, awkwardly leaning forward as he appears to stretch.
“#NewProfilePic,” he said. At the time of writing on Thursday, it still is. Rubio was then dunked on by his possible 2028 primary rival Vance, who had offered Anderson money to make Rubio look worse than him during the shoot.
“I guess I owe that guy $1,000,” he wrote in the comments.
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