Social media users going crazy for picture of US Vice President Joe Biden as a young man

THERE’S a good reason why people are losing their minds over this picture of a handsome young man from yesteryear. Who’s the massive hunk?

Two thumbs up for Joe. Vice President Biden on the campaign trail in North Carolina earlier this month. Picture: AP Photo/Chuck Burton

AS the Obama administration enters its final months, Americans’ affection for their Vice President Joe Biden seems to have reached some kind of a tipping point.

Long regarded as a benign, avuncular figure within the government, the popular regard for the Democrat from Delaware — who turns 74 on Sunday — seems to have turned into full blown love.

And lust.

First there were the memes, through which bored and creative social media users imagined all sorts of pranks Biden and President Obama might play on incoming president Donald Trump.

But that was yesterday’s news.

Today, the internet has seized on a series of images of Biden as a much younger man, with social media types losing their minds over his particular brand of smooth-skinned, all-American hotness.

Commenters favoured the word “dime” — American slang for a perfect ten — to sum up their feelings about the pleasantly-groomed young man who would one day grow up to be America’s Deputy Commander-in-Chief.

Young Joe Biden was a dime. People don't draw enough attention to that. pic.twitter.com/O4P0rqhib9

— Noelle St. Louis (@NoelleStLouis) March 21, 2015

young joe biden was a DIME. PIECE pic.twitter.com/Ei3smDbppq

— Common Girl (@SoReIatable) July 31, 2016

young joe biden has me shook pic.twitter.com/CDIVsCLphR

— ️️ (@flowerbraids) November 11, 2016

i just wanna talk about young joe biden for a second pic.twitter.com/XhrKmIj3yr

— alysa (@alysaadonaldson) November 11, 2016

Biden originally shared the photo of himself in the red shirt on his Instagram page a little over two years ago.

“For all the 26 year olds,” Biden commented with characteristic self-deprecation, “short sleeve button-downs are making a comeback, but health care has never gone out of style. Don’t forget to #GetCovered.”

The picture was liked more than 20,000 times and generated more than 3000 comments, many of them smutty in nature.

Photos of a young Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine also started circulating online after the young Biden pictures gained currency.

But Biden is not the first politician to be revered as a sex object years after his physical prime.

Australia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also became the target of unbridled social media love in 2013 when a picture from his days as a student politician in the 1980s surfaced.

The picture, which quickly became known simply as “hot Albo”, led to a spate of other politicians sharing photos of their younger, cuter selves on Throwback Thursdays.

“Hot Albo”, the fresh-faced student politician from the 1980s, and his grown-up equivalent, pictured in 2013.