Dear Reader,

One of my favorite parts of one of my favorite television shows is known as “the couch gag.”

Each episode of “The Simpsons,” the animated series on Fox, opens with a zany ride through the fictional town of Springfield, showing each of the five main characters racing home to plop down in front of the TV set on the family couch. But in each episode, the final frame is different. One time, the couch appeared to be on the moon with the characters in space suits. Another time, the family members were depicted as Mount Rushmore. Silly fun.

But the latest couch gag in American culture is making me wince a little. A false claim was posted on social media last month that GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance had confessed in his memoir to having had sex with a couch. That claim is completely baseless. I have read Hillbilly Elegy, and do not recall anything about a couch. Even the joke’s originator has admitted that the claim is not true. And yet, the reference has gone viral.