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Analyzing Viral and Non-Viral Tweets From Twitter Comedians

            What makes a good comedic tweet? Why do some tweets succeed, while others  flop? For these two comedians, Stavros Halkias and Brandon Wardell, Twitter is a large part of their marketing for their careers as a comedian.  I have chosen a selection of tweets that seemed to flop in relation to their follower count, and some tweets which went viral and exploded into other sections of Twitter outside of the direct Twitter comedian sphere.

            First, I will examine the tweets which did not succeed. Take this tweet by Stavros Halkias. Currently, he has 97.4k followers, and at the time of this tweet his follower count was probably approximately 90k. Observe figure one:

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Stavros clearly did not get the follower response which he had hoped for on this tweet, at a measly 0.006% follower engagement. Lets look at Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical pentad to better understand the context and meaning of this tweet. First, we have the agent. This is obviosly Stavros, as it is his tweet. Next, the act. Stavros is calling his baby cousin a “bitch ass” and a “fucking dickhead” for not playing with him. The agency of this tweet is in the form of a picture with a caption, a very popular method for comedic tweets. The scene seems to be a family gathering, as the woman in the righthand corner looks to be watching over Demetri, and Stavros is seeing his extended family. The purpose of this tweet is obviously comedy. Stavros is using hyperbole and irony, calling his cousin mean names that are completely innapropriate to use for a child of his age. This harsh juxtaposition of innapropriate language and a young kid make the tweet odd, and stands out as funny to me. Why didn’t this tweet succeed? I would theorize that the subject matter was too controversial, the language of the tweet seems to have ostrasized some of his audience. The act in this tweet is clearly ironic. The ironic act combined with the tame scene of a family gathering creates a situaiton in which Stavros uses hyperbolic language about his baby cousin. It’s possible that the audience did not pick up on the irony, or Stavros may have struck to close to home in families with young children. The scene here is especiallly polorizing, esepecially in 2020 where many people are not able to have their usual family gatherings. The picture here (agency) may also be contributing to this tweets failure, as it shows a cute little kid being verbally attacked.

            Lets look at another, this one from Brandon Wardell. Observe figure two:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wardell has a larger follower count than Stavros, with a whopping 616.7K followers at the time of this tweet. This particular tweet generated a like reaction from 0.01% of Wardell’s following, which is an unusually low engagement threshold for his usual tweets. Again, I would like to focus on the rhetorical pentad to better understand the tweet. The agent in this case is Brandon Wardell. The act, Wardell going bananas for a fashion collab. The agency is a simple text tweet, open to the whole twitter universe (not a private account). This tweet does not fully explain the scene, but I would imagine the scene Wardell is referring to is a fashion show or store with a collaboration of two brands. The purpose of this tweet is to poke fun at fashion collaborations. Fashion collaborations succeed because they are innovative, not because there are two brand names on the items. I think this tweet failed rhetorically because the scene is not particularly interesting to Wardell’s audience. It is possible that he alienated some of his following by posting about fashion when he usually posts strictly about comedy. It makes sense that if the scene falls flat, the agency and the act will also fail, as the audience cannot relate.

            Now, lets look at some viral tweets. Observe figure 3:

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This tweet by Stavros was much more successful, with a follower engagement score of 0.1%. Turning to the pentad, the agen  this identification resonates with many of his followers. This tweet is also an example of rhetorical remix, as Stavros remixes the Bucks poster with his own overweight, food carrying posture.

 

The last tweet we will look at is figure 4:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Another tweet by Brandon Wardell, this time with an engagment percentage of .16%.  Here, the Agent is Brandon Wardell. The act, listening to a popular Lana Del Rey song and crying. The scene is most likely LA, where the comedian is located and also the location that Lana Del Rey is referring to in her song. The agency is a purley text tweet, with a character count well below the twitter limit. This tweet’s purpose is to laugh about the fact that many people have smoked a ciggarette in California, but the song makes Wardell feel special because he is one of those people. The well known scene combined with a relatable act and a easily accessable agency makles this tweet funny. Wardells clout as a comedic agent also prepares the audience for something funny, so they know what they are getting into with this tweet. This comfortable balance of the pentad makes the tweet accessible and funny. This joke also contains identification, as Wardell is identifying with Lana Del Rey, and so is the audience.

            Both of the failed tweets are punching down, or attacking a person or brand. Because of this negativity these tweets are less sucesssful than the next two tweets, which are self deprecating. Self deprecating humour generally goes over better than attacks on people and brands. Nobody likes watching somebody be put down, and that is part of why the first two tweets failed.

            Daoist rhetoric may offer an explanation to what tweets succeed, and why Twitter is such a popular platform in general with the concept of wu wei (nonaction, spontaneity). Laozi describes this concept well. It was Laozi’ s belief that “deliberately interfering with the natural order of things, rather than allowing things to run their course, would bring about the opposite effect to the one desired.” The problem with Stavros’s first tweet according to Laozi would be that he is interfering with the general order of things, he is bringing contention to the acts of his baby cousin. In his more successful tweet, Stavros embodies spontaneity by taking the opportunity to pose in front of an advertisement, and with a small action he raises his arms to conform to the position in the advertisement. Stavros is also being positive in the second tweet which made it a little more easily readable and enjoyable. In the positive tweet, the audience did not have to understand any irony. In Wardells more popular tweet, he is also embracing spontaneity, capturing his initial reaction to a piece of media (the song by Lana Del Rey). Wu wei is not about doing nothing.What these two comedians have captured through this Daoist technique is the understanding of the universe around them, and the fact that small actions can cause big effects.

            Ridolfo and DeVoss examine the concept of rhetorical velocity in their 2009 piece: “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery.” They sum up the concept of rhetorical velocity as follows: “in the inventive thinking of composing, rhetorical velocity is the strategic theorizing for how a text might be recomposed (and why it might be recomposed) by third parties, and how this recomposing may be useful or not to the short- or long-term rhetorical objectives of the rhetorician.” This idea of remixing and recomposing text is imperative in twitter, with the power of the retweet and the quote tweet. In this way, readers are able to share their favorite tweets and voice their opinions. This power of rhetorical velocity is one of the best tools we can examine to explain why some tweets succeed and others fail.

 

Works Cited:

Burke, K. (1962). A grammar of motives, and A rhetoric of motives. New York: Meridian.

Jim Ridolfo and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss. (2009, January 15). Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery. Retrieved November 05, 2020, from http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/velocity.html

Lu, X. (2011). Rhetoric in ancient China, fifth to third century, B.C.E.: A comparison with classical Greek rhetoric. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.