From mode adoption to saluting a dead kitten

Abstract

There has been some research in what can be broadly described as humor performance in the reactions to humorous turns (be they punch lines or jab lines). Two areas that have received particular attention are (1) the reactions to irony, which have been shown to range from mode adoption (i.e., when the respondent adopts the ironical mode and responds with irony to the irony) to treating the irony as a “literal” statement and reacting to it ignoring its ironical intention; and (2) failed humor, in which the range of reactions is much broader, from laughter to open expression of displeasure. Much less has been written on reactions in online discourse and this case study of one humorous tweet by comedian Ricky Gervais, mocking the Academy Award ceremony (the Oscars), will be examined to examine the differences between a corpus of 200+ tweets as responses to Gervais’ original tweet, and proviso studies. We will also consider how much the exchange can be quantified as to its viral nature.