Paper presented at IR14, Denver, CO. 24 October 2013.

1. News via Voldemort:
The role of parody and satire in
topical discussions on Twitter
Tim Highfield
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
Queensland University of Technology | Curtin University
Brisbane, Australia | Perth, Australia
t.highfield @ qut.edu.au
@timhighfield
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/ | http://socialmedia.qut.edu.au

2. GUIDING QUESTIONS
• What is the role of parody/gimmick/humour accounts in
discussion of news?
• Do they act as bridges or form separated, disconnected
takes on news?
• Are the same roles carried out across multiple topics?
• How does topical content relate to these accounts‟
„usual‟ tweets?

3. #OVERLYHONESTMETHODS
• This research is a by-product of accumulated studies
into discussions on Twitter about politics, popular
culture, live broadcasts, sport, crises…
– An accidental paper, with impetus provided by serendipity
– Also a very exploratory paper, providing some initial
comments on some of the questions raised and ideas for
further exploration…

4. #OVERLYHONESTMETHODS

5. OVERVIEW
• Parody accounts and their ilk are “part of the fabric” of
Twitter (Vis, 2013)
– Three of 25 most-mentioned accounts discussing 2011 UK
riots on Twitter were fake/spoof accounts
• Neither new nor Twitter-specific, though
– Creation of MySpace accounts „as‟ fictional
characters, mixing the personal and the original text
(Booth, 2010)
– Gimmick accounts prevalent on message
boards, fora, comments sections

6. OVERVIEW
• Cultural context
– Creation of fake/parody accounts as a memetic practice on
Twitter
• Memetic: “extensive user engagement by way of creative
derivatives” (Shifman, 2012)
– Breaking news, cultural phenomena, gaffes, quickly
followed by accounts spoofing events
• Meta-meme/trope of Twitter?
• Not limited to any one field
– Political parodies well-established, but not the only fake
contributors to discussions on Twitter

7. (INITIAL) TYPOLOGY
• Character-specific
– e.g. Lord_Voldemort7
• Public figure-specific
– Queen_UK, YourMateColin
• Parodying an idea/stereotype of a type of person
– NotTildaSwinton, MatureAge
• Organisation/non-human
– DeathStarPR, SarcasticRover, https://twitter.com/Exciting_Perth
• Topic-specific (including character/figure/thing) – more short-lived?
– Subiaco_Cat, Hoyts_Mouse, PerthMillipede, numerous Obama
chair accounts…
• Hoax – deliberately malicious
• Role-playing
• …

8. METHODS
• Exploratory study, for further development
• A mixture of manual and automated data collection and
analysis, covering multiple datasets since 2011
• For automated collection and analysis:
– yourTwapperKeeper
– Gawk scripts, Gephi (see Mapping Online Publics)
• Augmented by manual capture

9. GENERAL AND TOPICAL

10. GENERAL AND TOPICAL
• Eurovision – the reach of @queen_uk: red nodes are those directly
linked to @queen_uk; blue: @planet_jedward; green:
@bbceurovision; yellow: @loreen_talhaoui; pink: @eurovision

11. GENERAL AND TOPICAL
• Armstrong (keyword dataset) (25-26 August) – some Lance
Armstrong, death of Neil Armstrong:
– red (@lord_voldemort7)
– green (@nbcnightly)

12. GENERAL AND TOPICAL
• Tour de France
– Presence of parody accounts for (Australian) presenters
– Fostered by familiarity with broadcast
– Tropes of the coverage, captive audience (three weeks
of racing)
– Topic-specific; limited non-cycling/sport coverage?

13. TOPICALITY OF PARODY ACCOUNTS
• Five months of tweets (May-October 2013) from
@queen_uk, @lord_voldemort7, @deathstarpr

14. TOPICALITY OF PARODY ACCOUNTS
Lord_Voldemort7
Queen_UK
DeathStarPR
Original tweets
165
605
146
RTs of others
2
2
9
Replies
0
1
43
Total
167
608
198
Tweets per day
1.07
3.90
1.27

15. TOPICALITY OF PARODY ACCOUNTS
lord_voldemort7
queen_uk
Topical
HP
Character-specific
Trending
Topical
Self-promotion
(web content)
Sponsored
Other
self-promotion
(shop)
RT
sponsored
Promo
deathstarpr
RT
StarWars
reply
Topical
Self-promotion (web content)
RT
Trending
MT
Self-promotion (purchase)

16. TOPICALITY OF PARODY ACCOUNTS
Lord_Voldemort7
Queen_UK
DeathStarPR
n
RTs (mean)
Faves (mean)
n
RTs (mean)
Faves (mean)
n
Topical
35
3982.71
1864.14
392
794.05
220.93
41
949.88
248.98
RT
2
2315.50
1611.50
2
139.00
53.50
9
733.67
128.00
Character-specific
66
2907.68
1595.73
143
554.74
168.45
88
609.00
234.61
Trending
41
2164.93
1114.71
2
335.50
140.50
1
95.00
55.00
MT
Self-promo (web)
1
76.00
155.00
RTs (mean) Faves (mean)
109.45
42.37
13
27.31
34.46
17
97.71
50.41
1
14.00
13.00
17.00
Self-promo (shop)
49
23.00
43
5.28
10.09
703.20
168.20
Reply
Sponsored
16
93.19
103.19
Other
6
2251.67
924.50
5

17. TOPICALITY OF PARODY ACCOUNTS
• Cross-over:
– Celebrity and gossip:
• Kim Kardashian and Kanye West named their child "North
West". It's like you WANT us to destroy your planet. [1541 |
377]
• One can confirm that the new Royal baby will not be called
North West. This is mainly because William and Catherine
are not morons. [4036 | 1061]
• So I'm assuming that North West won't be a One
Direction fan? [28424 | 11276]
• If Prince William and Kate Middleton have a daughter and
DON'T call her Princess Leia, they're wasting everybody's
time. #RoyalBaby [1626 | 380]

18. TOPICALITY OF PARODY ACCOUNTS
• Cross-over:
– Breaking news:
• Text from Ed Miliband: "Delighted Catherine has joined labour.
Together we will rebuild Britain" Absolute idiot. [8135 | 2057]
• The half-blood prince has been born as the seventh month dies.
#RoyalBaby [6464 | 2909]
• Due to our govt shutdown, the following non-essential depts are
closed: education, health, welfare. Planet exploding to continue
as normal. [893 | 257]
• American Government started to shut down. Not sure what the
fuss is. Italian Government shut down about 40 years ago and
no one's noticed. [2406 | 714]
• Clearly this whole "shut down" is just the US government's way
of hiding the dementor attacks. [5133 | 2089]

19. TOPICALITY OF PARODY ACCOUNTS
• Cross-over:
– Geek and tech culture:
• Just upgraded to #iOS7 and now our exhaust port force field is
on the fritz. Oh well, what are the chances of Rebels attacking
us n [636 | 222]
• Dear most of the world, there will be a short break in leadership
whilst one downloads iOS 7. This will take approximate seven
years. EIIR [1610 | 503]
• George R. R. Martin is avada kedavraing more people? He's
about three deaths away from being called a Dark Lord. [2524 |
1102]
• George R. R. Martin kills more people than the Death Star.
#GameofThrones [1174 | 323]
• One is not the next Dr Who. [1099 | 299]
• Ben Affleck as Batman will be the opposite of "movie magic."
That is "movie muggles.“ [1485 | 595]

20. INITIAL POINTS/FURTHER DIRECTIONS
• Topical coverage attracts more RTs/favourites than other
comments
– Extends audience? Appeals to more users than account‟s
usual comments?
• Thematic framing around subject of interest provides original
take on news – encourages RTing in addition to/in place of
news organisations?
• Importance of humour to news coverage – type of event
important, although an audience for humour/satire/black
humour – see also comedians, for instance
• Types of event vs. types of account – celebrity news
(and trending topics) more common fodder than politics?

21. INITIAL POINTS/FURTHER DIRECTIONS
• Limited engagement with other accounts?
– DeathStarPR the exception here, with 40+ @replies over
the five months
– This applies too to other parody accounts – despite there
being accounts for other royals/HP characters, the Queen
and Voldemort do not engage with them
• DeathStarPR mentions/RTs @JerkSuperman, but this
account is by the same people?
– Parody operates in a bubble?
• Participating in social discussions (e.g. #eurovision) and
attracting/encouraging RTs, but not responding to audience
or surroundings?

22. INITIAL POINTS/FURTHER DIRECTIONS
• Parody as meta-commentary
– Established parody accounts dismissing the inevitable
influx of new parody accounts in response to breaking
news (staying in character as the „real‟ (fake) subject?)
• Impact of reporting on Twitter activity by news outlets
– Drives spikes in RTing/favouriting?
– Aggregating humorous tweets in response to news stories
may lead to increased audience for these tweets/accounts
• Getting more coverage and reaction in this way may
encourage further topical commentary? (albeit brief
engagement with topics)

23. http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
http://socialmedia.qut.edu.au/
@snurb_dot_info
@jeanburgess
@_StephenH
@DrTNitins
@timhighfield
@cdtavijit
@lena_sauter
@dpwoodford
@tsadkowsky
@socialmediaQUT