“Your funny don’t land”: impoliteness and resonance in YouTube comments towards a stand-up comedian

Abstract

The expressive freedom of social media often results in impoliteness. Interestingly, impoliteness can also appear creatively through the blending of original utterances with reused words or structures to create resonance. This study explores two research questions: (1) How do YouTube users express impoliteness toward an Asian American stand-up comedian’s performance, particularly regarding Malaysia and the MH370 tragedy? (2) Do these comments exhibit resonance, and if so, how does resonance function within their impoliteness strategies? Employing thematic analysis, this qualitative study categorizes 118 comments using Culpeper’s impoliteness triggers and Tantucci’s dialogic categorization model to identify resonance patterns. The findings reveal that users predominantly employed insults, unpalatable questions, pointed criticisms, sarcasm, and form-driven impoliteness triggers in response to the performance. Resonance was observed as users creatively echoed the comedian’s name, original joke lines, and nationality to insult and criticize her. Such strategies encouraged others to imitate or escalate face-threatening acts. Users also disguised offensive language by altering spellings to bypass content moderation, which enables the viral spread of impoliteness. Such acts not only foster impolite online behaviour but may also influence younger users to adopt similar means of avoiding repercussions. Thus, this study is crucial in understanding how impoliteness and resonance contribute to the spread of hostile discourse on social media. Its contribution lies in foregrounding the creative nature of impoliteness, particularly in multilingual contexts. By focusing on Malaysian English and Malay, this study enriches the field of pragmatics and socio-discursive dynamics of social media communication.