Laughter through tears: Unprofessional review comments as humor on the ShitMyReviewersSay Twitter account

Abstract

This paper explores the nature of public tweets posted on the ShitMyReviewersSay (@YourPaperSucks) Twitter account. The focus is on the content of recontextualized extracts from peer reviews, as well as the formal properties and the socio-pragmatic functions of the sharing practice on Twitter. The examination of a corpus of tweets (n = 397) yields several types of unprofessional review comments which correspond to the academic users' rationale for sharing them publicly. The most frequent type of review comment is the aggressive one (n = 277), which harshly communicates negative evaluation, quite often in a creative manner (n = 91). This trenchant criticism, also when creatively formulated, represents purposeful acts of impoliteness. Whether or not originally intended to be wittily humorous, review comments publicized on Twitter, prototypically via Tumblr, display humorous potential, which may be boosted through the use of additional verbal commentaries and GIFs. Thus, situated in a different participation framework, the reported review comments are decontextualized and recontextualized in order to be publicly ridiculed and/or disparaged. Thereby, academics engage in solidarity-building, affiliative humor experience, which also gives them a sense of psychological relief.