Bad Taste on the Everything App: Investigating Corporate Twitter Accounts’ Use of Countercultural Consumer Subjectivity as a Populist Rhetorical Strategy

Abstract

Several corporate social media accounts have recently practiced uncouth and eclectic approaches to social media practice to promote engagement and demonstrate the authenticity of their brands. This paper introduces paradiastolic personae as a rhetorical device used by fast food social media accounts to reframe crude, unprofessional behavior into virtues of authenticity. I analyze a recent trend in corporate social media engagement that marks a turn away from a dispassionate advertising model to personalized practices of memeing and shitposting. Using a critical rhetorical analysis of corporate Twitter accounts, I argue that these accounts constitute their consumer base by appealing to countercultural signifiers of rebellion, unprofessionalism, and anti-work sentimentality, and organize narratives of post-ironic disidentification from elite perceptions of taste while elevating fast food consumption to a normative ideal.