An Analysis of Entertaining Impoliteness Employed by Influencers on Social Media in Thai Context

การวิเคราะห์ความไม่สุภาพเพื่อความบันเทิงของผู้ส่งเสริมการขายบนสื่อสังคมออนไลน์ในบริบทของไทย

Abstract

The objective of this article was to analyze entertaining impoliteness employed by influencers via Thai social media according to the Entertaining Impoliteness Framework postulated by Jonathan Culpeper (2011). The data was collected through Social media influencers. Internet Celebrities, YouTubers, and Online Gamers broadcast from various sources in social media, e.g., YouTube, Facebook, etc. which received a huge frequency of ratings, followers, and feedback. The result revealed that there were four entertaining impolite characteristics: the emotions of pleasure, Aesthetic pleasure, Voyeuristic pleasure, and the Pleasure of being superior. In this study, Voyeuristic pleasure seems to be the only type that relied on the framework in terms of the emotional schadenfreude which affected those who were observed and threatened.  On the contrary, the three types of entertaining impoliteness: emotional and aesthetic pleasure, and also the pleasure of being superior seem to be irrelevant according to the framework because Thais had interpreted impoliteness for entertaining purposes from an opposite perspective as a regular thing which enabled one to arouse, attract, entertain, and amuse as part of normal interaction and communication conventions.