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Going viral

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Going viral

Or what did I learn from having a banger on Twitter

Kavir Kaycee
Nov 30, 2022
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Going viral

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Hey folks! 👋🏽 Kavir here. Welcome back to another edition of The Discourse.

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Last week, I published a tweet that went like this: 

Twitter avatar for @kavirkaycee
Kavir  @kavirkaycee
All I need is a city with the people of Delhi, Bangalore's infra, and Mumbai's weather
7:45 AM ∙ Nov 17, 2022
1,695Likes80Retweets

People who are from India might get the joke. For those outside of India, let me explain. 

I took what’s a popular tweet format of “the best city has the combination of A from X, B from Y, and C from Z”.  

In India, it’s universally accepted that Bangalore has the best weather, Bombay has really good people and is known for the spirit of Mumbai, and Delhi as the capital has the best infrastructure and an interconnected metro system.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a tweet from someone 10 years ago.

Twitter avatar for @RohanDasgupta
Rohan Dasgupta @RohanDasgupta
I want to live in a city that has Delhi's infrastructure, Mumbai's people, Bangalore's weather and Kolkata's culture.
7:07 PM ∙ Dec 30, 2012
8Likes11Retweets

Now I decided to play with people’s minds and break their patterns. I tweeted out a combination that was, let’s just say, less than ideal. I don’t want to offend my Delhi friends and readers to say that I picked the worst out of all the cities, but you get the drift.    

So I flipped it around and voilà, that was the tweet.

The tweet hit 212K impressions, with ~1700 likes, 219 replies, and 239 retweets (most of which were quote tweets dunking on me). While it might not fully classify as viral by established patterns, it was pretty outsized compared to my 3.2K followers. 

Here’s what I learnt:

Sarcasm, not everyone gets it

Some people might say that sarcasm is a higher form of humor because it requires a certain level of intelligence and quick thinking. 

It’s about identifying an established pattern and breaking it. That’s also the premise of standup comedy. 


If you post a sarcastic tweet, 50% of people will get it, 50% will be outraged. Shantanu in a reply to one of my tweets summed it up best:

Twitter avatar for @shantanu_mee
Shantanu Shrivastava @shantanu_mee
@kavirkaycee Sarcasm works like magic on twitter, half engage to correct you and half engage to appreciate it. Results in great engagement. So this was a good one. Keep it up.
6:45 AM ∙ Nov 18, 2022

And this combination works best for virality on a platform like Twitter. Because it prompts people to react, leading to the algorithm thinking that this is something more people need to see. 

The sarcasm has to have a tinge of believability. If it is too direct, people won't buy into it.

From the beginning, it started getting replies which went on either end of the spectrum (I don’t get it, and you're wrong).

The few that got it, really enjoyed!

Twitter avatar for @itexplains_com
Raghav @itexplains_com
@kavirkaycee It's going over everybodys head and I'm loving it
6:43 PM ∙ Nov 17, 2022

People just love correcting!

If you spend time on Twitter, you may have noticed the ‘bad math’ subgenre of tweets, where someone will intentionally miscalculate something to a large order of magnitude. Here is an example of one such tweet: 

Twitter avatar for @greg16676935420
greg @greg16676935420
Instead of spending $44 billion on Twitter @elonmusk could have given everyone in the world $1 billion
10:02 PM ∙ Oct 4, 2022
23,976Likes1,138Retweets

People see this folly and want to chime in and correct it. The people who get that the bad math is intentional step in to correct those who don’t get it. 

In my example, many were like no, this is the correct response. 

Examples: 

Twitter avatar for @iashris
ashris @iashris
@kavirkaycee Bangalore's infra? What infra? You have some of the ugliest buildings, broken roads, poorly constructed roads - just raze the city and rebuild it.
10:48 PM ∙ Nov 17, 2022
Twitter avatar for @abhishek2vedi
Abhishek Dwivedi @abhishek2vedi
@kavirkaycee Wrong mix. Ideal = People of Mumbai + Delhi Infra + Bangalore weather!
10:59 AM ∙ Nov 17, 2022
304Likes9Retweets

People are overly attached to their cities

Moreso than other topics,  the city you choose to live in (or are born in) is very integral to your identity. It’s in your bio, it’s what you tell people when they ask you where you live. 

I don’t know what other topics (apart from sports and politics) are as divisive. Maybe the phone device camp you're in (iOS vs Android) or the desktop (PC vs Mac)

Twitter avatar for @AssijaVarun
Varun Assija @AssijaVarun
@kavirkaycee People of Delhi? Ever risked your life by even unintentionally getting into an argument on the streets of Delhi ?
6:34 AM ∙ Nov 18, 2022
Twitter avatar for @tanmay_shinde99
Tanmay V.S🌈🇮🇳 @tanmay_shinde99
@kavirkaycee Mumbai's weather🙄 For being grilled in Summers & soaked into water in monsoons ?
9:37 AM ∙ Nov 18, 2022
Twitter avatar for @rohansriwastav
Rohan Srivastava @rohansriwastav
@kavirkaycee Blr infra really?
6:59 AM ∙ Nov 18, 2022

Final Thoughts

From this experiment, I have learned that sarcasm can be used to engage people on Twitter, as long as it has a tinge of believability. It’s fun to see people’s reactions, as long as you don’t take it personally. 

The replies to the tweet showed that while some people did not get it, there were others who understood the sarcasm and even corrected those who didn't.

It all boils down to identifying a familiar pattern, and then breaking it.


Thanks to Yihui, Sena Gürdoğan, Dhrumi Savla, and Danver for providing feedback on early drafts of this piece.

📘 Read of the week: My Philosophy of Product Building - Nathan Baschez (11 min)

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— Kavir

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