Verbal Aggressiveness against Public Figures’ Language: An Analysis of Tweeps’ Comments on Twitter

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Aggressive communicators take opportunities to attack the self-concept of others on Twitter. Among other Twitter users, public figures tend to receive more verbally aggressive comments. This study identified the forms of verbal aggressiveness contained in the tweeps’ comments and analyzed the underlying rationales of the tweeps to express such verbally aggressive behavior. From 120 tweeps’ comments analyzed, character attack was found in 10 tweeps’ comments (8.3 %), competence attack was found in 3 tweeps’ comments (2.5 %), physical appearance attack was found in 22 tweeps’ comments (18.3 %), the dominant kind of verbal aggressiveness—insult was found in 38 tweeps’ comments (31.8 %), the minor kind of verbal aggressiveness—malediction was found in 1 tweep’s comment (0.8 %), teasing was found in 33 tweeps’ comments (27.5 %), and profanity was found in 13 tweeps’ comments (10.8 %). Of all verbal aggressiveness forms, politicians received verbal aggressiveness in the forms of character attack, competence attack, physical appearance attack, insult, teasing, and profanity. Then, celebrities received all kinds of verbal aggressiveness. However, practitioners only received physical appearance attacks, insults, teasing, and profanity. Environmental influence, pseudonymity, and dissatisfaction became the primary rationales of the tweeps to attack the self-presentation of public figures on Twitter.