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Twitter Ethnography

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Twitter Ethnography:
Settle Down Kids Tour Hashtag and Replies

Victoria Lyman
Professor Schrier
Online Culture

Twitter Ethnography

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Introduction
The community I have been observing for 2 weeks is the members of the YouTube group
Settle Down Kids and their fans via Twitter. Settle Down Kids, known by the acronym SDK, are
a group of 6 boys, Adam Buongiovanni, Nick Buongiovanni, Joey Gatto, Josh Sobocinski, Jonah
Green, and Ryan Abe, who make all types of videos on their YouTube channel with over 200k
subscribers. Joined by fellow youtubers Josh Chomik and Nolan Emme, they recently went on
their first tour from September 18th to October 2nd across the east coast and Canada. Their
shows are filled with everything from rap performances, Jonah singing, and improvisation
sketches. During this time, I followed the hashtag #sdkontour via Twitter, as well as the
members tweets and how the fans interacted with them. Their main fan demographic is teen
girls ages 13 to 18. My original methodology for observing the hashtag was during show times,
so around 7pm on most nights depending where the show was that night. As the tour went on my
methodology changed due to the inactivity during show times. I realized the hashtag was more
active the day after shows so I began observing at random times during the daytime across the
two weeks. As for the guys tweets, I waited till the end of the tour to go through all their Twitter
pages and view tweets that were specifically about shows and cities they were in.
Findings
The hashtag #sdkontour started at the end of the first show on September 18th in New
York. The groups close friend Eric came on stage after the show was over and told everyone to
use the hashtag on Twitter to talk about how much fun they had. Right away I noticed similar
themes in the fans tweets. I saw tons and tons of tweets that had variations of best night of my
life and best time ever. (e.g: https://twitter.com/tesscardona24/status/645032559605358592)
Almost all of the tweets for the first 15 or so minutes were just everyone talking about how much

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of a great time they had. Many people were using the hashtag to encourage their followers to
buys tickets for other shows. People were even providing the link to buy tickets when
encouraging their followers. (e.g: https://twitter.com/coffeechomik/status/645033358058233856)
As time passed the hashtag began to fill with various photos and videos from the show. Much of
the hashtag was filled with selfies of fans with Josh Chomik, members of the opening band
ARIZONA, special guests Keith Santagato & Reed Alexander, and friends of SDK, Eric, Breezy
(real name Chris), Stephen, & Jimmy. All of the videos being tweeted were videos of the guys
performing their original comedy raps on stage. (e.g:
https://twitter.com/Heidiv93/status/645071097646460928) After the hashtag had been going on
for about an hour photos from the meet & greet with SDK began appearing. (e.g:
https://twitter.com/mostlymannn/status/645063326280622081) The SDK official Twitter
account (@SettleDownKids) retweeted a handful of photos from the night that had the hashtag
included. Also SDKs friends Josh Chomik, Eric, and Breezy used the hashtag in some of their
tweets as well as interacted with fans who used it. I noticed the guys in SDK did not really
interact with the hashtag at all. With each show I noticed similar themes to the first show
because each show was very similar besides the special guests who showed up. Almost every
night had meet & greet pictures tweeted with the hashtag attached. I also continued to see tweets
of fans stating it was the best night or the best concert. Throughout the tour I also saw fans
use the hashtag to tweet out pictures of merchandise they bought at the show. (e.g:
https://twitter.com/Fedex_shoey/status/645410311848230912) The hashtag was majorly used by
people who actually attended shows, though I did see a scatter few tweets throughout from fans
saying they wished they could go to a show but couldnt either due to money, location, or not
having a way to get there. (e.g: https://twitter.com/SDKcommunity/status/645949628232261632)

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Another popular form of tweets with the hashtag were having four pictures to sum up a fans
night at the show. (e.g: https://twitter.com/sowrongitsbre/status/646487045968281600) Twitters
design makes it easy for people to share their experience at the shows with their friends via the
photo and video options.
During almost every show, SDKs friend Breezy would come start off the show by
making pancakes and throwing them out into the audience. Pancakes are a running gag with the
fans of SDK as the guys mention them in various raps and videos they make. At previous
YouTube events they have had Breezy come along and make pancakes on stage to fling out into
the audience while they perform so it was expected to happen on this tour. Throughout the tour
tons of tweets came in about pancakes via the hashtag. Some were photos of fans with Breezy
praising him for making pancakes. (e.g:
https://twitter.com/sighavery/status/647653443809624068) While other fans were posting
pictures and videos catching pancakes during the show. (e.g:
https://twitter.com/Heidiv93/status/645073093682155520)
As for replies to the members tweets about each show I noticed no matter whos tweet it
was and what show was happening they all had very similar replies from fans. Almost every
tweet had replies from fans that said some variation of have fun or hope youre having fun!
(e.g: https://twitter.com/sdkgrande/status/645330105934479364,
https://twitter.com/ayesobo/status/647585435531771905) I believe fans reply things like this
because many of them receive happiness from watching SDKs videos so seeing the guys happy
makes them happy. They want nothing but the best for these guys who put smiles on their faces
so fans want them to enjoy whatever they are doing. Also, every tweet had a mix of replies from
fans who were going/went to a show and fans who were not going. It seemed like an exact split

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amount of attending and not attending with each set of replies. Most people who were not
attending had tweets like wish I could be there or wish you were coming here. (e.g:
https://twitter.com/youtubeismybf/status/646431149649199108) Although many replies were
not always fans attending the specific show mentioned in the tweet, there were several replies
similar to see you in [x] days (e.g:
https://twitter.com/kariniweenie/status/645256892738965504) or I miss you because their
show was over. (e.g: https://twitter.com/sdktangorraa/status/645780419003215872) While if a
tweet was posted after a show, many replies stated something like thanks for a great night!
(e.g: https://twitter.com/sdkorbiebs/status/645075594338791424) I believe this community waits
for shows or events and this is why all of their tweets under the hashtag and replies to the
members are like this.
Community
Most of these people are hardcore fans and they live for these shows and wait months
to meet these guys who they watch daily on their computers. They turn to Twitter because they
can converse with the guys of SDK and other fans. It lets them connect with people they would
not usually be able to connect with because they live in different places all over the world
(Gratton, 2012). Through Twitter and the hashtag #sdkontour, fans can experience all the shows
of the tour even if they cannot attend any of them due to their location. Twitter is also the easiest
way for them to directly contact SDK if they cannot meet them in person at a show.
Changes
With SDK being a group of YouTube creators, everything they do is documented with
social media. Twitter is one of the biggest social media platforms and is used by thousands of
YouTubers to expand their brand. This was SDKs first tour by themselves and it was mostly on

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the east coast. Before their tour started they said that if this tour was successful they would be
able to do more shows and expand to other places such as the west coast and Europe. They most
likely started the hashtag at the first stop so they could measure how well the tour was doing
(other than just attendance and ticket/merchandise sales) as well as advertise for people to come
to other shows. In this day and age, plus the teenage demographic of this community, using the
hashtag is the easiest way for anyone to advertise (Foland, 2015). We also use community
thinking to help us decide on something we want to do if we see people say good things about it
online (Armstrong & Stojmirovic, 2011.) I believe SDKs goal with this hashtag was to inspire
enough people to attend for a successful tour so they can tour again in the future. Although this
seemed like a great idea, as their tour continued on the hashtag became less and less active.
NYC (first show), Philadelphia (second show), and Orlando (fourth show) had the most action
on the hashtag. The Virginia show (third on the schedule) was most likely the smallest show and
had no tweets in the hashtag. After the Orlando show the hashtag began to die out. Although
the last tour stop, Boston, was one of their biggest shows according to SDKs tweets, only one
tweet with the hashtag was posted and it was not from anyone in attendance. I believe this has to
do with the fact that SDK did not tweet the hashtag at all. I attended the NYC show so I knew
that was how the hashtag started but I am unsure if it was mentioned at shows after that. I
believe if the guys had promoted the hashtag via their own Twitter accounts and in-person at the
shows it would have stayed active. Foland (2015) says that using fun ways to incorporate
hashtags into advertising, such as using a physical act or a recognizable image, helps your
presence on social media stay postive. I believe SDK could have come up with several ways to
incorporate their hashtag more throughout the tour. The easiest way for them would have been to
make a YouTube video telling fans to use the hashtag at the shows and posting it to Twitter via

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all their accounts as well as the group account. This would have informed fans attending and not
attending shows about the hashtag since all of their fans come from their YouTube subscribers.
With the hashtag I could see that most of the fans were being discouraged to participate
due to not being able to attend. If SDK decided to livestream their shows via Twitters
livestreaming app Periscope or another livestream application, fans that could not attend could be
invovled in the conversation. Even if they could not watch live, the saved recorded version
would most likely get more views anyway (Garfield, 2010). This would encourage everyone to
participate with the hashtag and would keep fans interested no matter where they are located.
Conclusion
Overall I believe the fans of SDK really care about the members and enjoy sharing their
show experiences via Twitter. I believe the hashtag could have been executed better in order to
get the most from it throughout the entirety of the tour. If SDK had livestreamed their shows or
tweeted the hashtag on their accounts frequently during tour then I believe their would have been
more advertisement for them and more communication between the fans. I believe this would
have also encouraged all fans to use the hashtag and not just fans attending shows. The themes
that came across show me that the fans really enjoy the shows, meeting the guys, and catching
pancakes. Although a livestream would have been a great addition, Twitter is definitely the best
choice for this kind of community.

References

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Armstrong, H., & Stojmirovic, Z. (2011). Participate : Designing with User-Generated Content.
New York, NY, USA: Princeton Architectural Press. Retrieved from
http://www.ebrary.com

Foland, R. (2015, September 29). Bringing Your Hashtags to Life. Retrieved October 6, 2015.

Garfield, S. (2010). Get Seen : Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business. Hoboken, NJ,
USA: John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com

Gratton, S. (2012). Follow Me! Creating a Personal Brand with Twitter. Somerset, NJ, USA:John
Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com

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