About

Viral Tweet Advertisement Plugs, or Viral Tweet Promo Plugs, refers to a marketing practice in which resellers pay authors of viral tweets to promote their unrelated products on Twitter. The ubiquity of the practice and instances when tweets about socially important topics were followed by tone-breaking promotions resulted in growing public awareness of the practice, with it becoming a subject of memes and parodies. The so-called Vibrator Twitter Ad gained particular notoriety.

Origin

During summer 2020, a marketing practice where sellers of various products, particularly dropshippers, paid authors of viral tweets to follow up their tweet with a promotion of their product gained popularity on Twitter, with the spread of such tweets promoting "galaxy" custom lights first gaining public attention. On September 9th, 2020, VICE^[1] reported on a company distributing these lights paying up to $50 to creators of viral tweets to promote their product with a follow-up reply.

In late 2020, several other resellers employed the tactic, including distributors of "comfiest" hoodies,^[2] "chubby seal" pillows,^[3] "sunset" lamps^[4] and peel masks^[5] (examples shown below). On December 9th, 2020, Latestly^[6] reposted on the trend.

In late January, tweet advertisements for a vibrator model gained spread,^[7][8] with these tweets gaining particular notoriety on Twitter.

Spread

While separate tweets criticizing or parodying the trend appeared earlier,^[9] it did not become a popular subject of parodies until March 2021. For example, on March 11th, 2021, Twitter^[10] user @Twatical_ posted an ironic Doge meme parodying the practice (shown below). On the same day, Twitter^[11] user @nindbdb made a tweet about a vibrator advertisement being posted under a viral tweet about dealing with personal trauma.

#ad the BEST bubble bath rbg nightlight dildo pic.twitter.com/xrjJcy1zGD

— Twatical (@Twatical_) March 11, 2021

Twitter Vibrator Ad / "Girls! Get THE Best Vibrator From"

Within the parody trend, jokes about the so-called "Twitter Vibrator Ad" gained widespread use, with users sometimes deliberately posting an image of the vibrator under their tweets for humorous purposes.

On March 18th, 2021, Twitter^[12] user @GongWe posted screenshots of "bringing back weird memories from elementary school: a thread" Twitter thread by user @kiiingsleyy in which @kiiingsley posted a promotion for the product. The screenshots received over 930 retweets and 25,000 likes (shown below, left). On March 20th, 2021, rapper Lil Nas X parodied the promotions, with his tweet^[13] gaining over 1,400 retweets and 67,700 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References