GIF You’re Happy and You Know It: Reaction GIFs and Images in a Gay Male Twitter Community of Practice

Reaction GIFs and reaction images appear as common multimodal linguistic objects in digitally mediated communication. While past research has tended to focus on the paralinguistic functions of these communicative devices, less attention has been paid to how these digital tools enable their users to strategically enact and embody particular social identities on social media. This article offers a stance-based computer-mediated discourse analysis of a small, gay UK- and Ireland-based Twitter community of practice. Through qualitative analyses of the eight members’ tweets containing reaction GIFs and images (<i>n</i> = 991), as well as their responses to an online survey, this article demonstrates how these self-identified gay men construct four distinct feminine-coded personae: the Sassy Queen, the Hun, the Battle-Axe and the Flamboyant Queer. Each persona exhibits linguistic (e.g., features from British English or African American Language) or stance-based collocations. This analysis identifies common qualities or traits that all four personae possess that these Twitter users may identify with or value, potentially motivating their recurrent constructions. The ability of these non-traditional linguistic resources to conduct identity work is discussed. More broadly, this study foregrounds the significance of social media as a series of digital platforms where online identities are continually developed, (co-)constructed and negotiated.