Imagined Audience

With the growing integration of social media into everyday life, Twitter has become a significant platform for representing users’ lived experiences, particularly during cultural and religious occasions. This study aims to analyze the content of highly engaged tweets posted between March 18 and April 7, coinciding with Nowruz and the month of Ramadan. From among Persian-language tweets that received more than 1,000 likes, 225 tweets were purposefully selected and examined using both qualitative and quantitative content analysis methods. The findings reveal that three main themes—family relationships, humor, and cultural events—had the highest frequency. Among the humor styles, self-enhancing and affiliative humor were the most prevalent, and women participated more actively than men in narrating their everyday experiences. The results further indicate that Twitter serves not only as a platform for entertainment but also as a space for emotional expression, social critique, and identity representation in the presence of an imagined audience. This study highlights the role of humor as a psychological and social strategy for coping with challenging situations and contributes to a deeper understanding of cultural dynamics within the digital space.