The tendency of parody authors to create variations on a theme can be clearly observed in parodic reviews of the AutoExec Steering Wheel Work Tray. According to its Amazon description, the Work Tray is designed to be attached to a vehicle’s steering wheel “for the mobile worker on the road, needing support for their tablet or a great place to write.” Presumably, the Steering Wheel Work Tray is intended to be used while a vehicle is stationary; however, this is not indicated anywhere in its Amazon product description. Nearly all authors of parodies about this product seize on this oversight and create humor by describing their specific uses of the steering tray while driving. In fact, 19 of the 20 parody reviews of this product include the expression while driving or related variants, such as whilst driving on the freeway, while changing lanes, or while navigating the modern motorway. These examples represent a specific variation of the “using-the-product-for-some-use-other-than-that-for-which-it-was-intended” trope, which appears in parody reviews for other products as well.

One of the most salient features of parody reviews of the Steering Wheel Work Tray is the carnivalesque, frequently in the form of gallows humor. In parodies of this particular product, authors construct mock narratives which feature the narrators, while driving, engaging in clearly inappropriate and unsafe multi-tasking activities, such as reloading a handgun, mixing cocktails, reading Braille, ironing, playing guitar, and so on. On occasion, such humorous scenarios become even more transgressive when, as a consequence of these activities, narrators lose control of and crash their vehicle, are pulled over by police, or hit and kill pedestrians. In one characteristically transgressive text, the author refers to carrying out multiple inappropriate activities while driving: consuming alcohol, sleeping, and engaging in sexual acts. Example 1 shows an excerpt from this text.

Example 1

Wow is this thing great! I use it as a ‘mini-bar’ when the friends and I go out to the bars. I can quickly fix multiple shots of tequila for myself and the friends as we drive from one bar to the next. We also discovered that if you place a pillow on top of it and turn on the cruise control you can catch quick naps on the interstate. If you swerve to the left or right the rumble strips on the road wake you up in plenty of time before you get into trouble. I can now take longer trips without being tired! Also, i am now dating a midget and she fits nicely on the steering wheel desk which allows us to experiment sexually while driving… [Steering Tray, 9:10/26/2009]

Rather than projecting an identity of a confused consumer, in this instance the parody’s author enacts a nonchalant self, as he casually describes a series of illicit behaviors. He shifts between first and second person pronominal reference, as he alternates between describing his own (imagined) actions, and presenting possibilities for the product’s use to other consumers who may be reading the review. The implicit critiques in parodies of the Steering Wheel Work Tray target the widespread social phenomenon of multi-tasking, or maximizing time efficiency by engaging in two or more activities simultaneously – in this case, while operating a moving vehicle. More specifically, these parodies mock a product that could be interpreted as promoting such irresponsible and dangerous behaviors.

Example 2, another parody review of this product, describes the dangerous activity of placing a baby on the steering wheel tray while driving.

Example 2

I read some 4 and 5 star reviews by those who used this device successfully to change a baby while driving. On that basis, I bought one. I put my baby on it and drove for over an hour. It did not change. Same baby. I am glad it worked for some people but I will be returning mine. (The steering wheel desk.) [Steering Tray, 6: 11/22/2009]

In this highly heteroglossic example, the parody’s author plays with both the product-specific trope – i.e., not understanding that the Steering Wheel Tray should not be used while driving – and the idea of being “confused” (or not very clever) when it comes to matters of linguistic ambiguity. The author projects an identity of an irresponsible driver who has placed an infant on top of the steering tray for an hour while driving. Furthermore, by making an intertextual reference to having read other reviews (a characteristic of non-parodic reviews, as noted earlier), he exploits lexical ambiguity related to the word “change.” Acting as though he has not understood that previous reviewers’ references to “change a baby” meant “change a baby’s diaper,” he comically implies that he was waiting for the baby itself to “change,” in the sense of becoming transformed into a different baby. The author plays with linguistic ambiguity once more at the end of the text, where he makes reference to the possible anaphoric referents of mine – and clarifies that he meant the steering wheel desk, not the baby.

While nearly all authors of parodies about this product project identities of drivers who are highly irresponsible in one or more ways, a smaller set of authors construct even more specific narrative identities related to their (presumably imagined) occupational roles. For instance, the author of Example 3 claims to be an airplane pilot who uses the steering tray to hold a laptop in the cockpit, so that he can play the video game World of Warcraft while on the job.

Example 3

My copilot and I both used these during our ‘daily grind’ transcontinental flights from San Diego to Minneapolis. We had to modify them a bit to fit snug against the instrument panels (when we bought them we didn't realize the planes we fly don't have steering wheels!), but in the end it did the job. With our laptops firmly in place we were able to focus our attention on what really mattered, participating in raids with our WoW clan… [Steering Tray, 7:11/4/2009]

Similarly, in Example 4, the author claims to be a school bus driver, who uses the product to check email and social media while driving.

Example 4

Believe it or not, I'm typing this review on my laptop steering wheel desk! As a school bus driver I was never be able to check my email and update facebook while at work. Now I am networking more than ever! I am recommending this product to the school board later this month. [Steering Tray, 11: 11/11/2009]

The way in which many of these authors begin their reviews – with an explicit identity claim (e.g., As a school bus driver…, My co-pilot and I…) – is very similar to what occurs in many non-parodic reviews (not only on Amazon, but also on other sites) as review writers claim situationally-relevant identities in order to contextualize their evaluation of a given product or service (Vásquez, 2014). In doing so, authors of parodies demonstrate their knowledge of online reviewing conventions; it is also this crafting of a fictional identity which enables them to engage in double-voicing throughout the text (e.g., it seems highly unlikely that a professional bus driver or airplane pilot would put passengers’ lives in jeopardy by engaging in such behaviors – and even less likely that they would admit to doing so publicly).

Moreover, the near-identical content and structural presentation of Examples 3 and 4 – i.e., the mention of a specific occupational role (school bus driver, commercial pilot) followed by a description of engaging in specific online activities while on-the-job – suggests that parody authors are relying on intertextual processes in the discourse structuring of their texts. In these cases – and in others, as will be discussed in the next section – it is possible that one (or more) parody review(s) serves as a model for other parody reviews of the same product. When this happens, authors create a sense of ambient affiliation, not only by showing that they recognize what is humorous about these texts, but also that they are skilled enough to produce a variant of the dominant trope associated with a given product.

Some authors creatively recontextualize Amazon’s product descriptions in their parody reviews. This is often the case with another popularly-parodied product: the BIC Cristal for Her Ball Pen. Amazon’s description of this product – a package of several pastel-colored ball-point pens filled with black ink – appears as five bulleted points, two of which read “Elegant design - just for her!” and “Thin barrel to fit a woman's hand.” Several authors of parodies play with these descriptors, by crafting reviews in which they intertextually refer to their own hands as tiny, delicate, weak, or womanly, as well as by referencing other types of “for her” products (e.g., not-so-fresh-feeling, curvy and carefree, heavy flow days, with wings). Also included in this set of parodies are references to female body parts (e.g., having a sprained uterus, my lady parts).

Similar to the Steering Tray parody examples, the following Bic for Her examples show how once a norm becomes established, it is taken up and reworked by other authors writing parodies of the same product. The majority of parody reviews of the BIC for Her Pen adopt a first-person narrative perspective, most often formulated as a pithy “small story” of 2-3 sentences. Humor is typically created through exaggeration and the pushing of stereotypes to absurd extremes. As Ray (2016) pointed out in his corpus-based study, many Bic for Her parodies invoke traditional gender roles and stereotypes, expressed as references to sewing, cooking, baking, knitting, shopping, and being dependent on/at the service of men, as seen in Examples 5 and 6.

Example 5

I'd really like to buy a pack of these pens; but I probably need my father's or husband's permission first. Like I do with all my financial decisions. [Bic, 4: 11/28/2013]

Example 6

These pens do not sparkle enough. I would write more, but I need to go make my husband a sandwich. [Bic, 17: 4/12/2013]

Both of these examples are written from an implied female perspective. Both authors’ relational identities are created by their first-person references to my husband, in combination with one or more gender stereotypes (e.g., needing permission from one’s husband to make a purchase, liking objects that sparkle). In other instances, parody authors claim a gendered identity in even more explicit terms, as in Example 7.

Example 7

First of all I'm a male. I picked a pink one up by mistake to write a quick note... Next thing I know I'm sitting down to take a pee. Be careful. [Bic, 12: 8/27/2012]

Here, the author adopts the persona of a man, who accidentally uses this pink “female” product and consequently, engages in a behavior normally associated with women (i.e., sitting down to take a pee). This author follows his concise narrative with a warning to others. The humor here – and in other parodies similar to this one – is based on comically implying a causal relationship: using a “for her” product resulting in noticeable changes in one’s behavior and/or biology.

What all parodies of the BIC for Her Pen have in common is their orientation to gender politics, emphasizing the critical dimension of parody. Therefore, this particular set of parodies – most often, ironic imagined narratives, replete with gender stereotypes – can be viewed as public responses to marketers’ efforts intended to “gender” a gender-neutral product: in this case, a pen. Such an interpretation is supported by the commentary of other review texts that exist alongside these parodies, wherein authors voice their indignation in response to such marketing efforts in even more explicit ways, in comments such as: “A ten-pack of the same pen that's not marketed ‘for her’ is about half the price. Stop buying this kind of crap!” and “Really Bic? You actually manufacture this pen? You want to insult every woman on the planet? Well, you did it.” When parody reviews convey similar critiques to texts such as these, they are usually communicated more tacitly.⁶ However, in Example 8, the critique of the company’s marketing efforts is stated in explicit terms – yet this critique is also very clearly heteroglossic.

Example 8

I haven't bought these. I don't understand why the ink is black? I only write in pink, I'm a girl for God's sake BIC please think before marketing a product for women. So careless. [Bic, 16: 4/12/2013]

In this instance, the reviewer addresses her critique directly to the company: for God's sake BIC please think before marketing a product for women. However, rather than critiquing the company for its marketing of a pen to women in such an overtly gendered fashion, the author of the text instead adopts another voice, in which it appears like she is taking Bic to task for not delivering on their marketing promise: i.e., the pen’s ink is black, when it should be pink – the product is not “girly” enough! This text manifests the ideological clash associated with double-voicing, as the parodist performs critique explicitly, while at the same time subverting the audience’s expectations about what exactly the point of the critique is, or should be.

Gender-specific tropes are less common in parodies of the other products discussed here (with the exception of the Three Wolf Moon Shirt, where the dominant perspective is a male one – as shown in the next section). In contrast, in all of the Bic for Her parodies, gender is referenced either explicitly (e.g., as a full figured woman, for us ladies, I’m a girl, my tiny womanly hands) or implicitly, in relational terms (e.g., my husband, my wife). The repeated reworkings of this set of resources by different authors demonstrates their understanding of how parodies of this particular product operate. In other words, by deploying a set of recognizable gendered stereotypes in their own texts, authors of parodies of Bic for Her Pens demonstrate that they “get” the joke, and/or that they understand why the marketing of a normally gender neutral product to women is problematic. As other participants join in and post their own parodies, a shared perspective emerges, resulting in tropic constructions of ambient affiliation.

The Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, a garment featuring an image of three wolf heads howling at the moon, is one of the best-known parodied products available on Amazon. The first parody review of this product is reported to have been posted by a North American university student in 2008, who picked up on its “unfashionable, blue-collar appeal” (Appelbome, 2009). The product quickly became an internet meme, appearing in several other forms of digital and mass media, as documented on its Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Wolf_Moon). The dominant trope that appears in its Amazon parody reviews is that the garment is transformative, or “life-changing,” and that it endows the wearer (usually male) with enhanced sex appeal and virility, as well as miraculous powers such as superhuman strength. The references to the shirt’s magical properties and to making its wearer instantly appealing to women can be seen in the example below. Example 9 is an excerpt from the original parody review, which continues to appear as the top review for this product on Amazon.

Example 9

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. […]

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the ‘guns’), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark. [Three Wolves, 1: 11/10/2008]

Although this original parody was posted in 2008, the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt remains the target of parody reviews to the present day, with parody authors continuing to rely on the same set of tropes (transformation, superhuman powers, sex appeal, etc.) in the construction of their texts.

References to the author’s trailer and to shopping at Walmart in Example 9 signal another product-specific trope, related to the product’s “blue-collar appeal.” Just as parodies of the BIC Pen for Her relied on stereotypes of gender to produce humor, parodies of the Three Wolf Moon Shirt often invoke stereotypes of class. In these instances, parodists exploit and reify class connotations for humorous effect, focusing on the poor taste of a class of people who would wear this type of garment. This is accomplished through the discursive construction of a low-class persona – wherein, the author, writing in a mock first person narrative style – makes reference to any number of items which index a person belonging to the lower classes in the U.S.. These include very specific references to types of employment (e.g., factory job, cashier), businesses frequented (e.g., Walmart, Sizzler, Waffle House), drinks consumed (e.g., Big Gulp, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, Boone’s Farm wine), vehicles driven (e.g., Camaro, truck), or possessions owned (e.g., velvet paintings, waterbeds, guns, lottery tickets).

Top-ranked reviews are often followed by user comments; these are displayed on Amazon in chronological order. In the case of Example 9, the original parody review is followed by more than 300 comments, the first of which reads: “When I first saw this review I thought, ‘Why would anyone want to write three longish paragraphs about a wolf shirt??!?’ But then I read it. I won't be melodramatic and say my life has been changed, but I think it totally has been. I bought the shirt. Am now awaiting magic in mail.” [4/20/2009]. Comments such as these, which are also situated within the review space on Amazon, offer another kind of textual response to a parody review. Indeed, comments become part of the intertextual chains that occur in this particular ecology of texts (Heyd, 2016). Just as the authors of other Three Wolf Moon parodies do, the author of this comment intertextually references transformation (my life has been changed) and magic. Furthermore, this comment clearly illustrates how parodies can be simultaneously transgressive and authorized. While the author of the comment aligns with the parody’s author in what is clearly a playful frame (i.e., by repeating the same tropes), he simultaneously reinforces the commercial aims of the site by indicating that he has actually purchased the shirt. This example points to some of the complex imbrications of public participation in mediated commercial spaces.

Finally, some parody review authors create other kinds of layered intertextual relationships by mentioning a well-known parodied product in a text that appears in the review space dedicated to a different popularly-parodied product. An example of this can be seen in the text below, where the author of a parody review of the Three Wolf Moon Shirt makes only a vague mention of the T-shirt itself (i.e., this shirt) and instead names another frequently parodied product, Tuscan Whole Milk.

Example 10

I accidentally spilled a glass of Tuscan Whole Milk down the front of this shirt, and my soul was torn from my body and thrown into heaven by a jealous God. [Three Wolf, 6: 5/4/2009]

Besides constructing a first person narrative account of an unlikely event, the author creates an additional sense of playfulness by textually linking together in a single review space two different products that have nothing to do with one another – other than both being popular targets of parody. Similarly, the author of a parody review of the Steering Tray in Example 11 makes an intertextual reference to another frequently parodied product: the Banana Slicer.

Example 11

I am so glad this product has come along. Finally, I have a flat surface to use my Hutzler Banana Slicer while on the go. [Steering Tray, 14: 4/19/2013]

Other than relying on the main product-specific trope that appears in Steering Wheel Tray parodies (i.e., using the tray to multitask while driving), Example 11 is quite unremarkable as parodies go; it includes no exaggeration, hyperbole, or carnivalesque features. Indeed, with its primary focus (ostensibly) on product evaluation and description, this text actually looks the most like a legitimate Amazon product review, compared to the other examples discussed here. The only cue to its status as a parody is the reference to another popularly parodied product.

Examples 10 and 11 show their authors’ awareness that they are not only contributing to the ongoing stream of parody reviews written about one specific product, but that they are also participating in a larger internet phenomenon. These examples provide some indication of the complexity of relationships between users, practices, and resulting texts, revealing that some authors of parodies of online reviews are familiar not only with other parodies written about a specific product, but also with parodies written about other products which have become popular targets of numerous parodies on Amazon – and which have likely been circulated across other forms of media.

Although most discourse analytic research on online parodies has tended to focus on YouTube videos, a broad range of other vernacular forms of parody can also be found online today. This study has focused on a site that features textual parodies: the online review spaces built into the website of e-retailer Amazon. Not all products available on Amazon become the targets of parody reviews; however, when a particular product does become a popular object of parody, the resulting number of reviews can be impressive. As other users take notice, share, and circulate parody texts about a product, this leads to an increasing number of parodies posted by other users; sometimes these activities result in parody reviews for a single product numbering into the thousands – as well as “helpful” votes numbering in the tens of thousands. Some products become such well-established targets that they continue to serve as productive sources of parodies for many years, achieving the status of memes.

By taking a discourse analytic approach, this study has both built on and extended existing research on the language of parody reviews. In line with Skalicky and Crossley’s (2015) quantitative findings that parody reviews have more linguistic features associated with narrativity (e.g., past tense verbs, concrete nouns) than legitimate reviews do, my textual analysis has highlighted in addition that parody authors rely on narrative structures, regardless of the type of product being discussed. Furthermore, I have shown how authors of Amazon parody reviews engage in heteroglossic practices through which they discursively construct imagined identities and produce texts that rely on diverse forms of intertextuality. These practices enable authors of review parodies to participate in a particular type of sociality, which takes place in an online space that is otherwise dedicated to commodification and consumption. Thus in the review spaces of popularly parodied products, ambient affiliation emerges as a result of shared text construction practices, such as the reworking of recognizable tropes, and shared stances, such as the deployment of in-group humor.

Like Ray (2016), my analysis also revealed some of the more critical stances taken by authors of parodies. Furthermore, I have shown how critique is often accomplished though double voicing. Double voicing contributes to the ambivalence of meanings generally characteristic of parodic texts, leaving readers to wonder: To what extent is the author also reinforcing that which s/he appears to be mocking? As I have shown, parodic texts posted in online review spaces can subvert marketers’ messages about a particular product – or they can reinforce them. Owing largely to their semiotic indeterminacy, parodies of consumer reviews may, in some cases, be able to accomplish both goals simultaneously. As public participation in these discourse practices increases, greater visibility and consumer awareness may be brought to a particular product, which in turn may be associated with unpredictable or unintended economic outcomes. When viewed as a form of “authorized transgression,” review parodies can be understood as simultaneously subversive and complicit with the primary commercial aims of a site such as Amazon. The fact that they remain on Amazon’s site – rather than being deleted – even though they clearly violate Amazon’s “Community Guidelines” (i.e., “Content you submit should be relevant and based on your own honest opinions and experience.”) further confirms their status as “authorized transgressions.”

Parody reviews occur as part of a larger textual ecosystem (Heyd, 2016). Obviously, parodies of reviews exist alongside legitimate reviews (on which they are intertextually dependent). Beyond that, they also appear next to more explicit critiques of businesses (as, for instance, in the Bic for Her examples) and in user comments (as shown in the Three Wolf Moon example), which may themselves respond to and take up the narrative tropes established in a set of parodies. Parodies of online consumer reviews represent ludic digital practices that punctuate otherwise banal spaces dedicated to mass consumption. From this perspective, Amazon can be conceptualized as a twenty-first century agora, a virtual marketplace where legitimate consumer practices take place, as well as a sphere where individuals can exchange perspectives, air their political views, entertain one another, and affiliate with others who enjoy similar kinds of online practices.

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Camilla Vásquez [cvasquez@usf.edu] is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Discourse of Online Consumer Reviews (2014, Bloomsbury), and her research about online review language has appeared in Discourse Context & Media, Journal of Pragmatics, and Narrative Inquiry.