Tweet of the Devil: Examining Uses of “Evil” on Twitter/X

Notwithstanding the growing body of evidence concerning the incendiary impact of the word “evil,” little research has focused on its use in social media discourse. In the present study, occurrences of “evil” on Twitter/X within two separate 3-week spans during 2021 were first compiled. The daily top ten most frequent hashtags (accounting for over one-third of a total exceeding one million) were subsequently content-coded: With one interpersonally focused exception, those hashtags and their associated content exemplified themes related to advocacy/protest (implicating at least fourteen geopolitical regions), religion/spirituality (focused on teachings from at least seven faith traditions), or pop culture (including gaming, fantasy art/literature, television, and celebrities). The differential implications of the use of the word “evil” in real-world versus pretend contexts are discussed, and additional research concerning the potential of evil-related rhetoric to escalate conflict and intensify suffering is recommended.