Exploring Social Media Discourse on Cigars: Insights from Twitter/X Data

Abstract Introduction Cigars, including little cigars and cigarillos (LCCs), have become increasingly popular as alternative ways to smoke tobacco. Cigarillos are commonly used to smoke blunts (cannabis rolled into cigar wrapper). This study aims to investigate public perceptions and discussions of cigars on social media. Methods From Twitter/X, we collected non-commercial cigar-related tweets from January 2022 to February 2023 using relevant keywords. The tweets were categorized into blunts (mentioning marijuana/cannabis) and non-blunts (not mentioning marijuana/cannabis). We used Bidirectional Encoder Representations of Transformers for topic modeling. Sentiment analysis using Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner categorized tweets as having positive, negative, or neutral sentiment. Results We identified 18 672 tweets related to cigars, including 12 232 non-blunt- and 6440 blunt-related tweets. Sentiment analysis revealed that 42.7% of non-blunt cigar-related tweets were positive and 22.9% were negative, while 35.8% of blunts cigar-related tweets were positive and 28.7% were negative. The most popular topics of non-blunt cigar-related tweets included “Nicotine addiction of cigars and quitting smoking” (2781/12232, 22.8%) and “Comparison of cigars with other tobacco products, including the smell” (2029/12232, 16.6%). The most popular topics of blunts cigar-related tweets included “Making and smoking blunts” (1764/6440, 27.4%) and “Comparison between blunts and tobacco, including the smell” (1437/6440, 22.3%). Conclusion Our results show a dynamic popularity of cigar-related content on Twitter/X, including negative reactions to tobacco strength and positive responses to flavor and quality. These insights can aid regulatory efforts by pinpointing public concerns, guiding targeted messaging, and monitoring changes in attitudes toward cigars over time. Implications We provide valuable insights into public discourse surrounding non-blunt- and blunt-related cigars on Twitter/X, highlighting how these products are discussed, an area that has received limited research attention. Our findings uncover shared and distinct themes surrounding cigars and blunts, revealing overlapping perceptions and potential factors driving their use. Additionally, this study demonstrates the value of social media data in exploring tobacco-related behavior, encouraging continued investigation in this area.