“No Demons on the train”

Abstract This study examined audience responses to a Philippine Department of Transportation Facebook post that depicted characters from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba as part of a public information announcement. Analysis of 1,030 comments revealed two opposing discourses. Supportive commenters interpreted the post as humorous, creative, and appropriate for online communication, while oppositional commenters evaluated it as unprofessional, mistimed, or disconnected from the lived realities of public transportation. These divergent evaluations illustrate how humor and popular culture in institutional messaging do not carry fixed meanings but are interpreted through competing understandings of authority, cultural competence, and everyday experience. The findings show that audience responses are shaped by historically and socially grounded expectations of government communication, demonstrating how digital platforms make visible the broader contexts through which institutional humor is legitimized or challenged.