This paper offers a cultural exploration of young adult consumers' everyday interactions and relationships with celebrities. Adopting an interpretive methodology, we build on McCracken's (1986McCracken's ( , 1989 important work on cultural-meaning transfer, and integrate a contemporary understanding of consumers as co-creators of meaning, in order to explore their everyday experiences with celebrities. Findings suggest that consumers purposefully interact with celebrities in a diverse range of ways and actively engage in a variety of consumer-celebrity relationships. We conceptualise a range of consumer-celebrity relationship types and demonstrate the roles that celebrities can play in providing meaning and context to consumers' identity projects. Summary statement of contributionOur research builds on contemporary understandings of celebrity meaning transfer and in particular explores consumer-driven (rather than managerial) understandings of celebrity meanings. Our findings suggest that consumers' uses of celebrities are somewhat more active and purposeful than McCracken's (1989) model and much prior research suggests. Consumers develop portfolios of celebrity relationships, or celebrityscapes (cf. Fournier, 1998), which allow consumers the freedom and opportunity to flit between different (often fragmented) identity positions.
Purpose This paper aims to elucidate instances whereby celebrity endorsements by social media influencers (SMIs) embedded within online consumption communities are perceived as transgressive by their fellow community members. In doing so, this study provides insights into the new challenges and considerations that such community contexts present for celebrity endorsement. Design/methodology/approach The research team conducted a longitudinal, netnographic study of the YouTube beauty community, involving an initial phase of netnographic immersion followed by an investigative netnography that examined community members’ response to celebrity endorsements by 12 SMIs within the community. Findings This study identifies five recurring celebrity endorsement transgressions, each violating an established moral responsibility within the community. The paper explores how community members attribute responsibility for transgressive endorsements and identifies consequences for both the SMI and the endorsed brand. Research limitations/implications This study focused on a single consumption community, developing a deep understanding of the distinct moral responsibilities that shape the reception of celebrity endorsements within this context. Practical implications The paper presents managerial recommendations that will aid both SMIs and brands in implementing celebrity endorsements that avoid communal perceptions of transgression. Originality/value The analysis extends prior study on celebrity endorsement by SMIs by explaining when and why SMI endorsements are likely to be perceived as transgressive by the community and providing new insights into community member responses to transgressive SMI endorsements. It also extends wider theories of celebrity endorsement by highlighting the influence of consumption community contexts upon endorsement reception and examining consumer responses to celebrity endorsements perceived as transgressive in and of themselves.
We investigate the ways in which celebrity identity myths are created, shaped, interpreted and utilised by media, celebrities and consumers. Two working-class female celebrities, Cheryl Cole and Katie Price, provide our focus, and we draw on an analysis of articles in the popular press, celebrity autobiographies and qualitative data collected with 16-to 18-year-olds. We find that class-infused celebrity identity myths ('celebrity chav') are constructed in terms of glamour, allure and charisma but also vulgarity, repulsion and ordinariness. Young consumers interpret these myths based on judgements of taste, morality, connection and worthiness and utilise them in order to support the identity goals of distinction, affirmation, belonging and enhancement.
In this paper we draw upon Weber's concept of charismatic authority to unpack the appeal that YouTube video-bloggers have galvanised amongst their fan communities. We explore how followers interact to articulate the appeal of British YouTube personalities and consequently, how they contribute to the nature of these 'new cults of personality'. By observing the content of seven of Britain's most popular 'YouTubers' and engaging in a sustained non-participant netnography of responses to these videos, we argue new cults of personality differ from their traditional counterparts through collaborative, co-constructive and communal interdependence between culted figure and follower. While Weber maintained charismatic authority has its source in the innate and exceptional qualities of an individual's personality, we submit that in consumer culture's current era of consent, the 'culting' of social actors becomes a participatory venture. We shed light on the fading and routinization of charisma and the dissipation of the relationship between the culted figure and followers.
Based on an analysis of the YouTuber–fan community, we theorize the ‘living dead’ nature of collective effervescence under postemotional conditions. We introduce the concept of zomsumption, whereby ‘dead’ emotions are carefully synthesized, governed and presented as ‘living’ throughout the communal consumption of a totem. Here, we explore fans’ efforts to ensure the stability and longevity of their community through the lifelessness of their emotional behaviour. By forfeiting genuine and unfiltered emotions in favour of their rationalization and governance, fans access the illusory potential for more manageable forms of sociability and totemic worship. This outlook prompts us to reconsider the nature of the relationship between consumption communities and dominant structures of feeling. We suggest that consumption communities should not be presumed liberatory retreats from such structures as, contrarily, some may function as microcosms for reflecting and even incubating the wider postemotional order.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.