Individual celebration of pop music icons: A study of music fans relationships with their object of fandom and associated practices

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify kinds of relationships fans who celebrate their passion individually might have with their music icons and focuses on a better understanding of the content of these relationship (how these fans interact with their music icon and valuable consumption practices associated). It relies on recent works considering fandom as an intensely personal phenomenon that can occur in the absence of a group or social context. The theoretical background builds on subcultures studies, consumption practices related, and the attachment consumers can develop with celebrities or teams. Through a qualitative study with popular music fans who live their passion independently of any community or subculture, findings underline that some fans can intentionally gravitate more toward an individualized (rather than a collective) celebration of his or her object of fandom and that may result in various consumption practices. Also, this research highlights that being a fan does not necessary involve heavy celebrity worship, both terms being indeed not interchangeable, but can end up by valuable practices for both fans and their object of fandom.

Parasocial Intimacy and Fan Culture with K-Pop Artists in Indonesian Digital Media: A Study of Fan-Idol Relationships on Social Media Platforms

“…Kozinets (2001) described fans as loyal consumers who invest much of themselves in their consumption. They are engaged in a form of deviant consumption from other consumers (Derbaix & Korchia, 2019). Cited from Jenol and Pazil (2020), becoming a fan is not just a free-time activity but also to make a new form of culture that is called participatory culture.…”

“…They are engaged in a form of deviant consumption from other consumers. For music fans, music is ingrained in their daily lives in a much more powerful way than the occasional music consumers (Derbaix & Korchia, 2019).…”

Consumer brand engagement: Socio-cultural perspective and research avenues

“…The concept of CBE gained momentum with the shift from the ‘transactional’ to the ‘relational’ paradigm (Pansari and Kumar, 2017). The latter emphasises that relational loyalty depends on long-term engagement with emotional content (Derbaix and Brée, 2000; Fournier and Yao, 1997; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). The consumer is seen as a subject who commits to a focal object, the brand (Patterson et al, 2006; Vivek et al, 2014), in order to start and maintain a lasting relationship.…”

Virtual gifting behavior on new social media: the perspectives of the community gift-giving model and face-negotiation theory

“…Audience members may be fans who adore or engage in celebrity worship of a broadcaster who has special expertise or has achieved success to which audience members aspire (Derbaix and Korchia, 2019;Hu et al, 2017). Celebrity worship can induce fans to invest time and money in their favorite celebrity on a continuous basis (Brown, 2015).…”