From Commerce to Catharsis: Investigating Fandom and Cathartic Consumerism
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This conceptual paper explores the therapeutic and cathartic aspects of fandom-related consumption, aiming to understand how fans engage with objects related to their interests for emotional and psychological relief. A systematic review of literature on fandom, catharsis, and consumer behaviour reveals a significant gap in understanding the individualized nature of fandom-mediated cathartic consumption. The research investigates the complex and personal relationships that fans form with their objects of interest, emphasizing how these connections drive fandom-related consumption behaviour for therapeutic purposes. The study underscores the importance of comprehending the interplay between emotional and social factors in influencing consumer behaviour. For marketing and branding professionals, this understanding is crucial in enhancing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and perceived value. By acknowledging the psychosomatic relationship consumers have with brands, companies can strengthen their market position and foster deeper customer relationships. Fandoms are typically seen as collective experiences that foster social identity and community. However, this study emphasizes the often overlooked individual aspect, where fandom can contribute to personal well-being, mental health, and emotional stability through parasocial relationships and immersive experiences. Understanding these personal dynamics is essential for future research and for leveraging fandom-related consumption in marketing strategies. This paper calls for further empirical investigations into the individualized cathartic benefits of fandom-related consumption, with a particular focus on the personal bonds fans form with their idols and the therapeutic outcomes of such engagements.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".