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  • Managing Collective Effervescence

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Managing Collective Effervescence: 'Zomsumption’ and Postemotional Fandom

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/09/2019
<mark>Journal</mark>Marketing Theory
Issue number3
Volume19
Number of pages19
Pages (from-to)281-299
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date16/07/18
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Based on an analysis of the YouTuber-fan community, we theorise the “living dead” nature of collective effervescence under postemotional conditions. We introduce the concept of zomsumption whereby “dead” emotions are carefully synthesised, 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 rationalisation 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.

Bibliographic note

The final, definitive version of this article will be published in the Journal, Marketing Theory, 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at http://journals.sagepub.com/loi/mtq