Cronin, James Martin and Cocker, Hayley Louise (2019) Managing Collective Effervescence : 'Zomsumption’ and Postemotional Fandom. Marketing Theory, 19 (3). pp. 281-299. ISSN 1470-5931
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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.