Scientific Report: Fandom Biases Retrospective Judgments Not Perception
Abstract
Attitudes and motivations have been shown to affect the processing of visual input, indicating that observers may see a given situation each literally in a different way. Yet, in real-life, processing information in an unbiased manner is considered to be of high adaptive value. Attitudinal and motivational effects were found for attention, characterization, categorization, and memory. On the other hand, for dynamic real-life events, visual processing has been found to be highly synchronous among viewers. Thus, while in a seminal study fandom as a particularly strong case of attitudes did bias judgments of a sports event, it left the question open whether attitudes do bias prior processing stages. Here, we investigated influences of fandom during the live TV broadcasting of the 2013 UEFA-Champions-League Final regarding attention, event segmentation, immediate and delayed cued recall, as well as affect, memory confidence, and retrospective judgments. Even though we replicated biased retrospective judgments, we found that eye-movements, event segmentation, and cued recall were largely similar across both groups of fans. Our findings demonstrate that, while highly involving sports events are interpreted in a fan dependent way, at initial stages they are processed in an unbiased manner.
Nature.com / Markus Huff, Frank Papenmeier, Annika E. Maurer, Tino G. K. Meitz, Bärbel Garsoffky,. Stephan Schwan
Why Minecraft Movie Fans Are Getting Rowdy and Going Viral — Explore Parasocial relationships, community, and emotional contagion among Minecraft fans.
Key points
Watching "A Minecraft Movie" with other fans brings a welcome sense of community and belonging.
Parasocial relationships with fictional characters make seeing them on the big screen exciting.
A theater full of passionate fans amplifies their excitement and joy through emotional contagion.
Considering others who might be impacted can help fans decide how to express that excitement.
In the 1970s, Rocky Horror was a cult hit, inspiring a passionate fanbase. The film’s intentionally campy vibe and songs that invited singing along, in addition to a cast of characters who resonated with every teenager who felt like they didn’t fit in, made those midnight viewings my first experience of a participatory fandom. We didn’t just watch the movie, we became part of it. People dressed up as their favorite characters and danced in the aisles (to the "Time Warp," of course).
Psychology Today / Lynn Zubernis Ph.D.
Brand Fandom 2025: Brand Fandom Top 50 - MarketCast Reveals the 50 Brands Americans Can’t Live Without
Brand Fandom 2025: Brand Fandom Top 50 - MarketCast Reveals the 50 Brands Americans Can’t Live Without
MarketCast, the leading marketing research firm helping brands maximize their advertising impact and amplify brand fandom, today launched the results of its 2025 Brand Fandom 50, a sweeping study of over 20,000 U.S. adults and nearly 300 brands over three years. The research reveals an unprecedented look into the brands that spark deep emotional connections with consumers, and how that fandom translates into business resilience and lasting customer loyalty.
Ad Week / MarketCast
Peacock Is the Streamer Best Positioned for Acquisition or Bundling, Fandom Data Says
In the age of streaming bundles, Peacock may be the most attractive asset according to new data from Fandom. The world’s largest fan platform leveraged its first-party data, called FanDNA, from its 350 million monthly visitors to take a deeper dive into the individual streaming services and TheWrap can exclusively reveal those findings first.
Fandom’s data, based on site visitation and how popular series overindex with fans across 300 subgenres, suggest Peacock’s diverse and distinct library of reality programming, medical and crime procedural dramas and combat sports makes it the best compliment to other existing streamers.
The Wrap / Adam Chitwood
The Fandom Phenomenon: How consumers, creators, and advertisers benefit from podcast fandom
How do you capture your audience’s attention? You can text them, email them, pay to reach them on social and search, or even fly a blimp over their house—but real influence starts with trust.
There’s no singular source of truth for potential customers, but if there were, it would sound a lot like Wondery. As Amazon’s premier podcast studio and network, Wondery is home to some of the most trusted and influential hosts in the industry, including Dax Shepard, Jason and Travis Kelce, and Keke Palmer.
Shows like Armchair Expert, New Heights, and Baby, This Is Keke Palmer consistently top charts and garner numerous awards recognition, including NAACP Image Awards, GLAAD Awards, the Variety Creative Impact in Podcasting Award, Webbys, Gracies, and The Ambies.
With listenership and advertiser interest continuing to grow across this emerging channel, one must ask: What is it about podcasts that keeps consumers coming back for more? Wondery’s latest research study, The Fandom Phenomenon, sought to uncover just that.
Marketingbrew.com / Wondery, Amazon
Loyal to the oil – how religion and striking it rich shape Canada’s hockey fandom
Déjà vu is a common occurrence in the world of sports, and the Edmonton Oilers are no strangers to repeat matchups. The Canadian team faced off against the New York Islanders in both 1983 and ’84 for hockey’s biggest prize, the Stanley Cup. In this year’s National Hockey League finals, the Oilers will try to avenge their Game 7 loss to the Florida Panthers in 2024.
Edmontonians who have been “loyal to the oil,” as fans say, have been waiting for redemption ever since. The Trump administration’s threats toward its northern neighbor has fueled a wave of nationalism, making even more fans eager for a Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup – which has not happened since 1993. With hopes pinned to Edmonton, the finals also brings renewed attention to some of Canada’s biggest exports: hockey and oil.
The Conversation / Cody Musselman, Judith Ellen Brunton
The Allure of the Tribe: Exploring the Psychology of Fandom
Fandoms – passionate communities built around shared interests have become a defining feature of pop culture. From the electric atmosphere of a football stadium to the intricate fan art dedicated to K-pop bands, the intensity of fandom devotion can be both captivating, mystifying and, at times, worrying.
Team Lewis / Samantha Aloysius
Fandom Analytics: Creating and Harnessing Consumer and Cultural Passion (Springer)
The success of modern sports, entertainment, political, and other cultural categories is driven by organizations’ ability to create and manage fandom. This book explores fandom from a marketing perspective providing a multidisciplinary framework for understanding, measuring, and growing fandom. It provides a fandom analytics framework for creating and managing fandom and identifies the macro forces (technology, demographics, etc.) that are changing fandom’s structure and societal role. The book goes beyond understanding the foundations of fandom by demonstrating how marketing tools may be employed to value and manage fandom assets. It is designed for existing and new generations of sports and entertainment professionals, as well as scholars, students, and academics interested in sports and entertainment marketing and analytics.
Springer Books / Michael Lewis
Classifying and Characterizing Fandom Activities: A Focus on Superfans’ Posting and Commenting Behaviors in a Digital Fandom Community
As digital fandom communities expand and diversify, user engagement patterns increasingly shape the social and emotional fabric of online platforms. In the era of Industry 4.0, data-driven approaches are transforming how online communities understand and optimize user engagement. In this study, we examine how different forms of activity, specifically posting and commenting, characterize fandom engagement on Weverse, a global fan community platform. By applying a clustering approach to large-scale user data, we identify distinct subsets of heavy users, separating those who focus on creating posts (post-heavy users) from those who concentrate on leaving comments (comment-heavy users). A subsequent linguistic analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool revealed that post-heavy users typically employ a structured, goal-oriented style with collective pronouns and formal tones, whereas comment-heavy users exhibit more spontaneous, emotionally rich expressions enhanced by personalized fandom-specific slang and extensive emoji use. Building on these findings, we propose design implications such as pinning community-driven content, offering contextual translations for fandom-specific slang, and introducing reaction matrices that address the unique needs of each group. Taken together, our results underscore the value of distinguishing multiple dimensions of engagement in digital fandoms, providing a foundation for more nuanced platform features that can enhance positive user experience, social cohesion, and sustained community growth.
Applied Sciences/ MDPI - Yeoreum Lee, Sangkeun Park
Gatekeeping the Gatekeepers: An Exploratory Study of Transformative Games Fandom & TikTok Algorithms
Within fandoms, gatekeeping practices such as delineating authentic from fake fans filter out certain identities. While the types of fans excluded vary by fandom, mainstream digital games culture–and the hegemonic, masculine groups within it–frequently leverage gatekeeping tactics like harassment to silence or churn others (i.e., women) from participating. While there has been considerable scholarship documenting gatekeeping in online digital games there has been less examination of this occurring within video game fandom. We conducted an exploratory study to investigate gatekeeping in response to TikTok videos about Call of Duty's masculine operator Ghost. We found more comments qualifying as celebratory fun than gatekeeping. We argue that social media spaces by virtue of their recommendation algorithms are productive sites for reimagining games counter to affirmational readings within relatively niche communities.
Sage Journals / Jessica E. Tompkins, Ashley ML Guajardo (née Brown)
