Idols, Fans and Consumption: Cultural Industry and Fans Culture in the Internet Era

Abstract

In the Internet era, fans, as a group with distinct personalities, have unique psychological mechanisms. At the same time, fans also greatly influence the Internet and even the whole society. This paper tries to sort out the characteristic psychological mechanism of fans and the influence of fans groups by analyzing the comments made by Weibo users. Through the study about fans, it is can be found that individual fans’ psychological mechanism is projection and sexual instinct and the fan groups’ psychological mechanism is group ritual and conformity. These lead to form fan culture and derivative the fans of economy, leading to have a huge influence to the society.