See What Superfans Know That the Rest of Us Should Learn: The Taylor Swift and ‘Star Wars’ obsessives have unlocked a key to happiness by Rachel Feintzeig of The WSJ. The title in the print edition was "Star-Struck Superfans Find Joy, Community." Excerpts:
"More than six in 10 Americans said hobbies or recreational activities were extremely or very important to them, according to a 2023 poll from Gallup. That’s up from 48% in 2001 and 2002. Meanwhile, the share of people who said the same about religion dropped 7 percentage points, to 58%."
"Picture a crowd swaying in unison to a beloved song. Everyone assembled feels the same emotion simultaneously, says Paul Booth, a professor of media and pop culture at DePaul University. The euphoria catches and builds.
The experience, known as “collective effervescence,” can feel transcendent, he says, almost telepathic.
“I think it has to do with wanting something in our lives that we can lose ourselves in,” he says. At a time of increasing polarization and cynicism—not to mention that coming election—it’s an especially wondrous connection, he adds."
"Loneliness, meanwhile, is like thirst, says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience who directs the Social Connection & Health Lab at Brigham Young University. We’re social beings, biologically wired to crave being part of a group. If that’s gone, our mental and physical health can suffer, she says, leading to depression, Type 2 diabetes, even early death.
And yet joining in requires vulnerability. Fandom asks us to latch ourselves to something outside of us, to allow a person or object we don’t have control over to become part of our identities. How much easier to stay cool and removed, rather than risk having our enthusiasm batted down or betrayed."
A couple of weeks ago I had a post called How Taylor Swift Fans Broke Economics. It talked about why people who buy tickets to a Swift concert at the original price won't sell them when "tickets were changing hands at more than eight times face value" and they would not have purchased them at that higher price if that was the original price.
That was said to be due to the endowment effect. That is the idea that we are all biased in favor of what we already own, valuing it more highly merely because we already have it.
But maybe it is important for Swift fans to hold on to their ticket because it keeps them close to their community. I don't mean that it explains everything. It is just part of the story.
Wikipedia has an article collective effervescence.
"Collective effervescence (CE) is a sociological concept coined by Émile Durkheim. According to Durkheim, a community or society may at times come together and simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action. Such an event then causes collective effervescence which excites individuals and serves to unify the group.
Collective effervescence is the basis for Émile Durkheim's theory of religion as laid out in his 1912 volume Elementary Forms of Religious Life."
Durkheim was a French sociologist who lived from 1858 to 1917.
Related posts:
How Much Happiness Can Your Salary Buy? Researchers Can’t Agree (2024)
Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved (2024)
Does Money Buy Happiness? (2024)
The Unexpected Ways a Big Raise Affects Your Happiness (2024)
The Fun Things in Life Are Giving Us Buyer’s Remorse (2023)
How Happy Can a Windfall Make You? (2022)
Happiness Is Not What We Think It Is (2022)
More On The Economics Of Gift Giving. (2018)
What Brings More Happiness, More Time Or More Money? (2017, this study found that people that chose more free time over more money tended to be happier)
Do income and happiness tend to go together? Yes, both within and across countries . (2017)
Science proves it: Money really can buy happiness . (2017)
Dagwood Bumpstead Explains The Hedonic Treadmill (2015)
Does Money Buy Happiness? (2011)
Does Wealth Make Us Happier? (2010, maybe wealth buys freedom that makes us happier)
Does Or Can Money Buy Happiness? (2008)
Interesting Book: Stumbling on Happiness (2007)
Does Money Make You Mean? (2007)
Related articles:
Money buys happiness after all (By William Easterly and Laura Freschi, 2011)
The happiness wars (From The Lancet, 2011)
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