From the Phenomenon of Virtual Idol Overconsumption in Generation Z - The Simple Mediating Role of Fear of Missing out in Parasocial Attachment

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-440-2_136How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Virtual Idol Overspending; Parasocial Relationships; Missing Out On Fear; Generation Z

Abstract

In a highly technologized society, the development of virtual technology has become a key point of competition in various countries. In recent years, virtual technology has gradually replaced the life mode that the public has been living in, and the commercial marketing of virtual idols is a derivative product based on the resource reintegration of “virtual technology + idol industry”. However, as far as the current academic research and discussion on virtual idols are concerned, most of them still stay on the cultural interpretation of virtual idols. Therefore, this paper analyzes the data by collecting the consumption data of virtual idols from the Generation Z group and applying the Cognitive-Affective-Conative theory to the data. It is found that in the prevalence of virtual idols, the proposed social relationship gradually promotes fans' over-consumption behavior through various marketing means, and the proposed social relationship is also directly related to the fear of missing out due to the factor of personal imaginative coloring; The glue that holds fans and virtual idols together is the fear of missing out on the suggested social relationship, which leads to excessive consumption behaviors that followers believe are appropriate. The study's findings will be able to further examine the conflicts between marketing and payment in the virtual world while also reflecting the youthful population's acceptance, psychological traits, and behavioral reactions to extreme technology and virtualization.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yushan Cheng
AU  - Ninan Zhang
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/07/10
TI  - From the Phenomenon of Virtual Idol Overconsumption in Generation Z - The Simple Mediating Role of Fear of Missing out in Parasocial Attachment
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 11th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research（ICHSSR 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1208
EP  - 1220
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-440-2_136
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-440-2_136
ID  - Cheng2025
ER  -