Keywords: fan economy; consumption; behavioral economics
Chinese Classification Number: F713.5 Literature Symbol Code: A Article Number: 1673-291X(2021)01-0005-03
I. The Connotation of Fan Economy
Since the reform and opening up, our country has experienced the transformation of the planned economy to the market economy, and in this In the process, there is a confrontation between emerging media and traditional media, the traditional economic model began to shift to the fan economy, and the value system of the whole society is being re-structured, and the "fan economy" has become a new mode of economic growth in the 21st century.
The word "fan" is a phonetic translation of the English word "fans", which most of the time refers to people who have great concern, love or admiration for a certain person or thing. But as a kind of desire, only under certain circumstances, will form a kind of economy. Therefore, today's major entertainment companies and other companies have taken advantage of this, are constantly "creating stars", generating "idols", to stimulate the desire of young people to worship the stars, and convert this desire into a kind of consumption, from which to obtain a lot of profit. Fans form a series of consumer industry chains around their idols - supporting their idols in TV dramas, endorsing their products, and so on. In this chain of interests, the star is just a tool for the company to make money, and the company is happy to produce. At the same time, the fans are happy to consume, and this new mode of economic consumption is the "fan economy".
The fan economy studied in this paper is actually a form of cultural output, guided by spiritual consumption, which satisfies not material needs, but spiritual needs.
Second, the characteristics of the fan economy
First, the "gift economy" accounts for a large proportion of the fan economy. Gift economy is the logic of the exchange method that occurs within the fan community and is recognized by all the fans, which is a kind of economy exclusively belonging to the fan community. Most of the cultural practices of fan communities can be included in the scope of the gift economy. Fans do not engage in cultural production only for profit, but also for self-expression. Although the use of texts from fan culture is gratuitous, how and to what extent they are used is subject to the rules within the fan community.
Second, the fan economy is constantly intermingling with the commercial economy. This can bring about conflicts of interest and morality. For example, Fifty Shades of Grey by James was originally titled Masters of the Universe, which is a highly recognizable fanfiction within the Twilight fan community, and was first serialized on the FanFiction.net website. In 2012, Fifty Shades of Grey was published by a publisher and immediately made waves worldwide [1]. However, the publication of the book sparked a strong controversy in the fan community. There were many fans who accused James of betraying them by commercially publishing the fan fiction altered as an original work. This is because in the creation of the book it was not entirely the author's own creation, but was helped by many from the community of fans. While there is much controversy over all of this, the commercialization of fan fiction is taking shape.
Third, the consumer behavior of fans
First, rational consumption. When fans are mentioned, the public's first impression is that they are crazy and an unacceptable existence. But nowadays, idols are actively engaged in public welfare, constantly delivering positive social energy and creating a more healthy and upward public image. Fans are also actively following in the footsteps of their idols by founding public service organizations and carrying out public service activities in their name. This creates a positive image for their idols and also changes the public perception of them, making a name for themselves. Fan groups to do public welfare activities are now more and more common, more and more fans because of their idols actively involved in public welfare, for the community to transmit a steady stream of positive energy.
Second, irrational consumption. In the fan group that boasts of individuality, slowly their consumption is no longer for the use value of the commodity, but for the symbolic meaning behind it, which has somewhat subverted the essential purpose of the commodity's initial appearance. In recent years, there are many platforms, such as Shutterfly, Shake Tone, etc., on which anyone is expected to become the "star" of the night. Many people see this and often "show" themselves in front of the camera. A live broadcast gains a lot, and these are ordinary people contribute, and even some people let themselves on the verge of losing all their money. Irrational support and blindly follow the trend of emulation is how terrible, as a thinking, capable of behavior, why such completely irrational behavior, it is worth thinking about.
Four, behavioral economics perspective of the fan economy
(a) the emergence and development of behavioral economics
behavioral economics as early as Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, has been talked about. For example, the proposed "loss aversion", "overconfidence", "altruism" and other personal psychology, and note the impact of these personal psychology on the economy, which constitute its theoretical foundation. The theory is based on a number of theories. Many economists and psychologists with the spirit of exploration have joined forces to study the mechanism of economic behavior and try to establish the psychological underpinnings of economic behavior. In the 1970s, psychologists Kahneman and Tversky published a series of research results, by absorbing the latest advances in various fields of research, and taking the utility function construction as the core of their work, they organically combined psychology and economics together, and expanded it to other related branches of economics, thus forming the true meaning of "Behavioral Economics". "Behavioral economics" school. Since then, behavioral economics has gradually formed its complete system through the continuous efforts of many people.
(ii) The main assumptions of behavioral economics
Two elements must be present to produce a convincing anomaly: a theory that makes clear predictions, and facts that contradict those predictions [2]. The basic assumptions about behavior are **** the same in all applications of economic analysis, whether it is the theory of the firm, financial markets, or consumer choice theory. Two key assumptions are the instinct for self-preservation and a pro-social nature with concern for the specific feelings of others. Accordingly, human behavior has a dual character: one is the underlying purpose of "self", and the other is the tendency to adopt "altruistic" means to achieve the "self" purpose. Therefore, the general behavioral mechanism of human beings is "self-serving and altruistic".
(C) Behavioral economics' multi-level analysis of irrational behavior based on assumptions
Behavioral economics has two basic dimensions in the analysis of human behavior, one is the level of sociality of the individual, and the other is the state of the relationship between the interactors [3]. From these two dimensions, we can examine the effects of age, education, culture, and social environment on individual behavioral choices and interactive behavioral styles.
1. From the age point of view, most of the people who make irrational behavior are in adolescence, and their "three views" are still being shaped, and they are in a rebellious stage. Ignorant children, do not have a deep understanding of things, this time in their lives in the eyes of the emergence of a very good idol, then must closely follow their pace.
2. From an educational point of view, as schools and families are important places for people to grow up and shape their psychology and thoughts, the correct guidance of teachers and parents is very important, and in the process of people's continuous experience of the world and their dealings with society, all the relevant forces should assume a positive role in promoting.
3. From the cultural point of view, the level of culture largely determines the size of a person's pattern. What can be seen is that many fans who are irrationally chasing stars and making irrational behavior are not very cultured, and in their cognitive world, right and wrong are just their own subjective ideas.
4. From the perspective of the social environment, the above example is not so serious in nature, but due to the mass media's "push" to intensify the fermentation of the incident, the public opinion's criticism and pointing to give the person concerned a great deal of psychological pressure, which led to the occurrence of this serious consequences.
(4) Behavioral economics theory
Behavioral economics adopts the method actually comes from psychology, if we consider the consumption of fans as a kind of investment behavior, the process of analyzing their consumption decision-making can also be regarded as a psychological process, including the cognitive process of the market, the process of emotion and the process of will. The "irrational behavior" that affects people's consumption mainly includes reference dependence, status quo preference and psychological account.
1. Reference dependence. Reference dependence refers to the fact that people's estimates of losses and gains at any given time are not absolute changes in wealth, but relative changes in wealth. This explains the willingness of people to buy expensive anything related to their idols despite very little increase in income [4]. In purchasing behavior, a fan's purchasing decision depends mainly on his or her own internal judgment of how much the item is worth, and there is a criterion for this judgment, which is the prevailing fair psychological price in a certain period of time. For example, more than ten years ago, people's psychological price for the album is 100 yuan, if the album is purchased for 200 yuan, people's hearts must feel too expensive. On the contrary, nowadays, in the era of inflation and general price increase, people's psychological price is 300 yuan, then 200 yuan to buy the album of choice is happily accepted. This psychologically acceptable price is determined by the market mechanism of supply and demand. We can find that people do not measure payment according to their certain marginal utility, and do not achieve the state of utility maximization in microeconomics.
2. Status quo preference. The "status quo preference" means that people prefer to keep the status quo rather than change it, the residents' consumption will increase or decrease accordingly with the change of the income they have in each period, which is reflected in the majority of the residents tend to keep the status quo regardless of the change of the income, because the high cost will make the actors exaggerate this loss, which will lead to a suboptimal outcome. It can be seen that no matter how much income or accumulated wealth fans have, they will invest a lot of money in the idols they support, buying all kinds of reasonably priced or sky-high idol-related products as a way to show their support for them, even if their own lives will be strained as a result.
3. Psychological accounts. Prof. Taylor put forward the concept of "psychological account", that people put money from different sources in different accounts, and different consumption depends on different psychological accounts, so money does not have the substitutability and illiquidity. Psychological accounts affect people's consumption in two ways: one is the source of income and the other is the difference in consumption goods. With the growth of age, the income of young consumers is increasing, the domination of the economy, the psychological account will divide these differently, the necessary consumption such as student's accommodation fee and material fee will be a separate account, and the unnecessary consumption such as the consumption used for chasing stars will also be a separate account. Of course, for avid fans, unnecessary spending for star chasing will be included in the account for necessary spending and money will be saved from other unnecessary spending or even necessary spending to support their idols.
Taylor's book, The Winner's Curse, concludes that we are neither pure saints nor pure sinners; we are just ordinary people [5]. Unfortunately, not many people live in the world of economic modeling. For example, the life-cycle hypothesis, which dominates economic modeling, fails to take into account one of the most important elements of human nature - self-control - in people's decision-making. It is the factor of "self-control" that leads to the existence of many irrational behaviors, and people who are unable to control their own behaviors will continue on the wrong path.
(E) Economic development
Income levels have risen, leading to a shift in the structure of people's needs from simple survival to a higher level of spirituality. This is at the same time the nineteenth report on the main contradiction in Chinese society to summarize the change, from the past people's growing material and cultural needs to people's aspirations for a better life. And a good life necessarily includes the spiritual dimension. The national economy is running steadily, progressing steadily and improving steadily. Per capita disposable income is rising, and consumer demand is expanding at the same time, and consumption has become the main driving force of economic growth. Among them, education, culture and entertainment expenditures account for a large part, and people's investment in spiritual construction is increasing, and they are slowly beginning to enjoy life. As a result, the fan market has been developing rapidly in recent years, and people are more willing to invest in their favorite idols when they have disposable income, which at the same time further promotes the development of the fan economy.
V. Thinking and Summarizing
In order to try to avoid the risks that may be encountered in the process of development of fan economy, the following points can be taken as a precaution.
First, accurate positioning of the audience fans. For all companies, the first step in making a good product is to accurately locate the appropriate audience. In the fan economy, what a company or organization needs to do is to maintain the existing fan base, develop the potential fan base, locate the audience, and understand the different needs of the main body of multiple parties in order to formulate a personalized policy, rather than using the mass group oriented approach to cast a wide net. If cultural enterprises want to create value and gain profits through the fan economy, the determination of audience targets is essential.
Secondly, comprehensive product experience services. For the product experience and feel the service is in the maintenance of fans and business interests of the most central link. Enhance the user experience, lies in the creation of high-quality products, so that direct contact with the user has a good feeling, and have a second desire to consume. The service is to focus on everything related to the product, including pre-sale, sale, after-sale follow-up at different stages. After focusing on the product itself and the surrounding supporting services, can greatly enhance consumer satisfaction, win their trust and choice.
From the perspective of the cultural field, the rapid development of the fan economy is due to the fact that it breaks down the centralized power structure in the past, redistributes the various aspects of production, and greatly enhances the power and responsibility of consumers in the circulation and consumption of products, thus truly empowering consumers. In the past, most of the rights possessed by fans could only be realized in their consumption, and they would support the idols in their hearts by purchasing albums, posters, books and magazines, etc., which could be used as an opportunity to express their cultural needs and choices. With the continuous updating of the mass media, the channels for fans to use their rights have been broadened and the ways to use them are diverse. They can design their own innovative products, find cooperative manufacturers for mass production, and later directly participate in the publicity of the product launch, and have their own voice in all aspects of the industrial chain, clearly showing their own attitudes.
In addition to the economic benefits it brings to society as a whole, the valuable thing about the development and growth of the fan economy is that it can promote the diversity of the cultural ecosystem, allowing cultures to intermingle with each other in an eclectic way. It allows for the survival and development of many cultural styles that were previously considered "niche", and promotes the transformation of the cultural market into a diversified and innovative one that better meets people's spiritual needs in the new era.
In today's context, let's wait and see if the fan economy can grow and outline a beautiful blueprint for cultural **** enjoyment.