Stigma and Accommodation to Consumption Loss

Stigma is a known impediment to identity expression and identity work (Goffman, 1963; Snow and Anderson, 1987). By examining four discontinued television (TV) series varying in cultural stigma attached to the series, we show how accommodation processes unfold and are affected by the countervailing effects of consumption sociality and stigma. Triangulating across data sources and methods (extended participant observation, long interview and online forum analysis), we find compelling evidence that consumers experience loss on multiple levels (personal, social and cultural) and that sociality affects practices available in the interconnected processes of intrapsychic transformation, psychosocial status transition, as well as the continuation of communal and symbolic connections.TV series were selected because consumers’ experience of TV series often spans several years and usually occurs in domestic space fostering intimacy through intense parasocial attachments, which form and evolve like interpersonal relationships (Russell et al., 2004). TV series are also often consumed socially, allowing assessment of the impact of brand withdrawal on social interactions and networks surrounding brand consumption like families experiencing the loss of a ritual-infused retail space (Otnes et al., 2008) and fellow brand enthusiasts (Kozinets, 2001; Schau et al., 2009). Finally, TV series are intricately connected to the broader cultural environment which impacts consumers’ responses to withdrawals. For example, Star Trek fans experience social derogation stemming from mainstream North American attitudes about their brand devotion being “geekish” (Kozinets, 2001), which impacts their experience of brand loss. Loss accommodation is theorized to be anchored in culture, or the manner in which the broader community views the relationship with the lost person or object and sanctions ways to deal with the loss. When the general community provides sympathy and support for one’s loss, it acknowledges its legitimacy and facilitates the accommodation process (Kamerman, 1993). When loss is felt throughout a community, as in a natural disaster (Delorme et al., 2004), the sociocultural dynamics surrounding loss are essential to the meaning making process and identity reconstruction that ensues (Bonsu and Belk, 2003). Conversely, if the broad culture does not recognize the validity of the loss, disenfranchisement can ensue. When the loss is a “socially undervalued relationship,” people may feel stigmatized and this stigma “contravenes or cancels out the meaning of the loss” (Fowlkes, 1990) impairing the accommodation processes. Stigma leads to disenfranchised grief because their affection for the product is not widely accepted and their grief is invalidated. Echoing previous research (Henry and Caldwell, 2006; Goffman, 1963; Snow and Anderson, 1987), we find different ways in which fans deal with the powerlessness resulting from this stigma: some withdraw into an enclave, mainly a virtual one, through the fan forums that offer a safe social space for expressing and sharing their grief; others instead, attempt to conceal their grief symptoms altogether and deny themselves the right to express it, even though this maladaptive strategy usually led to chronic grief; yet others distance themselves from the stigmatized groups and attempt to return to the mainstream (Snow and Anderson, 1987).