How does a celebrity make fans happy? Interaction between celebrities and fans in the social media context

Abstract This research investigates how structural and situational factors related to a celebrity's activities on social media influence fans' self-congruity, friendship, quality of life, well-being, commitment and ultimately, celebrity loyalty. Based on the theory of parasocial interaction, this research formulates a model specifying the influences of virtually established parasocial interaction between fans and celebrities in social media related to fans' quality of life and well-being. After collecting data from Amazon's Mechanical Turk, this study conducted analysis with structural equation modeling to empirically test the proposed relationships. The empirical findings show that self-congruity is significantly influenced by language similarity, interest similarity and interaction frequency, and friendship is significantly affected by language similarity, interest similarity and self-disclosure. Also, the results indicate the significant relationships among self-congruity, friendship, quality of life, well-being, commitment and loyalty. Based on the findings, this study suggests theoretical and practical implications for the extant literature and industry.