Children's Online Safety Regulation in the US - Why Laws Alone Won't Be Enough | Thetafan Intelligence

As COPPA, KOSA and new state laws reshape children's online safety in America, regulation, technology and responsible self-regulation will need to work together. Meta Sued for Invasion of Privacy in Potential US$1T Class Action is a new beginning.

Why Brand Fandom Is Replacing Traditional Marketing | Thetafan Intelligence

For most of the modern marketing era, brands have worked to a fairly simple formula. Build awareness, explain why the product is different, repeat the message often enough and, eventually, persuade someone to buy. It is a model that has shaped everything from advertising budgets to customer funnels, and it still has a place. But it is becoming less effective in a world where people are surrounded by more messages, more content and more attempts to influence them than they can reasonably absorb.

How Fandom Influences Gen Z Consumer Behaviour and Brand Growth | Thetafan Intelligence

The science behind fan identity, belonging and the new economics of influence. Why does one story hold our attention while another loses us within seconds? Why does one person watch, enjoy and move on, while somebody else joins a community, creates content, buys merchandise and begins to treat the subject as part of their identity? These are no longer questions for entertainment companies alone.

When a Crowd Moves as One, Fandom Becomes an Economic Force | Thetafan Intelligence

One of the most powerful images of the 2026 World Cup has not been a goal. It has been the crowds.

From Likes to Loyalty. The New Math of Fandom | Thetafan Intelligence

For a long time, marketers treated a “like” as evidence. Evidence of attention. Evidence of interest. Sometimes, evidence of love.

Fandom is a financial asset. Here's the formula that proves it | Thetafan Intelligence

New research proposes a quantitative model for valuing intellectual property based not on legal rights, but on the scale, intensity, and duration of fan communities.

Fan Identity in the Digital Age: What 355,000 Instagram Posts Reveal | Thetafan Intelligence

New sports science research analysed 355,000 fan posts to uncover how supporters build identity online. Key insights for sport organisations during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

‍What the Music Industry Can Learn from Sports About Fans| Thetafan Intelligence

This article from Rolling Stone explores how, in both music and sports, emotion is the currency. Fans don’t just buy tickets; they buy belonging. Adopting richer data and smarter tools doesn’t mean turning artists into leagues or fans into customers. It means protecting the integrity of the art by strengthening genuine connection. When data serves creativity and not commercialization alone, fandom becomes more meaningful, more sustainable and more human.

Genealogy of a Participatory Community: Spanish Fandom | Thetafan Intelligence

This article examines the situation of the fandom in Spain, where the mass media and consumer culture developed under a dictatorship?

Corporate social responsibility, interactivity and fan loyalty | Thetafan Intelligence

This study explores how corporate social responsibility (CSR) interactivity on social media affects value co-creation among sports fans and enhances the sustainable management of professional sports organizations.

Classifying and Characterizing Fandom Activities: A Focus on Superfans | Thetafan Intelligence

This article examines how digital fandom has grown alongside the rise of online communities, fueled by technologies that enable people with shared interests to connect more easily. Fans now gather on a diverse array of digital platforms, including dedicated forums such as Reddit, Twitch, Discord, and Tiktok, as well as typical social media groups on platforms like X and Instagram. Inevitably, fans’ participation in these environments spans a range of media-related behaviors—views, likes, shares, posts, comments, chatting, streaming, and more—that reflect their levels of engagement.

When fandom becomes a problem: Development of the Problematic Celebrity Fanship Scale | Thetafan Intelligence

There has been considerable research interest in the personality characteristics and mental health of individuals showing excessive levels of celebrity admiration. However, the conceptualization and measurement of potentially problematic levels of engagement with celebrities remain unclear. This study introduces and operationalizes the concept of problematic celebrity fanship within the theoretical framework of behavioral addictions.

Staging the spectacle: the panoptic–synoptic dynamics of prosumer fandom in live PDC darts | Thetafan Intelligence

This article examines how the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) transformed live darts into a highly mediated, carnivalesque spectacle by mobilising the participatory energy of prosumer fans. It explores how surveillance, performance, and control intersect within a distinctive sport entertainment ecosystem.

As AI’s Impact on Human Behavior Grows, Most Models Still Don’t Understand People | Thetafan Intelligence

New research highlights how AI models misrepresent human behavior. Thetafan explores why behavioral intelligence, not alignment, is the next frontier. AI has become exceptionally good at producing answers. What it still struggles to do is understand people. Recent research from Google on behavioral alignment in large language models highlights a growing gap between how AI responds and how humans actually behave. While most of the focus has been on making models more accurate or more “aligned,” the deeper issue is this: “Humans don’t operate on a single answer. We operate across a spectrum of behaviors, opinions, and contradictions.”

Exploring the motivations behind fandom nationalism expression in China | Thetafan Intelligence

Organized fandom has become a defining feature of contemporary subculture, sociocultural dynamics, and even political discourse. In China, however, direct interaction between fan communities and the political sphere remains relatively limited, except in cases involving nationalist movements.

The Language of Fandom | Thetafan Intelligence

Professor Venkata S. Govindarajan studies how language reflects the ups and downs of professional sports fandom. If you’re a fan of sports, you’ve almost certainly engaged in passionate discussions and debates with your favorite team’s fellow supporters during a game.

How Sports Betting Is Changing Fan Behaviour and the Culture of Modern Fandom | Thetafan Intelligence

Sports gambling addiction is increasing and recovery impacts men’s relationships with friends, family and fandom. The rapid expansion of legalized sports betting is reshaping not only the economics of sport, but the culture of fandom itself.

Emotional complexity of fan-controlled comments | Thetafan Intelligence

In China, fan participation in media production is becoming more mainstream and diverse, and fan groups themselves are developing perceptible emotional attributes; thus, studies on affective labor involving fans are gradually increasing in number. Fan-controlled comments are a feature of fan culture that has received much attention due to their rapid growth and influence.

How Sports Betting Is Changing Fan Behaviour and the Culture of Modern Fandom | Thetafan Intelligence

Sports gambling addiction is increasing and recovery impacts men’s relationships with friends, family and fandom. The rapid expansion of legalized sports betting is reshaping not only the economics of sport, but the culture of fandom itself.

What AI Companions Reveal About Data, Loneliness and Human Connection | Thetafan Intelligence

800 million people now have an AI companion. That number deserves a moment. AI companions are no longer a fringe technology. Platforms such as Snapchat’s My AI, Replika and China’s Xiaoice now collectively reach hundreds of millions of users worldwide (Snapchat’s My AI, with over 150 million users, Replika, with an estimated 25 million users and Xiaoice, with 660 million). For many people, these systems provide something traditionally associated with human relationships: emotional acknowledgement, conversation and the sense of being understood.