An economics think tank argues parasocial relationships are just imaginary friends for adults
AEI, on Farrah Fawcett posters in 1976. It is the least sympathetic framing of the week and the most useful one.
American Enterprise InstituteRead →
Swifties moved units and now there is a chart proving it
Luminate numbers on loyalty as a measurable force. Twenty years of Swift and a data release.
The biggest fandom on earth, finally measured by an instrument that does not care how anybody feels. Luminate's numbers say the thing fans have been saying for free for a decade: they do not just stream, they buy, they organise, they endure. Which is Law 5 in one spreadsheet. Closeness was never irrational. It is now also measurable, and people who can measure it will start charging for it.
Notice, name, choose. That's the whole method.
The clerk's shelf - how this got here first
NOVEL
Company Dreamer ↗The #1 dreamer in the world has her life rearranged to keep her end-dream in the black.Sources
Luminate report: Taylor Swift fans power record album sales ↗
USA Today · 4 SEP 2026
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Someone traced modern stan behaviour back to experiments from fifty years ago
A long thread on the psychology of fan activity, and every branch of it points at the same postwar lab work.
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Taylor Swift's re-recordings are a parasocial business model
ABC Triple J on why owning your back catalogue is a relationship with an audience, not just an artist decision.
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The economist says we worship idols in sport, politics, cinema and business
And refuses the special pleading that it is only a pop thing.
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