Adolescent identity and social worlds in online fan community: Evidence from text analysis and grounded theory among Chinese high school students

Abstract

Idol worship has become a salient socio-cultural practice among Chinese adolescents, particularly high school students facing academic pressures and identity development challenges. This study examines the psychological mechanisms and collective behaviors of idol worship within Weibo's Super Topic Communities through a mixed-method approach. A corpus of 14,480 posts was analyzed using LIWC, treated here as a linguistic tool to describe language patterns rather than infer psychological states, while 15 semi-structured interviews were analyzed using grounded theory. Findings show that adolescent fans display stronger emphases on aspirations, peer affiliation, and goal pursuit compared to adult fans. The interview analysis generated a multi-stage model in which aesthetic and spiritual gratifications underpin idol identification, while community participation fosters belonging and group cohesion. Platform-mediated structures further amplify shared emotions and channel them into financial, affective, and time investments. This study advances fan research by proposing an explanatory model of adolescent idol worship, situating identity development within platform-mediated, data-driven communities and integrating linguistic and narrative evidence.

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