Religious Devotion to Pop Culture: Fandom as a New Form of Religiosity in a World of Changing Values

We live in a constantly changing world where new social forms of belonging are rapidly evolving. Some of these forms resemble what we term “religion” to an alarming degree, but they are rarely studied as such. This paper will discuss one of such forms: fandom. This is the phenomenon of Internet communities gathering in online spaces because of their devotion to strands of popular culture: celebrities, sports, television shows, movies, novels etc. The study will show, through extensive fieldwork and analysis, that fandom resembles religion in its form, its community aspect, and its emotive experiences. It is therefore important for the phenomenon to be taken seriously in the field of comparative religion, because it is serving the human needs that religion had once served.