A comforting cup of celeb tea: Understanding how social exclusion influences the appeal of celebrity gossip

Purpose Despite the popularity of celebrity gossip (speculative media content about personal lives of celebrities), factors that drive consumers toward such content remain underexplored. The pupose of this paper is to examine a novel antecedent for the consumption of celebrity-gossip content: social exclusion, which in turn leads to a desire to affiliate with close others. Design/methodology/approach Pilot Study 1 explores how social exclusion influences participants’ interest in popular celebrity-gossip magazines while Pilot Study 2 establishes conceptual differences between gossip and non-gossip content about celebrities. Experiments 1 and 2 examine whether celebrity-gossip (vs. non-gossip) content is liked/enjoyed more under social exclusion (vs. a control condition) and whether consuming it induces feelings of closeness with the target celebrity (only Experiment 2). Experiment 3 tests whether the focal effect extends to a consequential reading-choice measure while examining the underlying process. Experiment 4 investigates how different types of self-threats (affiliation-related vs. affiliation-unrelated) affect the choice of celebrity-gossip (over non-gossip) content. Findings Pilot Study 1 and the four main experiments show that socially excluded consumers find celebrity-gossip content more appealing than non-gossip content. Experiment 2 additionally finds that the increased liking for celebrity-gossip content under social exclusion is driven by feelings of closeness with the target celebrity (induced by the content). Experiment 3 supports the hypothesized mediation: social exclusion → desire to affiliate with close others → appeal of celebrity-gossip content. Finally, Experiment 4 finds that the increased appeal of celebrity-gossip content is observed more strongly under a social exclusion threat but is relatively attenuated for affiliation-unrelated threats (e.g., intelligence and personal-control threats). Research limitations/implications The findings suggest consuming celebrity gossip fosters intimacy in parasocial relationships with celebrities. This implies celebrity gossip may make the “person” in person-brands (celebrities) more accessible, thus positively impacting their authenticity perceptions. Practical implications This work has important implications for purveyors of celebrity gossip, for brands advertising on celebrity-gossip magazines/websites and for celebrity brand management. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to provide compelling evidence that consuming celebrity gossip offers an effective, low-risk means to cope with distressing situations (such as social exclusion) by vicariously fulfilling one’s desire for affiliation/closeness.