What Makes a Fan a Fan?: The Connection Between Steve Jobs and Apple Fandom

Introduction

Consumer fandom has received an increased amount of attention in the marketing literature and sports marketing literature due to its important role as an aspect of consumer behavior. Fandom typically constitutes of a subculture or a community that surrounds a particular person (e.g., a celebrity) or an object (e.g., a brand). Consumer fandom has been examined in a broad context in the literature (Chung et al., 2008; Deluca, 2018; Doyle et al., 2013; Funk and James, 2001; Hook et al., 2018; Hunt et al., 1999; Jang et al., 2008; Madupu and Cooley, 2010; Munnukka et al., 2015; Mzoughi et al., 2010; Miller and Benkwitz, 2016; Obiegbu et al., 2019; Seregina and Schouten, 2016). A fanatic fan community often demonstrates quasi-religious elements such as belief (faith and worship), emotion (awe and reverence), group identity (community) and behavioral rituals (gatherings in Apple stores or Jobs’ speech seminar). Brand communities of Apple, Harley-Davidson and Star Trek are typical examples of such fandoms that have strong brand loyalty and brand attachment. For example, Belk and Tumbat (2005) describe the characteristics of Apple fandom as a brand cult with extreme devotion which consumers have toward Apple computers. Muñiz and Schau (2005) find supernatural, religious, and magical motifs are common themes among Apple Newton users. Pogačnik and Črnič (2014) further demonstrate four religious dimensions of the Apple phenomenon: community, beliefs, sacred, and rituals. Apple fans accept Apple ideology and fanatically love Apple as a sacred brand. For some extremely zealous Apple fans, they spent a night outside an Apple store waiting for the newest iPhone (Pogačnik and Črnič, 2014).

As McCloud (2003) once noted, some popular culture communities, especially those surrounding dead celebrities, shared many substantive and functional parallels to religious movements. Belk and Tumbat (2005) find the Mac and its fans constitute the equivalent of a religion, which is based on an origin myth for Apple Computer, heroic and savior legends surrounding Steve Jobs. Indeed, to many Steve Jobs’fans, Steve Jobs is the mind, soul and savor of Apple Computers and a religion-like idol. For Apple Fans, they buy iPod, iPhone and iPad because of their faith to Steve Jobs. As such, for the Apple fandom, it is more than brand loyalty, but a belief like religious metaphors sacralizing both Mac devotion and Steve Jobs (Campbell and La Pastina, 2010). Meanwhile, Apple products have also been found to have religious aspects in the eyes of their true believers. According Muñiz and Schau (2005), supernatural, religious, and magical motifs are common in the narratives of Apple Newton users, including the miraculous performance and survival of the brand, as well as the return of the brand creator. In their study of how iPhone becomes divine, Campbell and La Pastina (2010) demonstrate the religious metaphors and myth of iPhone are incorporated into the popular discourse.