2025/07/31 by Bruno Melo Moura, André Luiz Maranhão de Souza Leão · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Digital Games and Media #Gender, Feminism, and Media
paper · doi:10.1108/rege-01-2025-0021
openalex publication_date 2025/07/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Purpose Cultural consumer gatekeeping shapes interactions with the marketplace, indicating that participatory culture and fans' practices – such as cosplay – can establish truth games in fan culture. Thus, this study aims to examine how cultural consumers’ gatekeeping establishes truth games in fan practice. Design/methodology/approach The methodological approach integrates Foucault’s analytical framework with the netnographic data collection, which considered cosplayer interactions over five years. Findings Two power diagrams structure cosplayers’ resistance. Disillusion reflects opposition to perceived distortions, such as external appropriations and the politicization of cosplay. Depravity captures the tensions surrounding hypersexualized performance, balancing artistic expression and community norms. By navigating these conflicts, they enact the consumer truths that regulate participation in a gatekeeping process, where community members assert authority over acceptable practices and reinforce participatory culture through internal governance and exclusionary mechanisms. Social implications This study reveals how consumer communities self-regulate through internal truth production, shaping participatory cultures. Practically, it provides insights for marketing researchers to navigate cultural sensitivities, helping them engage with fandom while respecting governance and authenticity. Originality/value This study contributes and conceptualizes cultural gatekeeping as a disposition of cynical consumer resistance and expanding knowledge on how consumer truths shape inclusion, exclusion and power structures in digital fandoms.