Persuasion, Crisis, and Fragmentation: A Framework for Understanding Parasocial Fandom Disillusionment

This paper synthesizes research on parasocial interaction, platform affordances, and rhetorical strategy to explain why high-investment fandoms often collapse into disillusionment. Parasocial fandoms are most likely to fracture after high-attention crises when creator rhetoric shows measurable inconsistency across ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos, and when platform amplification increases audience exposure to contradictory signals.

The paper proposes a four-phase lifecycle model—Formation, Peak Persuasive Flow, Crisis and Contradiction, Fragmentation and Disillusionment—in which rhetorical consistency failures and algorithmic amplification of contradictory signals accelerate crisis and community fragmentation. Drawing on parasocial interaction theory, classical rhetoric, and platform affordance research, it argues that the fragility of parasocial bonds is structurally produced by the same mechanisms that create them.

The paper concludes with design implications for creators seeking to build resilient audience relationships and for platforms seeking to reduce the community harm caused by creator crisis events.