“On Here, I’m Team Jacob: Exploring Feelings of Belongingness in Virtual Communities

Virtual communities have become important for enthusiasts to meet, share, and express their affection for a wide range of products, ideas, and brands. While virtual communities have been studied previously, the literature is lacking a perspective on virtual communities surrounding products, ideas and brands that users are embarrassed to admit they care about (that is, that they have a negative public affiliation towards), but that nonetheless are a representation of the user’s identity (brand congruity). This study presents a research model positing that, within a virtual community environment, feelings of negative affiliation and brand congruity will influence users’ feelings of belonging to the virtual community, and negative public affiliation will also moderate the relationship between brand congruity and belongingness. Our results indicate significant relationships between negative public affiliation and brand congruity with feelings of belongingness. Our study has implications for the field, as well as for practitioners