| Title: | Make the friendship bracelets : from parasocial attachment to horizontal reciprocity in Taylor Swift fandom |
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| Authors: | ID Vrtačič, Eva (Author) |
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| Files: |  ZUP_Vrtacic_Eva_2026.pdf (140,68 KB)
MD5: 454B675752EC74F389CB1881353F2C78
 https://www.hippocampus.si/ISSN/2630-4082/58.185-199.pdf
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| Language: | English |
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| Work type: | Unknown |
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| Typology: | 1.01 - Original Scientific Article |
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| Organization: | ZUP - University of Primorska Press
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| Abstract: | This article analyses the exchange of friendship bracelets among Taylor Swift fans (Swifties) as a gift economy shaped by parasociality and platform capitalism. Because the celebrity is structurally inaccessible at scale, reciprocity cannot return as an interpersonal gift and is instead displaced laterally into fan-to-fan exchange, becoming horizontal reciprocity and a moral economy of belonging. Drawing on Mauss and Lévi-Strauss, and extending the analysis through Malinowski, Appadurai, Kopytoff, Weiner, Gell, and Miller, I show how mass-produced materials are singularised through labour and ex change. The Eras Tour operates as a tournament of value in which bracelets function as pop-cultural valuables whose circulation organises recognition and inclusion. Reciprocity here can be understood as temporally extended, networked circulation anchored around an absent centre. |
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| Keywords: | Taylor Swift fandom, swifties, friedship bracelets, parasociality, reciprocity, tournaments of value, inalienable possessions |
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| Publication status: | Published |
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| Publication version: | Version of Record |
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| Place of publishing: | Koper |
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| Publisher: | Založba Univerze na Primorskem |
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| Year of publishing: | 2026 |
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| Number of pages: | Str. 185-199 |
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| Numbering: | Letn. 58, št. 1 |
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| PID: | 20.500.12556/RUP-23531  |
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| UDC: | 316.613.42 |
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| ISSN on article: | 0587-5161 |
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| DOI: | 10.26493/2630-4082.58.185-199 |
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| COBISS.SI-ID: | 288197379 |
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| Publication date in RUP: | 21.08.2026 |
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| Views: | 39 |
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| Downloads: | 0 |
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| Metadata: |    |
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