Existential Isolation…Press Play to Escape. (June 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jones, Scott
• Other Names: Brown Stephen guest-editor.; Kerrigan Finola guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Marketing theory. Volume 20:Number 2(2020)
• Page Start: 203
• Page End: 210
• Publication Date: 2020-06
• Subjects: Binge-watching -- escapism -- introspection -- narrative transportation -- solo consumption -- tribes; Marketing -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Marketing research -- Periodicals; Marketing research -- Methodology -- Periodicals; Marketing -- Periodicals; 381.01
• DOI: 10.1177/1470593119897758
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1470-5931

Abstract

While consumer research has frequently visited the fantastical search for escape from everyday life, this story (part autoethnographic, part fiction – all the characters and incidents are the author's creation) documents a solo consumer's spirited desire to escape from beyond what quotidian life affords, and society's sometimes unwelcome gaze, in a more sombre and hermit form than has previously been explored. The story plays on immersion, narrative transportation and parasocial imaginings around a prolonged binge-watch marathon and coping with the existential isolation, a resource in constant need of replenishment.