Death of the Slow-Cooker or #CROCK-POTISINNOCENT? This Is Us,Parasocial Grief,and the Crock-Pot Crisis

Abstract

Even though viewers understand that a television show is fictional, they can still mourn the demise of their favorite characters. This fictional grief became apparent with the on-screen death of the character Jack in the program This Is Us. The current study analyzed the death narrative and perceived responsibility in first and second seasons of This Is Us, paired with the online responses posted to social media and the short promotional video between the show and Crock-Pot. Findings suggest that fans experienced and expressed parasocial grief for Jack’s death on social media, attributing blame to the Crock-Pot brand. In turn, the company’s tweets and replies acknowledged and participated in the fans’ mourning rituals while reassuring the brand’s safety, ultimately aiding the brand’s public recovery. From fans’ displaced blame to the later partnership between the show and brand, labeled “#CrockPotIsInnocent,” this case demonstrates the impact of fictional media, social media engagement for parasocial grief, and a successful real-life brand recovery for a fictional crisis.

Keywords

television criticism critical and cultural studies fandom health communication representation

On January 22, 2018, the episode “That’ll Be the Day” of the fictional television drama This Is Us premiered on NBC. In this climatic hour, viewers learn that a faulty knob on a slow-cooker sparked a fire that would ultimately kill Jack Pearson, the family patriarch. Within 2 days, stock for Newell Brands, the maker of Crock-Pot, dropped 24%—despite no real-life evidence of the kitchen appliance as a fire hazard (Ciolli, 2018). In attempts to reign in the public backlash, spokespeople for Crock-Pot started a special Twitter account, reassuring consumers of the safety of their products while expressing sympathy for Jack’s death. A week later, This Is Us creators released a special promo: Milo Ventimiglia (who plays Jack) speaks directly to the camera about family unity and then dishes himself a bowl of chili from a large slow-cooker, ending with the Crock-Pot logo and #CrockPotIsInnocent.

This Is Us is currently the top-rated show on television, with approximately 32.7 million viewers for the “Super Bowl Sunday” episode (Porter, 2018). It is also critically acclaimed, with multiple Emmy awards, recognition from the Screen Actors Guild, and other honors (“This Is Us Awards,” 2018). This serial drama first aired on September 20, 2016 and follows a nontraditional family of five through different moments of their lives, weaving in questions about identity, body image, addiction, generational influence, race, class, parenting styles, and social context. The nonlinear storyline regularly jumps from points in time, spanning from the 1950s through the present. Long before episodes detail how the fictional Jack died, viewers learn that in the “present moment,” he has been dead for quite some time. So when the slow-cooker starts the fire in the Pearson home, we have already learned that it is at least a 20-year-old appliance that ignites in the late 1990s, not one recently purchased or brand new from the box.

Why did viewers hold Crock-Pot responsible for the demise of a fictional character? Just as important, why did the public relations team for Newell Brands encourage an emotional buy-in to this fictional narrative with its apology? This article analyzes the interplay among the fire narrative in This Is Us, viewer backlash for the product, and the corporate response, all the while acknowledging this moment as a demonstration of entertainment media’s impact on viewers’ perception and behavior.

Entertainment Television and Parasocial Relationships

Even as works of fiction, entertainment television can have powerful effects on viewers’ perceptions and behavior. As part of formal strategic campaigns, fictional storylines have successfully introduced audiences to new information, raised awareness of prosocial issues, and helped shape positive behaviors (Brodie et al., 2001; Foss & Blake, 2019; Glik et al., 1998; Morgan, Movius, & Cody, 2009; Moyer-Gusé & Nabi, 2011; Rideout, 2008; Winsten, 1994). Outside of campaigns, fictional television also impacts audiences. People learn from fictional storylines and, depending on the genre, trust this information (Davin, 2003; Gauthier, 1999). Moreover, TV influences consumer behavior, as evident from the spark in Nick & Nora pajama sales after Ally McBeal wore them or the popularity of coffee shops in the 1990s coinciding with Friends, Fraiser, and other urban sitcoms (Stanley, 1998; Tueth, 2000). Similarly, after a fictional character created a diary in the soap opera Passions, HarperCollins created and published the book, which became a best seller (Carter, 2001).

Parasocial Relationships

Television’s impact is magnified when people feel tied to its characters. Horton and Wohl (1956) first labeled these connections as parasocial interaction, referring to the “seemingly face-to-face relationship between spectator and performer,” established when people identify with celebrities and fictional characters (p. 215). This viewer identification extends beyond media exposure, “much like a friendship that exists between two persons beyond their face-to-face communication sequences,” a phenomenon Schramm and Wirth (2010) referred to as a “parasocial relationship” or PSR (p. 27). Russell, Stern, and Stern (2006) described the development of this relationship:

Over the course of watching multiple episodes of a television series … viewers can become actively vested in the characters whose lives they closely follow and care about, and sometimes begin to interact with them as if they were real, in a parasocial way. (pp. 9–10)

This perceived realness can become anthropomorphic, in that viewers may understand that characters are fictional but relate to them as if they are real (Gardner & Knowles, 2008). The more affection one feels for the character, the more that the character seems “real” (Gardner & Knowles, 2008).

Certain factors increase the likelihood of PSRs forming. Not surprisingly, characters that are framed positively are more likely to lead to PSRs and are perceived as more attractive than negative characters (Knoll, Schramm, Schallhorn, & Wynistorf, 2015). Rubin and McHugh (1987) found that physical, social, and task attraction (competence in achieving objectives) to the fictional characters heightens the PSR. Furthermore, actors’ interaction with the camera can make us feel like we are forming relationships with them (Horton & Wohl, 1956). Engagement and familiarity with the narrative can also amplify these connections (Perse & Rubin, 1989). In addition, the PSR intensifies with viewers’ perceived realism of the storyline and its characters, as well as the perceived satisfaction of the relationship (Branch, Wilson, & Agnew, 2013; Rubin & Perse, 1987).

The consuming experience also shapes perceived relationships. In the 1980s, Rubin and McHugh (1987) found that the length of exposure to the characters did not significantly influence the strength of the PSR, yet this effect appears to have changed with contemporary technology. Tukachinsky and Eyal (2018) concluded, “The more back-to-back episodes that viewers consumed, the more they interacted with the characters, reflected upon them, and empathized with them,” demonstrating the impact of “binge-watching” (pp. 11–12). Furthermore, relationships tend to be strengthened by following favorite characters for longer periods of time (Branch et al., 2013).

Viewers’ PSRs influence more than just their feelings toward their favorite characters. Fans trust their favorite characters and my look to them for guidance (Sood & Rogers, 2000). And as fans may assimilate some of the characters’ characteristics, PSRs can help people feel better about their own bodies (Young, Gabriel, & Hollar, 2013). PSRs can impact behavior. Viewers in PSRs with muscular superheroes exhibited more physical strength compared with those who did not have such a relationship (Young et al., 2013). Gardner and Knowles (2008) found that displaying favorite characters’ images influenced fans’ performance on various tasks, which mirrored the influence of having real people in the room with similarly strong relationships. PSRs also influence consumer attitudes and purchasing behavior. As Russell et al. (2006) articulated, “Consumers align their attitudes toward products with the inside-program characters’ attitudes to products and this alignment process is driven by the consumers’ extraprogram attachment to the characters” (p. 15). With strong PSRs, characters’ positive attitudes toward products positively impact consumer attitudes, regardless of the character-product association (Knoll et al., 2015; Russell et al., 2006). Inversely, characters’ negative attitudes toward products can result in more negative attitudes for consumers, assuming a strong PSR and logical product-character association (Russell et al., 2006).

PSRs, Fandom, and Interactivity

While PSRs were initially conceived as a linear or one-directional path, from the character/celebrity to the viewer, fans have used various media to connect and give feedback in these relationships. Sood and Rogers (2000) analyzed viewers’ letters to the television network of a popular Indian soap opera, noting how fans expressed their feelings of closeness with their favorite characters and talked about how they guided their decisions. The use of Twitter and other social media sites for television programs has widened the interactive experience for viewers. Scholars have noted how TV audiences across series and genres regularly turn to Twitter (Doughty, Rowland, & Lawson, 2012; Highfield, Harrington, & Bruns, 2013). Doughty et al. (2012) determined the online connections generated in tweets about television programs “appear to represent co-viewing, friendship relationships and are analogous to virtual gatherings on virtual sofas to watch and discuss the television show in question” (p. 85). Moreover, the format and use of Twitter provides an outlet that is both similar and unique to other audience receptive practices. By conducting interviews with participants of the television drama The West Wing fan base, Bore and Hickman (2013) demonstrated how Twitter both reflects fan-fiction writing and other forms of audience participation while at the same time differs in the constructed voice of Twitter participants and shared community exchange. In addition to commenting on an episode or overall show, fans can also participate in the “reality” of the text. Wood and Baughman (2012) examined participatory culture of the television program Glee, discussing how viewers created their own Twitter accounts for fictional characters in which they “meticulously crafted a world outside of the television narrative utilizing a new medium” (p. 334). Such activity extends and modifies the show’s narrative, allowing fans to both engage with each other and the text while creating their own stories within the program’s “reality” (Wood & Baughman, 2012). Online engagement can intensify the PSR, helping viewers feel closer to their favorite fictional characters and to engage with others that feel similarly. Sanderson and Cheong (2010) explained, “Social media provides audience members with the capability to actively communicate their PSI directly to celebrities as well as access others who share a parasocial attachment with the same media figure” (p. 329).

Parasocial Grief and Expression

Because of parasocial attachment, when celebrities or fictional characters die (or leave the show), fans may grieve the relationship dissolution similar to real-life responses. Cohen (2004) studied viewers’ feelings about “breakups” with their favorite characters, noting that across gender lines, fan responses mirrored feelings of loss found in real life, which increased with the perceived attachment to the characters. Cohen (2004) concluded, “Because attachment relationships provide closeness and security, their dissolution is likely to be accompanied by distress” (p. 190). For example, after the long-running program Breaking Bad ended, fans expressed feelings of loss and separation, similar to real-life breakups (Click & Holladay, 2018). Feelings of grief can occur even with temporary separation. Lather and Moyer-Guse (2011) studied fan responses to the television writers’ strike of 2007–2008, finding that viewers’ distress over the disruption intensified with greater parasocial relations. And although women tended to indicate stronger PSRs than men, both groups expressed anxious feeling about not regularly seeing their favorite characters on television (Lather & Moyer-Guse, 2011). Moreover, fans primarily filled the time they would have spent watching new shows with reruns, as opposed to nonmediated activities (Lather & Moyer-Guse, 2011).

When fans experience parasocial breakups with favorite characters, social media can offer virtual spaces to express this grief. Virtual communities help viewers to cope with parasocial loss: “By connecting with others, fans are able to voice their own grieving practices as well as participate in others’ grieving acts,” giving rise to shared experience and community (Sanderson & Cheong, 2010, p. 337). People express parasocial grief with celebrity deaths, as demonstrated in the tweets about Michael Jackson, as well as Alan Rickman, David Bowie, and Prince (Gach, Fiesler, & Brubaker, 2017; Sanderson & Cheong, 2010). At the same time, fans turn to social media to voice their feelings about fictional characters’ demise. For example, DeGroot and Leith (2018) studied a Facebook memorial page mourning the death of fictional character Lawrence Kutner on House, M.D., noting abundant posts that expressed grief for the character, demonstrating that “people grieve the death of a fictional character just as they grieve the death of a celebrity” (p. 10). After Game of Thrones character Jon Snow died, for example, fans produced nearly one thousand tweets about his death, expressing feelings of anger, depression, and denial (Daniel & Westerman, 2017). While the stages of grief did not follow the typical real-life progression (moving from denial to acceptance), Daniel and Westerman (2017) concluded, “We may respond to a television character’s death in some similar ways as a real person’s” (p. 151). When fans lose their favorite characters, they not only express grief, as previously mentioned, but this experience also affects viewing. For example, the death of Jon Snow prompted some fans to quit watching Game of Thrones, tweeting their intentions in posts of grief (Daniel & Westerman, 2017).

Research Questions

Overall, research has established PSRs prompt online engagement with other fans and that this participation can be used for shared mourning. Such understanding is useful to the current study, helping to illuminate why This Is Us fans engaged with each other online about the fictional Jack’s demise.

The following research questions guided this study and followed the timeline of the initial “cause of death” episode, fans’ communication with Crock-Pot on Twitter, the promotional video, and finally, the subsequent episodes that show Jack’s actual death:

How is responsibility for Jack’s fictional death constructed in This Is Us before the online response?

What was the constructed interplay between fans and the Crock-Pot brand? Of Crock-Pot and This Is Us?

How is responsibility constructed for Jack’s fictional death in This Is Us after the partnership with Crock-Pot?

Method

The narratives of Jack’s fictional death, the online response, and the continued storyline in This Is Us were analyzed (per the procedure given later) to examine creation and expressions of parasocial grief. As defined by Smith (2000), a narrative is “an oral, written, or filmed account of events told to others or to oneself (monologue), but is not verbal material that is purely descriptive, expository … disconnected, or abstract” (p. 328). Fisher (1985) asserted the importance of considering narrative as a whole, that “any instance of discourse is always more than the individuated forms that may compose it” (p. 347). Hence, the story of Jack’s death constructed in the show, experienced and expressed by fans, and then furthered by Crock-Pot can be considered holistically, across media platforms. Furthermore, Barthes and Duisit (1975) emphasized that narrative need not present itself in a chronological order, that “temporality is no more than a structural class of narrative … ‘true’ time is only a referential illusion” (p. 252). Story, then, can unfold in a nonlinear manner, provided that the plot advances as a whole.

The form of textual analysis conducted here identifies plots, character relationships, dialectic tensions, and other aspects deriving from the research questions (Arrington & Goodier, 2004). At the same time, this methodology does not regard text as fixed or isolated, but as connected to other texts and contexts, as well as prevailing ideologies in its cultural moment (Larsen, 1991). Here, multiple narratives emerge to tell the story, both of the fictional Jack’s demise, and the narrative frames identified beyond the show. In this holistic conceptualization, fans and the Crock-Pot spokespeople help to create the narrative of Jack’s death, extending its meaning beyond what was written in the script.

Conceptually, this research aims to better understand why Crock-Pot was blamed for Jack’s fictional death and how Crock-Pot’s response bolstered its public recovery. To conduct this research, all episodes from first and second seasons were first examined. From this preliminary stage, all storylines that contribute to the retelling of death of Jack in This Is Us were then further analyzed. The characters and their relationships, dialogue, action, camera shots, plots, and mise-en-scene were studied for Jack’s constructed death. For the study of online content, all posts on “The Crock-Pot Brand@CrockPotCares” and tweets with #CrockPotIsInnocent were analyzed, including posts and replies to posts. For the Twitter posts, text, images, emoticons, gifs, and other elements were studied individually and as a whole. For example, the language and word choice within a single tweet were looked at, noting emotionally charged expressions (“crushing my soul”), whether or not a person owned a Crock-Pot, what was stated about the Crock-Pot, and how feelings toward the appliance shifted because of This Is Us (“I’ll no longer be making #crockpot chili after last night’s episode”). These tweets were also studied in conjunction with the Crock-Pot brand’s tweeted response—examining the extent to which Crock-Pot referred to the original tweeter by name (“Hannah, We totally get it!”), expressed shared grief with the tweeter (“Jack was our favorite too!”), and defended the product (“Since the ‘70s we’ve been providing families with quality and safe products”). As Bore and Hickman (2013) highlighted in their methodological discussion of Twitter, this forum is a public shared exchange in which users reply, critique, and build on the posts of other users. Thus, the threads were also analyzed as a package and in their sequential timeline, studying how users responded to each other, building the conversation.

All direct quotations from social media are written as they were originally posted, including grammatical errors, emojis, and highlighting. In addition, this research explored attributions of responsibility in the show, by viewers, and by Crock-Pot. Such attributions were indicated by dialogue, camera shots, and narrative devices in the show, and implicit and explicit blame in the social media posts on the This Is Us and Crock-Pot Facebook sites and Twitter threads.

Sample

To identify narratives of Jack’s fictional death, this study examined three layers of text:

Television program content of This Is Us

Viewer and Crock-Pot’s social media response

The promotional video for This Is Us and Crock-Pot

From the first revelation of Jack’s untimely death (in Episode 1.5), This Is Us fans and critics began speculating online about the details and cause of his demise. The show has consistently had a large fan base, with bloggers and fan communities discussing and questioning the cause of Jack’s death. The show’s Facebook page has more than 3.5 million “Likes” and “Follows.” More than 331,000 people follow the program’s Twitter feed, which has more than 10,000 tweets. Producers, cast members, and fans regularly tweet about the show. Given this fan base and online activity, it is not surprising that viewers turned to social media to express their grief over Jack’s death.

The time period January 23, 2018 through February 6, 2018 was used as parameters for the study of constructed narratives about Jack’s death outside of the show’s content. On January 23, 2018, “That’ll Be the Day” first aired. Following this broadcast, posts, tweets, and replies using Crock-Pot Brand@CrockPotCares were examined through the airing of “Super Bowl Sunday” (2/4/18) and “The Car” (2/6/18)—episodes that depict the actual moments of Jack’s death and his funeral. The promotional video showing a partnership between This Is Us and the Crock-Pot brand (“A Special Message From This Is Us”) was also analyzed for its role in blame attribution and Crock-Pot.

Findings

A textual analysis was conducted on 36 episodes of This Is Us, online responses, and the promotional video featuring Crock-Pot. Collectively, these texts construct multiple sites of blame for Jack’s death, initially attributing responsibility to slow-cookers (generalized as Crock-Pot) and then shifting away from these appliances due to Crock-Pot’s response, paired with further unfolding of the story. It is in the narratives constructing Jack’s life that set up the meaning and emotion surrounding his death. In response to the research questions, attributes of responsibility for Jack’s death in the narratives and by fans are discussed, in conjunction with the interplay between the Crock-Pot brand, fans, and This Is Us producers.

Constructed Responsibility for Jack’s Death in This Is Us

From our first introduction to the character Jack Pearson, he is repeatedly the hero of everyday life, his family, and the show. Whenever the Pearson children (Kevin, Kate, and Randall) feel sad, Jack is there to lift them up. Likewise, Jack’s “larger than life” persona extends to how he treats his wife, Rebecca. Although it is through her eyes that we see Jack’s faults, particularly with his drinking, we also witness the lengths to which he goes to make his wife feel happy and beloved. This constructed heroism makes his death a significant loss for his fictional family and for audience members.

The unconventional delivery of This Is Us conveys tidbits of information about Jack’s death from Episode 1.5 through midseason Season 2 with “That’ll Be the Day” (2.13) and “Super Bowl Sunday” (2.14). In this time, we are gradually shown details about the events leading up to Jack’s death, including the cause (fire) and time-frame (when the triplets were teenagers in the 1990s). These devices build the narrative up to the day and moment of the tragedy. The storyline warns viewers that Jack’s death is near (in the “reality” of the 1990s narrative) in Episode 2.12 “Clooney.” As the Pearson family plans a trip to the shopping mall, Rebecca casually asks Jack to remind her to buy batteries. In the episode’s conclusion, Rebecca and Jack are back at home. She asks, “Hey babe, did we forget something at the mall?” Jack replies, “I don’t think so.” As Jack and Rebecca continue chatting about other topics, we see a close-up of the smoke detector, with the battery casing dangling from the shell.

The final 5 minutes of the next episode “That’ll Be the Day” set up the tragic fire. As “To Build a House” (by The Cinematic Orchestra) softly plays in the background, Jack cleans up, places a red kitchen towel on the counter, switches an old slow-cooker from “Low” to “Off,” turns off the lights, and leaves the kitchen. The shot jumps to a scene with their elderly neighbor, George, knocking on the door. 1980s Jack and pregnant Rebecca answer. George hands over his old slow-cooker and cheerfully warns them, “You got to fiddle with the switch, but it works.”

Back in the 1990s Pearson home, the kitchen is dark until the red light on the slow-cooker flips on and blinks. Within seconds, flames spark from the knob (cut to a past Christmas showing Rebecca opening the red dish towel.) The slow-cooker shorts and sparks, igniting the nearby towel. The fire spreads up the drapes (interspersed with scenes of happy family memories) and the flames engulf the children’s growth chart, up the walls, and burn Jack’s note on Kevin’s door. The fire devours the family pictures, and the fire moves up the stairs—the last shot before the episode ends.

Overall, information conveyed in the episode “That’ll Be the Day” does not directly attribute sites of responsibility for Jack’s death. As viewers, we know that the heroic father died tragically on a day that a slow-cooker started a fire in his kitchen. With this episode’s conclusion, as viewers, we have little concrete knowledge about how Jack dies.

Online Responses to Jack’s Death

After “That’ll Be the Day” aired, the final scene prompted an immediate and pervasive online response. Even though we do not see how Jack dies in this episode and Crock-Pot as a brand is never identified, viewers posted on numerous sites, expressing their devastation over Jack’s death and blaming slow-cookers for his demise. So many people tweeted, in fact, that the marketing department for the Crock-Pot brand created a separate Twitter account just to respond to concerns over the This Is Us portrayal. Their account, The Crock-Pot Brand@CrockPotCares.com, joined in January 2018, with the first post on January 24th, with the following exchange:

Stephanie@silverlingins83: I used my #Crockpot Sunday and Monday … don’t know if I will ever use it again now! #ThisIsUs

TheCrock-PotBrand@CrockPotCares: Jack was one of our favorites too! Don’t worry, you can still make your favorite comfort foods in your #CROCKPOT with confidence. We want to assure you we rigorously test our products for safety. DM us and we’d be happy to tell you more about our safety standards.

Over the next week, eight additional people replied to this single tweet, defending Crock-Pot, while staying in the “reality” of the show. On January 26, eawitthaus@eawitthaus replied,

You don’t need to assure me. I understand dramatic license and I wouldn’t dream of blaming my Crock-Pot. On the flip side, I hope this actually helps people to understand what an amazing thing a Crock-Pot can do to your quality of life!

Similarly, PJMarshall@PJMarshall80 reassures the Crock-Pot brand, stating:

No one could blame you for Jack. A we don’t know yet that the fire kills him & B That’s why when someone gives you an appliance in 1980 that is ancient and has a faulty switch you don’t still use it 17 years later, unplug at the wall & battery your smoke alarm.

This exchange exemplifies similar conversation in other replies, as “The Crock-Pot Brand” responded to 20 individual people that mentioned the brand in their tweets between January 24th and January 30th. In their tweets, people declare that they will stop using their Crock-Pots:

Kayla N.@kayBiedz: “thanks to @NBCThisisUs for crushing my soul week after week. additionally, i'll no longer be making #crockpot chili after last night’s episode.”

Hannah Price@hanmprice: “I didn’t even think when I went to put the pork into the crockpot this morning. Then I cried. Damn you #CROCKPOT#ThisIsUs”

Adriana Morrison@fitmamita: “We seriously were going to have a #crockpot meal tonight. Note the key word ‘were’. #ThisIsUs #thisisusfans.”

jennintoronto@jennintoronto: There will be no meals made in a crock pot for dinner tonight. @NBCThisisUs @ThisIsUs_Fans_ #ThisIsUs#CROCKPOT

These fan tweets are filled with emotion, expressing the perceived loss of the fictional Jack, using emojiis to emphasize their feelings. At the same time, they assign blame to Crock-Pot, calling out the company directly. In their responses, Crock-Pot matches the tone and emotion of the people tweeting. To each of these posts, the Crock-Pot Brand@CrockPotCares shares in the sorrow of Jack’s death, then reminds social media users of their high safety standards. These responses are similar, but not identical:

We’re over last night’s episode, too! Kayla, we’re innocent until proven guilty. Since the ‘70s we’ve been providing families with quality & safe products, ask your parents if you don’t believe us. DM us w/any? ? & we’d be happy to tell you more about our safety standards!

Hannah, We totally get it! Last night’s episode was, & we’re still not over it either! We want to assure you that we’re committed to safety & you can continue to use our products with confidence. We test our #CROCKPOT rigorously before they hit shelves. Pls DM us with any? ?

We totally get it! Last night’s episode was, & we’re still not over it either! We want to assure you that we’re committed to safety & you can continue to use our products with confidence. We test our #CROCKPOT rigorously before they hit shelves. Pls DM us with any questions.

Users joined in with their support for Crock-Pot in their replies, mentioning favorite recipes and their love for the product. For example, VickiFrost@ VickiFrost wrote,

I still love you @CrockPotCares! And you make delicious pulled pork, carnitas, minestrone soup. If you save your chicken bones from your rotisseries chicken and put it in the CrockPot overnight, delicious chicken broth that you can make lowfat and low sodium! #CrockPotRocks.

Other users post similar declarations and recipes.

Overall, viewers quickly jumped to blaming Crock-Pot for the old slow-cooker catching fire in the fictional show. The public relations team promptly responded, reminding viewers of the product’s safety, while staying within the fictional reality of the program. Celebrities also participated in the Twitter conversations about Crock-Pot.

Crock-Pot and This Is Us

Shortly after the Twitter handle was created to address consumers’ individual tweets, Crock-Pot social media personnel connected with the producers of This Is Us. On January 24th, This Is Us executive producer Dan Fogelman tweeted, vouching for the brand. He and Crock-Pot had the following Twitter exchange (which was retweeted 1,500 times):

Dan Fogelman@Dan_Fogelman: Taking a moment to remind everyone that it was a 20 year old fictional crockpot with an already funky switch? Let’s not just lump all those lovely hardworking crockpots together. #ThisIsUs

The Crock-Pot Brand@CrockPotCares: is that you?! Thank you for the assist! We’re a pretty amazing brand (not biased of course). We’ll send you a Crock-Pot® Slow Cooker so you can test it yourself. #crockpotisinnocent

Crock-Pot Brand@CrockPotCares started using #CrockPotIsInnocent in its responses to other tweets involving the brand.

Following this week of informal social media exchange, This Is Us partnered with the slow-cooker brand in a promotional video, which aired on television and went viral on social media and YouTube. Milo Ventimiglia (Jack in This Is Us) talks directly to the camera as himself, ending with, “This year I think we should all take a deep breath, find the ability to forgive and remind ourselves there is no difference so great that we can’t overcome it.” After his speech, he casually ladles chili into a bowl from a large slow-cooker, with the Crock-Pot logo clearly visible. The video fades to black, as a title slide reads, “Crock-Pot: The original slow cooker. #CROCKPOTISINNOCENT.” This video was also posted to the The Crock-Pot Brand@CrockPotCares.com, denoting the dwindling of discussion and blame of Crock-Pot for Jack’s demise.

Constructions of Responsibility After the Promo Video

Responsibility continues to shift away from Crock-Pot (helping the brand’s recovery) with the episode that shows Jack’s actual death. The “Super Bowl Sunday” episode of This Is Us aired immediately after the Super Bowl on February 4th, in which the storyline begins with the Pearson house quickly burning as the family sleeps, leading to Jack’s heroic rescue of his family. This episode introduces multiple sites of responsibility as the remainder of the episode conveys the true cause of Jack’s death. After the title shot, as Jack sits on the back of a parked ambulance, a paramedic tells Jack, “Your vitals are okay, but I still think that you need to get to a hospital and get properly checked out. (Jack breathes into an oxygen mask). You took in a lot of smoke.” Jack replies, “We’ll go to the hospital. We just gotta drop our kids off first.”

In the next 1990s scene, a gown-clad Jack is perched on the edge of a hospital bed as a physician wraps his burned hands. They casually chat about the football game, and then the doctor addresses Jack’s condition. Throughout the conversation, the mood is light, and the medical professional appears nonchalant about the situation:

Doctor: Well, you took in a tremendous amount of smoke. (Jack clears his throat). I’d like for your heart rate to come down. There’s soot in your airway so I have to run some tests.

Jack: Okay.

Doctor: But the swelling—open please. (He shines a light into Jack’s throat). It’s uh, it’s minor, which is a miracle, considering how long you were in there.

Once the doctor leaves, Rebecca sits next to Jack, who tells her, “I never got batteries for the smoke detector. That … you asked me three times, and I just … I forgot.” Rebecca assures him, “And I was more than capable of getting those batteries myself.” Jack smiles, saying, “Okay, so then, why’d you keep asking me?” He kisses her on the forehead as she strokes his face. Then, she stands up, planning, “Okay, I am gonna go make us hotel reservations. I’m gonna call the kids and I’m gonna go the vending machine to get us something.” She turns to leave and he stops her—“Hey, Bec?” Jack pauses, then says, “You’re in front of the TV.” She gives him a look, sticks out her tongue, and leaves. He looks at her longingly.

As Rebecca is on a payphone making hotel reservations, we see doctors and nurses rushing through the waiting room in the background. Unaware of the situation, Rebecca is buying candy from a vending machine when the doctor asks Rebecca to sit. Against her disbelief, he informs her,

Mrs. Pearson, one of the complications of smoke inhalation is that it puts a terrible stress on the lungs and therefore, the heart. Your husband went into cardiac arrest. It was catastrophic and I-I’m afraid we’ve lost him. Mrs. Pearson, your husband has died.

Rebecca hurries to Jack’s hospital door, in which we see the reflection of his body on the bed as Rebecca looks on. She realizes what has happened, cries out “Jack” and then crumbles, bawling, as the scene flashes to different moments. Later, we get more information about his cause of death when Rebecca tells Miguel (their best friend) that Jack “had a heart attack at the hospital. Um, a-a widowmaker’s heart attack is what they call it from the smoke and he died.” She heads into the house to tell her children as Miguel grieves his friend’s death.

For the remainder of this season, no further sites of responsibility are constructed. Firefighters never inform Rebecca that a slow-cooker caused the fire. She does not appear to blame paramedics or the health professionals at the hospital for their actions building up to Jack’s death. And while Kate voices her guilt in contributing to Jack’s death (because of her dog), other characters reassure her that she was not responsible. In fact, episodes following “Super Bowl Sunday” revolve around good memories and the family struggling to cope with Jack’s death—in the immediate 1990s present and 20 years later.

From the airing of “That’ll Be the Day” to “Super-Bowl Sunday,” attributions of responsibility shift from the slow-cooker (and Crock-Pot) as culpable for the fire to other possible sites (i.e., Jack himself for not going to the hospital, Jack and Rebecca for not purchasing batteries, the health professionals for failing to monitor Jack). However, online responses did not target these sites of responsibility, but instead focused on mourning Jack.

Discussion

A study of the constructions of responsibility identified in This Is Us, online discourse, and the promo help to explain what became a symbiotic relationship between the fictional show and the Crock-Pot brand. The sharp decrease in Newell Brands stock and its recovery combined with the prevalent activity on social media demonstrate the profound short-term effects of the fictional show. Why was Crock-Pot blamed, especially since the device that caught fire was not identified as a Crock-Pot? How did Crock-Pot’s acknowledgment of the fictional Jack’s death help in its public recovery?

Viewer responses to Jack’s death suggests that fans grieved as an extension of an intense PSR, as discussed in relevant scholarship on social media and parasocial grief (Cohen, 2004; DeGroot & Leith, 2018; Sanderson & Cheong, 2010; Van Den Bulck & Larsson, 2019). Fans instantly responded with emotionally charged statements like “Damn you #CROCKPOT#ThisIsUs,” paired with vows to avoid using the Crock-Pot. Even though these declarations are likely exaggerated for the Twitter universe, the quantity of such responses, their emotional tone, and the response of the Crock-Pot brand (to set up a special Twitter account and create a promotional video countering the negative publicity) demonstrate the grief for this PSR.

Not all depictions of death elicit such a sympathetic response—in fact many popular culture portrayals do not (Schultz & Huet, 2001). And yet, parasocial interaction suggests that viewers were impacted by this fictional show because they could identify with the Pearson family, aided by the way that This Is Us tells its stories. Several cues indicate that PSRs were formed and that parasocial grief was experienced, including the immediate and intense social media response, the emotional language used in the tweets (“crushing my soul”) paired with hearts and other emojiis, and the viewers’ apparent anger at Crock-Pot (despite lack of evidence; Daniel & Westerman, 2017). The characters and plot structure also exemplify factors that heighten PSRs. Jack is physically attractive, as he and costars Sterling Brown and Justin Hartley were selected for the 2017 “Sexiest Men Alive” issue of People magazine (Corinthios, 2017; Rubin & McHugh, 1987). We see Jack regularly complete heroic gestures to help his family, demonstrating task attraction, and he exhibits social attraction through his friendship with Miguel (Rubin & McHugh, 1987). By depicting the family in multiple points in time and repeating memorable scenes, we see the build up to Jack’s death, as well as both the immediate and long-term impact on his wife and children.

These feelings are magnified with the online speculation and interaction about the show. As demonstrated with the grieving of other celebrities and characters, posting about Jack’s death on Facebook, tweeting about it, and mourning on other social media sites allows viewers to participate in grieving rituals for the fictional character (Cohen, 2004; DeGroot & Leith, 2018; Sanderson & Cheong, 2010; Van Den Bulck & Larsson, 2019). Such online participation likely enhanced the parasocial experience while allowing fans to mourn the death of the character.

This parasocial grief helps to explain why fans responded the way they did. Even though the old slow-cooker was only implicitly implicated for Jack’s death, viewers made the jump, vocalizing their feelings online. The brand generalization (as fans blamed Crock-Pot, even though it was a generic slow-cooker) is not unique to this situation. DeLorme and Reid (1999) pointed out that if products are familiar to audiences, logos do not need to be visible. Moreover, since this scene took place in the 1980s, when Crock-Pot dominated the slow-cooker market, this leap is not a significant one. Blaming Crock-Pot enabled viewers an outlet for their anger at Jack’s fictional death, extending the intensity and lack of resolution of the final scene: We are left with the burning house until the following episode. This disruption of the show’s temporality likely intensified viewer response. Fans were dealing with the imminent loss of Jack but had to wait to see how; hence, the narrative continuum was disrupted, likely intensifying their distress (Lather & Moyer-Guse, 2011).

By expressing sympathy for Jack’s death, the social media people at Crock-Pot played into the parasocial grief of the show, which likely helped push the brand past the backlash. Here, the PR team adhered to standard best practices in handling crisis communication: quickly communicating with the public through the special Twitter account, expressing sympathy for Jack’s death, and conveying messages of self-efficacy, reminding people of the safety of Crock-Pot appliances (Seeger, 2006). With the tweet to each consumer, the brand spokespeople reinforce this identification and feeling of loss, similar to the validation and praise apparent in the grief policing of other social media posts (Gach et al., 2017). These tweets matched both the tone and emotion of the fan responses so that the exchanges partake in the PSR.

With the promotional video, Crock-Pot further shifts from an outlet of grief to a brand endorsed by a favorite character. It is Milo Ventimiglia himself that takes viewers past attributions of blame for the Crock-Pot in his redeeming chili ladle, reassuring fans that the product is safe (thus reinforcing the self-efficacy message and #CrockPotIsInnocent; Seeger, 2006). Such association likely helped viewers reenvision the brand is a positive light, as their PSR with Jack, combined with his positive attitude toward Crock-Pot, helped transform their attitudes (Knoll et al., 2015). Following its significant drop in the week of January 24th, stock in Newell Brands increased slightly over the next week, declined slightly on February 5th (the day after the “Super Bowl Sunday” episode aired) and then has held steady since that point (Lianne, 2018).

While the Crock-Pot partnership helped to redeem the brand, it is the show itself that ultimately shifts perceived attributions of responsibility. “Super Bowl Sunday” clearly conveyed that Jack died from cardiac arrest, not directly in the fire. Furthermore, Jack and Rebecca blame themselves from not replacing the batteries in the smoke detector, thus taking the blame. Viewer online response shows a shift in attributing blame. Although the storyline does not blame the hospital, viewers went online for answers about Jack’s death. A Time article reported that digital searches for “a widowmaker’s heart attack” (the condition that killed Jack) increased 5000% following the episode (MacMillan, 2018). The narrative itself never confirms a source of blame for Jack’s death. Writers could have used the firefighters, paramedics, or authority figures in the program to attribute the death to a particular preventable cause, even though as viewers, we observe possible moments that contributed to his death. There’s no additional dialogue about the slow-cooker or smoke detector. The paramedics do not take Jack to the hospital in the ambulance. At the hospital, Jack was left alone in his room and was never placed on oxygen, despite the doctor’s confirmation that he inhaled an ample amount of smoke and that smoke inhalation led to his cardiac arrest. We see no consequences for the paramedics, doctors, and nurses for delaying or failing to do treatment. This lack of consequences is not unique to this show, as television has a long tradition of upholding physicians as heroes who make no mistakes (Foss, 2014). Instead, blame is effectively shifted away from Crock-Pot, as viewers are left with replaced uncertainty over the true cause of death.

Conclusion

This case clearly indicates that viewers formed PSRs with Jack. The subsequent online responses—enough that Crock-Pot created a Twitter account—and correlating stock decline in the maker of Crock-Pot demonstrate some effects of parasocial grief. Fans cared enough about this fictional character to blame a real-life company for his fictional death (even if it was not directly linked). It should be noted that this effect does not mean that viewers could not discern between reality and fiction. Rather, it serves as an indication that viewers do glean information from fictional shows and that these programs can have unintentional effects on perceptions and behaviors. Because they anthropomorphized Jack as part of their PSR, viewers sought an outlet for their feelings of anger and sadness at his (fictional) death.

From an education-entertainment perspective, Jack’s death was a missed opportunity to use television as a prosocial tool. As Jensen, Yale, Krakow, John, and King (2007) outlined, health narratives with death can be especially effective in impacting viewers’ intention to adopt healthier behaviors. Writers of This Is Us could have used this storyline to educate viewers about fire preparedness. According to the National Fire Protection Association, residential fires kill an average of seven people per day in the United States (Ahrens, 2017). This Is Us writers could have emphasized the danger of house fires, conveying messages on causes, prevention, and other information. Alternative storylines could have shown a space heater as the source of the fire, with firefighters discussing it with Rebecca. Or the “Super Bowl Sunday” episode could have incorporated a mention of a family fire safety plan. Another option would have been to emphasize the importance of working smoke detectors. The firefighters could have piggybacked off of Jack and Rebecca’s admission of responsibility (by not buying batteries), communicating that homes without a working smoke detector contain twice the risk of death in residential fires (Ahrens, 2015).

Regardless of how the story unfolded, this cultural moment captured the impact of a fictional television series on the audience, the role of online engagement in parasocial grief, and Crock-Pot’s well-executed crisis communication plan. In this exhibition of audience and brand engagement with social media, Twitter facilitated a relationship between fans, the Crock-Pot brand, and the This Is Us producers, who, in turn, partnered with Crock-Pot for the promotional video. In an era in which people often question the function of television, This Is Us and Crock-Pot redefined how Twitter could be used to evolve a narrative.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Katherine A. Foss is an associate professor of media studies at Middle Tennessee State University where she teaches courses in health communication, television, and gender studies. She is the author of Breastfeeding and Media: Exploring Conflicting Discourses That Threaten Public Health (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and Television and Health Responsibility in an Age of Individualism (Lexington Press, 2014). She is also the editor of Beyond Princess Culture: Gender and Children’s Marketing (Peter Lang, forthcoming) and Demystifying the Big House: Exploring Prison Experience and Media Representations (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018).

References

Ahrens

(2015). Smoke alarms in U.S. home fires. Quincy, MA: National Fire Protection Association. Retrieved from https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Data-research-and-tools/Detection-and-Signaling/Smoke-Alarms-in-US-Home-Fires

Ahrens

(2017). Trends and patterns of US fire loss (National Fire Protection Association Report). Retrieved from https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osTrends.pdf

Arrington

M. I.

Goodier

B. C.

(2004). Prostration before the law: Representations of illness, interaction, and intimacy in the NYPD Blue prostate cancer narrative. Popular Communication, 2(2), 67–84.

Barthes

Duisit

(1975). An introduction to the structural analysis of narrative. New Literary History, 6(2), 237–272.

Bore

I. L. K.

Hickman

(2013). Studying fan activities on Twitter: Reflections on methodological issues emerging from a case study on The West Wing fandom. First Monday, 18(9). Retrieved from https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4268/3740

Branch

S. E.

Wilson

K. M.

Agnew

C. R.

(2013). Committed to Oprah, Homer, or House: Using the investment model to understand parasocial relationships. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2(2), 96.

Brodie

Foehr

Rideout

Baer

Miller

Flournoy

Altman

(2001). Communicating health information through the entertainment media. Health Affairs, 20, 192–199.

Carter

(2001, April 30). New reality show planning to put ads between the ads. New York Times, pp. A1, A17.

Ciolli

(2018, January 25). The maker of Crock-Pot is plunging as people freak out over a character’s shocking death on ‘This Is Us’. Markets Insider. Retrieved from http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/newell-brands-stock-price-Crock-Pot-maker-plunging-after-guidance-this-is-us-death-2018-1-1014028128

10.

Click

M. A.

Holladay

H. W.

(2018). Breaking up with breaking bad: Relational dissolution and the critically acclaimed AMC series. In Williams

. (Ed.), Everybody hurts: Transitions, endings, and resurrections in fan cultures (pp. 61–74). Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.

11.

Cohen

(2004). Parasocial break-up from favorite television characters: The role of attachment styles and relationship intensity. Journal of Social and Personal relationships, 21(2), 187–202.

12.

Corinthios

(2017, November 14). What Milo Ventimiglia, Justin Hartley & Sterling K. Brown find sexiest—About each other. People. Retrieved from http://people.com/tv/milo-ventimiglia-justin-hartley-sterling-k-brown-sexiest-man-alive/

13.

Daniel

E. S.

Jr. Westerman

D. K.

(2017). Valar Morghulis (all parasocial men must die): Having nonfictional responses to a fictional character. Communication Research Reports, 34(2), 143–152.

14.

Davin

(2003). Healthy viewing: The reception of medical narratives. In Seale

. (Ed.), Health and the media (pp. 143–159). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

15.

DeGroot

J. M.

Leith

A. P.

(2018). RIP Kutner: Parasocial grief following the death of a television character. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 77(3), 199–216. doi:10.1177/0030222815600450

16.

DeLorme

D. E.

Reid

L. N.

(1999). Moviegoers’ experiences and interpretations of brands in films revisited. Journal of Advertising, 28(2), 71–95.

17.

Doughty

Rowland

Lawson

(2012, July). Who is on your sofa?: TV audience communities and second screening social networks. In Proceedings of the 10th European conference on interactive TV and video—EuroiTV 2012 (pp. 79–86). New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery.

18.

Fisher

W. R.

(1985). The narrative paradigm: An elaboration. Communications Monographs, 52(4), 347–367.

19.

Foss

K. A.

(2014). Television and health responsibility in an age of individualism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

20.

Foss

K. A.

Blake

(2019). “It’s natural and healthy, but I don’t want to see it”: Using entertainment-education to improve attitudes toward breastfeeding in public. Health Communication. 34(9), 919–930. doi:10.1080/10410236.2018.1440506

21.

Gach

K. Z.

Fiesler

Brubaker

J. R.

(2017). “Control your emotions, Potter”: An analysis of grief policing on Facebook in response to celebrity death. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(CSCW), 47.

22.

Gardner

W. L.

Knowles

M. L.

(2008). Love makes you real: Favorite television characters are perceived as “real” in a social facilitation paradigm. Social Cognition, 26(2), 156–168.

23.

Gauthier

C. C.

(1999). Television drama and popular film as medical narrative. The Journal of American Culture, 22(3), 23.

24.

Glik

Berkanovic

Stone

Ibarra

Jones

M. C.

Rosen

Richardes

(1998). Health education goes Hollywood: Working with prime-time and daytime entertainment television for immunization promotion. Journal of Health Communication, 3, 263–282.

25.

Highfield

Harrington

Bruns

(2013). Twitter as a technology for audiencing and fandom: The# Eurovision phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society, 16(3), 315–339.

26.

Horton

Wohl

(1956). Mass communication and para-social interaction: Observations on intimacy at a distance. Psychiatry, 19(3), 215–229.

27.

Jensen

J. D.

Yale

R. N.

Krakow

John

K. K.

King

A. J.

(2017). Theorizing foreshadowed death narratives: Examining the impact of character death on narrative processing and skin self-exam intentions. Journal of Health Communication, 22(1), 84–93.

28.

Knoll

Schramm

Schallhorn

Wynistorf

(2015). Good guy vs. bad guy: The influence of parasocial interactions with media characters on brand placement effects. International Journal of Advertising, 34(5), 720–743.

29.

Larsen

(1991). Textual analysis of fictional media content. In Jensen

K. B

Jankowski

N. W

. (Eds.), A handbook of qualitative methodologies for mass communication research (pp. 121–134). London, England: Routledge.

30.

Lather

Moyer-Guse

(2011). How do we react when our favorite characters are taken away? An examination of a temporary parasocial breakup. Mass Communication and Society, 14(2), 196–215.

31.

Lianne

(2018, March 1). Newell Brands’ stock climbs 3.5% in falling market as Icahn says he has a stake. MarketWatch. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/newell-brands-stock-climbs-35-in-falling-market-as-icahn-says-he-has-a-stake-2018-03-01

32.

MacMillan

(2018, February 5). ‘This Is Us’ finally revealed how Jack Pearson died. Here’s what a doctor says you should know about the condition. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/5133947/widowmaker-heart-attack-this-is-us/

33.

Morgan

S. E.

Movius

Cody

M. J.

(2009). The power of narratives: The effect of entertainment television organ donation storylines on the attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors of donors and nondonors. Journal of Communication, 59(1), 135–151.

34.

Moyer ‐ Gusé

Nabi

R. L.

(2011). Explaining the effects of narrative in an entertainment television program: Overcoming resistance to persuasion. Human Communication Research, 36, 26–52.

35.

Perse

E. M.

Rubin

R. B.

(1989). Attribution in social and parasocial relationships. Communication Research, 16(1), 59–77.

36.

Porter

(2018, November 27). TV Ratings: ‘This is Us’ fall finale, ‘Rudolph’ Rule Tuesday. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/is-us-rudolph-tv-ratings-tuesday-nov-27-2018-1164453

37.

Rideout

V. J.

(2008). Television as a health educator: A case study of Grey's Anatomy. San Francisco, CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved from https://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/7803.pdf

38.

Rubin

A. M.

Perse

E. M.

(1987). Audience activity and soap opera involvement a uses and effects investigation. Human Communication Research, 14(2), 246–268.

39.

Rubin

R. B.

McHugh

M. P.

(1987). Development of parasocial interaction relationships. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 31(3), 279–292.

40.

Russell

C. A.

Stern

B. B.

Stern

B. B.

(2006). Consumers, characters, and products: A balance model of sitcom product placement effects. Journal of Advertising, 35(1), 7–21.

41.

Sanderson

Cheong

(2010). Tweeting prayers and communicating grief over Michael Jackson online. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30(5), 328–340.

42.

Schramm

Wirth

(2010). Testing a universal tool for measuring parasocial interactions across different situations and media. Journal of Media Psychology, 22(1), 26–36.

43.

Schultz

N. W.

Huet

L. M.

(2001). Sensational! Violent! Popular! Death in American movies. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying, 42(2), 137–149.

44.

Seeger

M. W.

(2006). Best practices in crisis communication: An expert panel process. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 34(3), 232–244.

45.

Smith

C. P.

(2000). Content analysis and narrative analysis. In H. T

Reis

. C. M

Judd

. (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 313–335). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

46.

Sood

Rogers

E. M.

(2000). Dimensions of parasocial interaction by letter-writers to a popular entertainment-education soap opera in India. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 44(3), 386–414.

47.

Stanley

T. L.

(1998). Wanted: Ally McBeal. Brandweek, 39(31), 32–35.

48.

This is Us Awards. (2018). The Internet movie database. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5555260/awards

49.

Tueth

M. V.

(2000). Fun city: TV’s urban situation comedies of the 1990s. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 28(3), 98–107.

50.

Tukachinsky

Eyal

(2018). The psychology of marathon television viewing: Antecedents and viewer involvement. Mass Communication and Society, 21(3), 275–295.

51.

Van den Bulck

Larsson

A. O.

(2019). ‘There’s a Starman waiting in the sky’: Mourning David #Bowie on Twitter. Convergence. 25(2), 307–323. doi:10.1177/1354856517709670

52.

Winsten

J. A.

(1994). Promoting designated drivers: The Harvard alcohol project. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 10, 11–14.

53.

Wood

M. M.

Baughman

(2012). Glee fandom and Twitter: Something new, or more of the same old thing? Communication Studies, 63(3), 328–344.

54.

Young

A. F.

Gabriel

Hollar

J. L.

(2013). Batman to the rescue! The protective effects of parasocial relationships with muscular superheroes on men’s body image. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(1), 173–177.