Affective prosumption and the making of temporary space: A fan mobility autoethnography

In the context of compressed modernity in Asia, fandom groups gather in ordinary public spaces such as airports and shopping malls for high-intensity prosumption. They produce a distinctive spatial order that displaces the ordinary function of the sites they occupy, yet this order dissolves entirely the moment fans leave. To understand this phenomenon, we traced fandom mobility through a 2-year analytical autoethnography (2023–2025) across 18 episodes in 13 Asian cities. We propose Affective Prosumption Theory (APT) as an analytical framework explaining what spatial patterns fandom mobility creates and how fans willingly endure extraordinary sacrifice to produce places bound to dissolve so soon. APT consists of four elements across three interconnected layers. At the expression layer, Devotional Proximity and Self-Sustaining Atmosphere describe the spatial order of fan-produced place. Affective Compression serves as the mechanism, explaining how fans accumulate emotional labour through digital prosumption and release it at physical locations where they reach the highest possible affective peak. Inscription Work forms an identity layer that legitimises the sacrifice and sustains fans’ willingness to repeat the cycle. The four elements reinforce each other in a closed loop, and the spatial order holds only as long as the cycle is running.