Conceptualising online consumer counterpublics

There is growing concern about the proliferation of radical groups and violent content on social media platforms such as YouTube. These platforms present unique capacities to promote radicalised content, as they allow the flourishing of digital creators who amass large audiences and communicate their ideas in a compelling video format. Notwithstanding, consumer research has not yet provided a conceptualisation of such antagonistic online consumer gatherings in the ephemeral social media context. We investigate this phenomenon by combining netnographic sensibility with digital methods to explore the case of pro-gun YouTubers in Brazil. We propose the notion of online consumer counterpublics, which are online consumer collectives socio-technically shaped and promoted by social media influencers and their audiences on social media platforms based on strong oppositional discourses, ideas, affectivities, and values associated with a consumption topic, and who develop a compelling counter-hegemonic social identity.