Digital Interaction Rituals and the Transformation of Loneliness

Abstract

ABSTRACT Consumer research has largely treated loneliness as a chronic, trait‐level deficit that consumers compensate for through consumption. Much less is known about situational loneliness, the transient yet emotionally charged form of loneliness that arises within consumption itself, particularly in extraordinary, liminal experiences that suspend ordinary roles, routines, and relational anchors. Drawing on netnography combined with autonetnography across two large online communities of solo female travelers and using Interaction Ritual Chain theory as an analytical lens, we identify three discursive rituals through which members collaboratively rework the meaning of loneliness: (1) Escaping loneliness, (2) embracing loneliness, (3) evolving through loneliness. We make two contributions. First, we reconceptualize situational loneliness not as a failure of extraordinary experience but as a central affective characteristic of liminality. Second, we extend the Interaction Ritual Chain theory to asynchronous digital communities. We show that discursive entrainment sustains ritual dynamics without bodily co‐presence, and we develop the concept of stored emotional energy—archived, high‐emotional‐energy narratives that act as ritual repositories, initiating newcomers into the community's emotional logic long after the original encounter.