Professor, students team up for study on Cameo and fan-celebrity relationships

(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — SEPTEMBER 25, 2024) The emergence of technology and social media has created countless opportunities for celebrities, influencers, and media personalities to connect with their fans across the globe. One of those opportunities is Cameo, a website where people can request a personal video message, for a fee, tailored to the fans who request it. The platform, which launched in 2016, has significant implications on parasocial relationships and parasocial interactions among fans.

Gayle Stever, a professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and her students, Sabrina Crompton, Heather Austin, and Sara Hailemariam, are taking a deeper dive into the platform and these relationships in a new research paper set to be published in December in the North American Journal of Psychology titled “Cameo: Description and Theory about a Social Media Service.”

Stever said the deep dive into Cameo’s platform ties into almost three decades of research on parasocial theory and fan studies.

“I became familiar with Cameo through a case study of a fandom, “The Hobbit,” that I was and am currently doing,” Stever said. “The students were interested in helping, so we set up the coding protocols and created a research practicum course in which I was able to teach these students the basics of this kind of research.”

Sabrina Crompton is one of Stever’s research assistants and is completing a work study position to support Stever’s research. Crompton said the study gave her an opportunity to dive further into her interests in fan-celebrity relationships, musicians, and social media.

“Some people view social media and Cameo, in particular, in a negative light,” Crompton said. “They think it’s bad for a person’s mental health and that it detracts from forming meaningful bonds and in-person relationships. This was always a surprising viewpoint for me to hear, as I’ve always thought the opposite — that it’s fun and helps people feel more connected to not just the celebrity, but to others who also like the celebrity.”

Throughout the study, Crompton said she saw parts of herself and her interest in musicians and experience connecting with others through music on social media.

“What surprised me most about the data we’ve collected on Cameo so far is that it supports my own experience of Cameo being a positive influence on in-person relationships and wellbeing, rather than the more negative viewpoint that others have about it,” Crompton said. “I was also surprised by the number of celebrities on Cameo who seemed to remember the person they were making the Cameo for. While we are still collecting data on this, I have seen enough to hypothesize that Cameo does appear to be fostering some degree of connection between celebrities and their fans.”

Crompton said the study expanded on the concepts she is learning in the psychology program at Empire State University and apply them directly to her research, giving her the rare opportunity be published before graduating with her bachelor’s degree in psychology. 

“Thanks to the work I have done with Gayle Stever, by the time I graduate in December, I will have coauthored at least one, and maybe even two more published articles,” Crompton said. “It’s not often that an undergraduate student gets that opportunity, and it will help greatly as I further my education and begin looking for work in my new field.”

Crompton’s work is far from over. She is continuing another study on Cameo and its impact with Stever throughout the Fall semester.