From Hybrid Rockstar to Hybrid Collective

Sammanfattning

Thesis aim: This study explores how meaning-making and a feeling of collectiveness among HYROX participants contribute to the growth and visibility of the sport, examining how individual meaning-making, collective belonging, and digital participation operate together to drive organic growth. Theoretical Perspective: The study draws on three streams: the effects of consumption practices (meaning-making, identity, and value co-creation), consumer collectives (consumer tribes, brand communities, and brand publics), and platform-mediated consumer interaction (platformisation, electronic word-of-mouth, and user-generated content). Methodology: A qualitative, abductive case study design was adopted, grounded in a relativist ontology and social constructionist epistemology. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with active HYROX participants were analysed through thematic analysis. Main Findings & Contributions: Meaning in HYROX is grounded in the activity before it attaches to the brand, and belonging is sustained through shared rituals, mutual support, and a value of accessibility that turns members into recruiters. The study extends the meaning-making literature, introduces the concept of the Hybrid Experiential Collective, in which the logics of tribes, brand communities, and brand publics operate simultaneously, and repositions user-generated content and electronic word-of-mouth as constitutive infrastructure. Together these describe participant-driven expansion, a self-reinforcing process through which meaning, belonging, shared values, and digital visibility feed into one another.