Using the Imagination: Consumer Evoking and Thematizing of the Fantastic Imaginary

This article explores the process by which consumers evoke and thematize the fantastic imaginary when playing a fantasy-based trading card game. Interviews with 15 informants, all players of Magic: The Gathering, serve as data. The result is a new framework that reveals how the fantastic imaginary is evoked and the-matized. A typology of thematizing strategies employed by consumers is also presented. Implications are discussed in relation to consumer research, imagination theory, literary theory of the evoked fantastic imaginary, and the imaginary in play. Scholars dating back to antiquity have sought to under-stand how people use their imaginations to manifest the imaginary (Iser 1993; Kearney 1988). Holbrook and Hirsch-man (1982) pioneered consumer research addressing the imaginary by emphasizing the value of recognizing con-sumer fantasies and mental imagery. Other scholars have also noted the importance of the imaginary. For instance, Sherry (1990) asserted that the use of the imagination is an essential activity of consumption. Similarly, Scott (1994, p.