Online delight and digitally mediated leisure experience: evidence from festival media

Digital media shape leisure experiences, making emotions in user-generated content worthy of closer examination. This study investigates online delight, defined as heightened positive affect marked by joy, surprise, and emotional intensity that exceeds routine satisfaction and is socially expressed through digital interaction. Drawing on Affect Theory and Digital Emotion Contagion, delight is conceptualised not as a private post-consumption reaction but as a relational, socially mediated leisure affect emerging through interactions among viewers, festival vlogs, and comment cultures. Through qualitative sentiment analysis and Phronetic Iterative Qualitative Data Analysis, we examine 7,690 YouTube comments on vlogs featuring two Philippine festivals, Dinagyang and Sinulog. Findings indicate three interconnected mechanisms: awe, fostering admiration and future engagement among viewers without prior festival experience; pride, strengthening local identity, community belonging, and promotional advocacy; and memory, reactivating recollections and recommendations among former attendees. The study shows how delight is expressed, circulated, and reinforced within YouTube comment spaces.