From “Consumer” to “Producer”: The Mechanism of User Participation in Value Co-Creation with Virtual Idols Based on Push–Pull–Mooring Theory

The emergence of virtual idols has fostered new forms of interaction and relationship-building between consumers and digital humans, intensifying consumers’ participation in value co-creation. Although existing research focuses on how consumers form relationships with digital humans, studies have paid limited attention to value co-creation behaviors in this context. To better understand the factors driving consumers’ value co-creation within a virtual idol context, this study proposed a psychological and behavioral transfer perspective and adopted a mixed-method design. In Study 1, we conducted exploratory text mining using Latent Dirichlet Allocation on 14,991 user comments about four prominent virtual idols in China, identifying six key themes that informed a preliminary theoretical framework for consumers’ value co-creation. In Study 2, we employed push–pull–mooring theory to interpret the causal relationships among these themes and developed a structural equation model to examine the mechanisms underlying consumers’ value co-creation behavior. The results revealed that emotional compensation functions as a push factor; cross-dimensional entertainment value, anthropomorphism, and multidimensional interactivity serve as pull factors; and technological affordance and community identification act as mooring factors. Collectively, these factors significantly influence value co-creation behavior through interaction intention. This research offers insights into value co-creation mechanisms and provides actionable recommendations for virtual idol marketing.