not-yet-known not-yet-known not-yet-known unknown With the development of social media and the rapid expansion of cultural capital in this field, fan communities have attracted widespread attention in academia in recent years. However, various understandings exist in academia concerning the concepts, behaviors, and culture of fan communities, which necessitate a more comprehensive explanation. This study establishes a theoretical framework by combining the research perspectives of social concept and cultural capital and selects the Chinese fan communities, which has the largest number of fans and the most substantial fan economy, as the research object. Based on the comprehensive understanding of fan communities research materials obtained through field investigations, this study analyzes and interprets three social concepts in fan communities: the imagined concept between fans and celebrities, the real concept between fans, and the implicit concept between fans and popularity. The research results show that fan communities, enveloped by these three social concepts, appear to be free but are, in fact, controlled communities. The controlling factors of fans include capital from outside the community, as well as the imagination, interaction, and organizational rules within the fan communities. The phenomenon of cultural capital creating and dominating the social concept of fan communities warrants further study and attention.