An increasing body of cultural entrepreneurship research has been interested in how entrepreneurs configure their narratives to attract support, focusing on traditional, high-threshold outcomes such as funding and sales. However, with the rise of digital spaces, entrepreneurs increasingly aim to subtly mobilize audiences, creating waves of likes, shares, or comments. To capture such collective and low-threshold motion, this study draws on digital communication research, introducing the concept of ‘digital buzz’. Using computational text analysis and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to analyze 2,038 narrative cases and related audience reactions in entrepreneurship online communities on Reddit (~760,000 posts), we identified three configurations that foster digital buzz: ‘stylized narratives,’ ‘synergetic narratives,’ and ‘archetypical narratives.’ Based on these insights, we build a model of entrepreneurial narrative buzz, theorizing how digital buzz unfolds through the enunciation, translation, amplification, complementation, mirroring, and relating of discursive elements. This article enhances cultural entrepreneurship research by reconceptualizing narrative strategies to include collective, low-threshold audience behaviors and highlighting that digital spaces provide fertile ground for entrepreneurial narratives that are stylized or exhibit unattainable perfection. Furthermore, it adds to digital communication research by offering conceptual clarity regarding digital buzz, enabling a more nuanced understanding of digital engagement dynamics.
