My Parasocial Relationships

I was happy to learn the term "parasocial relationship" this year. It's defined as a one-sided relationship, found between an audience member and a media figure or organization. I finally have a name for the kind of emotional attachment that I've felt off and on for various actors, presenters, and other talent glimpsed through the screen throughout my life. Like everyone else, I've had the occasional crushes on movie stars, the feelings of dismay when a popular TV show gets cancelled, and the urge to roll my eyes at the antics of celebrities. Oh Kanye, not again.

I've always been an introvert and used to rely on parasocial relationships more than was probably healthy. I suspect a lot of people do when they're young, isolated, and going through transitional phases in their lives. In those situations it's nice to have any kind of friendly constant, be it a late night talk show host who makes you laugh, or a movie critic who likes the same cheesy movies that you do. These relationships can have very positive effects sometimes. Kids of the '70s and '80s knew they could rely on Mr. Rogers to tell them "I like you just the way you are." And of course, these relationships can also turn sour, resulting in stalkers and restraining orders.

It's odd to think of parasocial relationships being as important to some people as real world ones, but they involve very real emotions and can sometimes go on for long periods of time. I realized recently that I had been listening to some of my favorite movie podcasts for over a decade - specifically, since "The Dark Knight" came out. Over the years I've listed to some of the hosts talk about getting married, having kids, changing jobs, losing pets, and going through bad times. I feel like I've gotten to know them, even though I've never met them in person. And that's by design. The more engaged you are with a piece of media, the more likely you are to become a regular consumer of it.

In the Youtube era, parasocial relationships can be very intense. Some content producers will livestream for hours a day, share their personal lives to an uncomfortable degree, and make direct appeals to their audience constantly. Authenticity is a major selling point, and Youtube talent blur the lines between reality and fiction as a matter of course. Youtuber burnout has gotten a lot of press recently, as we've seen the ill effects of inexperienced, unsupported talent trying to maintain public facades and being "on" practically 24/7. It's been fascinating to see the negative impact of parasocial relationships on the people on the other side of our screens.

At the same time, there's also a corresponding negative impact on the viewers of this kind of media. Though social media stars present themselves as authentic, their facades are still manufactured. This can create unrealistic expectations that influence a viewer's self-image and self-esteem. There's also been some evidence that parasocial relationships can help to normalize voyeuristic behavior and skew viewers' real world interactions. There have always been fans who get carried away and have unreasonable expectations, but the amount of access they have to their favorite stars these days is far greater, and can encourage their worst impulses.

There's also the interesting wrinkle of relationships that start out as normal and then become parasocial. I've realized that many of the people I follow on Facebook fall into this category. I have several old schoolmates and ex-coworkers who I haven't talked to in years, but who share the details of their lives online regularly, so I feel like I'm still caught up with them. Sometimes it takes a minute or two for me to remember that I'm looking at carefully curated content that may not reflect reality at all. I found an old friend online recently, who had moved to Boston and excelled in academia. Is she really as happy as she looks in her faculty profile picture?

Finally we come to my own online persona, Miss Media Junkie, who as far as I know is not in any danger of attracting any kind of significant following - and I have no desire to cultivate one. Still, I've always worried about whether the things I post may be misleading or mean or simply reveal too much. From my experiences in various fandoms, I know that people can get attached to the strangest things, and take offense to the most minor faux pas. And when you're online, you can be in parasocial relationships and be affected by them, and never even know it.
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