Parasocial relationships
my parents
often scold me for giggling on my phone
too much
and to outsiders like them it must
really
just look like i’m i’m like
listening to the love of my life which
makes it all the more shameful when i
have to explain to them
that now this is just a youtuber on
their bedroom floor that i happen to
like watching
i i may remember their zodiac signs
their birthdays while forgetting my old
brothers
it’s i can’t help it though because
when i watch them i feel happier
i develop a sort of relationship with
them i feel like
i’m friends with them and i know them
celebrity and fam culture have existed
when my parents were younger
and for several centuries back of course
but now with the rise of social media it
has given birth to a new type of
influencer one that is more personable
once where you feel like you genuinely
love them they open up more
and they’re not so far away
megastar they feel like people you could
become friends with if you were to meet
being in these communities though these
celebrities
these influencers they often have a very
dedicated
fan base dedicated not to just their
songs or their crafts
but for them as a personality
having such a dedicated fan base though
means
that there are often stories about
crazed stalkers
drinking their water bottles stealing
their personal possessions
and trying to break it through their
house i was
quite shocked when i realized that
these two behaviors the one i
exemplified in the stalker
are actually both examples of something
called
a parasocial relationship
a parasocial relationship is a
psychological
relationship where a viewer
develops a relationship with a media
personality
they may seem they may think that they
are friends who are closer
despite having limited interaction or
in similar words you actually adore an
influencer
and they don’t even know you exist
these behaviors
these behaviors um
from my own perspective i feel like i
know them
due to the things that they put online
and something that we and a lot of fans
in the community have is that we’re
teenagers if you’ve been on the internet
before you’ve probably observed that a
large demographic
of people in these dedicated families
are teenagers often around my age
and what could be the factor in drawing
in
so many people of this particular
demographic
well numerous studies and a study by
pierre
de maria has shown that people
with loneliness and self-esteem issue
are more likely to develop parasocial
relationships online
and it makes sense when you’re lonely
you crave interactions with other yet
your self-esteem issues
makes it harder to connect with
real-life people when you fear
the social rejection that might take
place
to in order to fulfill your loneliness
which is why her social relationships
seemingly
provide the perfect solution
feelings of loneliness and self-esteem
issues
are an experience that unfortunately
often highlights
adolescence industries
have realized this as well they have
realized the power
parasocial relationships can have in
bringing profit
to their agency and
as history has proven when industries
realize they can profit
off a removable large demographic
it leads to a lot of troubles nowhere is
this more exemplified
than the idle industry with the newfound
k-pop wave and the idle industry has
seen a massive
boom in these last recent years and
being a being part of these communities
myself
i’ve observed two types of parasocial
relationships
that often take place here and while
i’ll be using i know examples
just you can probably start to see a lot
of these same behaviors
meld into other types of infusers as
well
the first type of parasocial
relationship
is an intimate one it is built upon the
fan’s
desire for an intimate relationship
often in your teenage years your first
experiencing the desire to have a
romantic or intimate relationship with
somebody
else and idols while they perform
while they perform by singing or dancing
they also perform by showing affection
there are often
fan meetings where you can pay money
just to shake hands with the influencers
hug them and when while they’re
performing
on television shows they’ll often say
they love you
and there is a big culture of protect
lovers
in the idol industry where they’ll say
they’ll
they love you they’ll act like they’re
your actual lovers
and it capitalizes upon the desire
for a relationship the second type
is a self-projected relationship it is
where
you see yourself in the influencer
these influencers they may try to market
themselves as relatable
so when you see them talk about
how messy their room is or how sometimes
they’re just
far too lazy to make up their bed
you can say hey that’s me and
on the occasions where they may open up
about your their mental health their
feelings of
loneliness or inadequacy you can say
hey that’s mean too
but in the end all of this is just
a performance especially for idols or
public figures like actors and singers
who are under an
agency everything they say no matter how
authentic
it may sound has been filtered through
by their agency while so it will be
appropriate for the image
and even if this wasn’t the case it’s
just simply impossible
to know somebody through what they
choose to show online
it’s just like yourself when you’re
with your parents you act differently
when you’re on stage
you act differently you try to project
different personas so it fits the
occasion
however some people don’t differentiate
between
the persona and the person the
performance
and the performer these people
they might become deluded they might
actually start to think
that maybe this person they do belong
they said they say they do and maybe we
aren’t friends because
they say that we are friends online
these people may become intimacy seeking
stalkers
like the example i gave in the beginning
these people may try to steal personal
possessions
or feel entitled like
they’ll they will feel like they are an
actual friend or a lover
and they may try to break into another
person’s house
i’m gonna throw out a wild assumption
here that
nobody here is a prey stalker no nobody
here has ever broken to
trader friend’s house but
these stalkers they their mindset may
not be
so different they might not be so
foreign after all
because 63 of stalkers
have experienced a loss of a caregiver
early into their childhood
and 50 percent of them often deal with
loneliness
or self-esteem issues these are the very
same
things that often leads to parasol
parasocial relationships for both
teenagers and
the average audience so
the desire the desire for somebody
who loves you the desire for your
feelings to be reciprocated
it’s not a foreign idea at all it’s
simply that because
of these stalker circumstances we’ve
grown to be deluded
and believe in these parasocial
relationships
the same mindset which is seen slowly
leak
into our daily life
although not to the extent of the
stalkers sometimes i do find myself
asking a influencer about how their life
is going
or why this seems so down in this video
but it’s not up to me to know
it’s i don’t deserve to know all this
knowledge
it’s private information but due to the
warped
sense of reality that parasocial
relationships have
given me i start thinking that
maybe i am this person’s friend
parasocial relationships can often
serve as a crutch for other issues
which is why during the clinton 19
pandemic
as internet usage has risen and
loneliness has spiked
many influencers start seeing a boom
in their popularity it’s due to people
similar to me people who are looking for
something to distract themselves with
and parasocial relationships it can
start serving as
a form of escapism from the troubled
world we may live in
when you’re on your own at your house
being alone with your thoughts it’s a
scary thing you might want to just go
online you can’t meet your friends now
so what can you do maybe you’re facing
some issues
within yourself but you have nobody to
open up to
so you start seeking out these
influencers who make you happier
and you start involving yourself more in
these communities
however during this process
you may start thinking that hey this
person
didn’t give me the same happiness as a
friend does
and this community it’s easier for me to
open up to them than
the actual people around me this may
lead to
a mind swap a mindset where
maybe i can replace my real life
relationships with them
however no matter how tough we need to
realize
that real life relationships can never
be replaced
because in real life there will be
awkward silences there will be
tension all unpleasant social things
that
you just can’t find in a person in a
parasocial relationship
yes it is uncomfortable to go through
these things but as
teenagers when we’re just first
developing our recognition of emotions
and developing our social skills it is
essential
that we don’t start caging ourselves
in that we actively engage in these
uncomfortable situations
i myself personally uh showing
vulnerability or emotions doesn’t come
easy it’s why i’ve had to rewrite this
tedx speech a lot
but i i also need to realize that
even if even when i’m uncomfortable
i do have to talk to the people around
me because the more
and more i depend on these influencers
the more of a dependent relationship
there will be almost like a parasite
if i don’t learn to deal with my
problems
it will be even harder for me in the
future to
detach myself from these influencers and
the community around
me
for as long as we live humans will
always be
seeking connections with others it’s in
our very nature but
it’s up to us to be aware of the dangers
of a parasocial relationship
it’s up to us to be aware of our very
nature
thank you