In today’s society we have more access to celebrities' lifestyles than ever before. Let's take a trip down memory lane 1990s, when all we had were just celebrities, no tiktokers, no youtubers, no influencers. We never had a clear picture or any picture really for who these celebrities were or what they did in their life besides what they were known for. Until recently, fans never were really able to get a glimpse of their favorite celebrities' life or their personality. But, what a lot of people don’t realize is that they actually have parasocial relationships with their favorite celebrities and influencers. For today's topic about psychology, I am going to explain what parasocial relationships are and the history behind it!
So what are parasocial relationships?
Do you ever wonder why influencers are always getting canceled, why people care so much about them and why people dig up their past and want to know there every. future. move. This is because of parasocial relationships. Parasocial relationships are “one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, is completely unaware of the other's existence”. This could even be a fictional character. Interesting right? You're probably thinking WOW, most people don't have those or that is completely rare. But it's actually a lot more common than you would think. Here's an example just to put it into perspective: influencer James Charles, you keep up with him, you follow all of his accounts. That is one level of a parasocial relationship which is completely normal and most people if not everyone will usually have level one of a parasocial relationship but, what if we took it up a notch to the second level. The next level up would be appearing obsessed with every little detail that their idol does or having very intense feelings and maybe even feeling like they are actually with the person. The highest level of a parasocial relationship would be having fantasies that aren’t controllable and think the celebrity, influencer, or fictional character is their actual friend and even assuming that their idol would reciprocate the same feelings. Someone that has a level 3 parasocial relationship has a high probability of doing very vicious and disturbing acts like stalking. A lot of people especially geared towards people that are in level 2 and 3 of parasocial relationships might think that they know there idol on a personal level even though realistically, they only know the side of their idol that they willingly choose to show.
The history behind it
The term parasocial relationships was first made by Donald Horton and sociologist R. Richard Wohl in 1956. The research was a lot more limited in general back then but especially because there wasn’t social media, it was not further researched until the growth of social media. Horton and Wohl have stated that celebrities use a sense of intimacy with gestures in a way that is seen as being engaging, for example directly talking to the audience and conversing with them in a personal manner. That would help make the viewer regularly come back and watch the celebrity almost as a comfort thing like they know them personally.
Conclusion
Reading this might have freaked you out a little. BUT I’m here to say parasocial relationships are completely normal for the most part and are just part of being a human. Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you found something useful or interesting out of it :).
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