The feeling when you think you're friends with your favorite celebrity, influencer, or even TV character ... it has a name: parasocial relationships. Are you in one?
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00:00Oh, Phoebe Bridgers isn't going to be your best friend someday.
00:03This is what's wrong with parasocial relationships.
00:05Parasocial relationships are unhealthy.
00:06I don't give a pair of f**ks.
00:09This is my best friend.
00:12If you know a lot about a stranger, it gives you the illusion that they know a lot about
00:20you as well.
00:21So for instance, if you learn a lot about someone through following them on TikTok or
00:25watching them on TV, you start to feel like you almost have a friendship with them.
00:31A parasocial relationship is a relationship that's illusory.
00:41It's something we can have with fictional characters, with celebrities, even with people
00:47on social media that we've never met, but follow, who might be influencers and that
00:53sort of thing.
00:54We can even have it with a puppet, like Kermit the Frog.
00:57Anyone that we have a one-sided relationship that's mediated, the other side of the relationship
01:04really is not returning our emotions or our knowledge of the relationship.
01:14It's just a continuation of from ancient times when we would form relationships with each other.
01:19If you think back to way before the thousands of years when we didn't have any sort of media,
01:28it makes a lot of sense.
01:30Everyone we came across, we could form a social relationship with.
01:34And so now we have this ability to see people in a mediated setting, but our brains haven't
01:42evolved to the point where we can differentiate between the fact that this is mediated and
01:48this is not.
01:50So it's a very natural thing for us to do.
01:53We've had just film and radio for about a hundred years.
02:00That's it.
02:02It's been popular mass media for such a short period of time compared to the rest of the
02:08time we've been on this earth.
02:10What you see, although real, is not a complete picture of me as a person.
02:18But if the only parts of me you know are the ones that I put on social media, if you got
02:24to know me in a real relationship, you would probably be disappointed.
02:28The online community tends to be a little uninhibited.
02:34People are sort of behind the mask of their computers and they're freer to say things
02:40they might filter a lot more if they were in person.
02:44People feel like they can say whatever comes into their minds in ways that are not obeying
02:52social norms to quite the same degree.
02:55You guys should view me as an entertainment outlet.
02:58You should not view me as a friend.
03:00The reason being is because I don't know you guys.
03:02I don't know the vast majority of my followers.
03:05Especially in this day and age where people are so available on social media, almost a
03:10sense of entitlement to that person's time and attention.
03:15Because in the person who has the parasocial relationships mind, the person is putting
03:22themselves out there.
03:23And since they have this relationship going with them, they don't really think about the
03:29fact that the other person doesn't know who they are and doesn't really owe them anything.
03:38They've been shown to be really good substitutes for social relationships.
03:44They actually sort of help our real life relationships because, you know, if I watch a show and you
03:50watch a show and we both love Character X or we both love Oprah Winfrey or whatever
03:58it is, we can have an interaction based around that shared love.
04:06So it enhances our relationship as well.
04:13Now that you can engage with your favorite creator in a way that feels really natural,
04:17I think people aren't doing the due diligence to remind themselves that it is not real.
04:21It is, but it's not.
04:24People who don't know don't realize they're getting overly involved, why they're doing
04:29it.
04:30They're just sort of going with it.
04:31I think the information is powerful and it also gives them an outlet where they can think
04:36about, okay, I need to step back, take a breath and maybe think about this in a little bit
04:44more of a reasonable way.
04:46Do I know this person?
04:48Do I need to care about this to the same degree?
04:51Are there other things going on in my life that maybe I should invest more time in instead?
04:56We need to be informed about why we're so passionate and then maybe take a deep breath
05:03and reevaluate where we're putting our energy in life.