you guys have been requesting a video on parasocial relationships for a while now and I never really had an interest in this topic until something that happened very recently which we'll get into in a sec so I'm finally going to share my thoughts on parasocial relationships what they are how they look like and honestly you might not like what I have to say about it so let's get into it [Music] the term parasocial relationships was first coined by Horton and wool in 1956 to describe an illusory or imaginal relationship that a viewer or an audience
member has with the public figure such as a musician a celebrity an actor a content creator it's one directional where the person consuming that public figures whatever has concocted a relationship in their head and the public figure basically has no idea who they are now we typically think of this as a modern-day issue but it's been around since ancient Rome when they had public speakers yes it's definitely gotten more of a Hot Topic with the rise of social media but make no mistake this isn't something new and the reason for that is that we're all
prone to parasocial relationships when we relate to the Barista who gives us our coffee every day even though we don't actually know them when we're not that close to them when we grow attached to a fictional character and we get really sad when they get killed off when we get angry at a celebrity or we really empathize with them and we've never actually met them when we feel like we're friends with a content creator we're all prone to parasocial relationships because on some level we're programmed to have them we're programmed to bond with people and
our mind doesn't really distinguish between what's real and what's imaginary very well and I actually think this is kind of a good thing because our ability to relate to people even though we've never met them and our ability to empathize with people and human them is a really good thing there are some people out there who will literally just dehumanize public figures who don't see them as real and go on and Bully them and harass them cuz they're forgetting that that's a real person on the other side of the screen I think having the ability
to form a parasocial relationship is much better than that but online parasocial relationships get a really bad rep and modern research suggests that they're not actually just unhealthy you can have a healthy parasocial relationship or can ve into unhealthy so a healthy parasocial relationship a lot of times is born out of loneliness isolation not having a group to belong to not having friends in your real life and viewing someone you've never actually met kind of like a proxy for connection have you guys ever seen the movie Lars and the Real Girl with Ryan Gosling it's
a really psychologically fascinating movie and in that movie Lars the main character forms a delusional attachment to a doll like a blowup doll because in that moment the doll is a transitional object for him him he doesn't have any connection in his real life he's had a trigger for grief that he never previously resolved and he needs to work through that through the transitional object before he's ready to go out in the real world and form real relationships I think of parasocial relationships as kind of similar to that we live in a very lonely world
a lot of people don't have friends haven't dated anyone that energy has to go somewhere and if you can practice that friendship and companionship and Intimacy in your mind as long as long as you don't detach from reality and think that it's real and as long as you do then transition onto real relationships that can be a good thing it can be you working through your issues so studies show that parasocial relationships can result in a sense of companionship and comfort and security like I said it also reflects our ability to relate to other people
to empathize with them to feel for them even though we're not close with them it shows that our ability to relate to others is intact which is a good thing and also I think parasocial relationships can facilitate self-development you know like there are a lot of YouTubers that I follow for instance who I've learned a lot from but just by listening to them talk about different aspects of their lives their business their relationships it's helped me learn some lessons too of course I don't know these people I'm not their friend I am not going to
reach out to them to try to be their friend but their personality has even through the screen had an effect on my personality and I'm grateful for that now where parasocial relationships start to become unhealthy definitely if it's interfering with your day-to-day life if it's impairing your functioning in some way like if you are choosing to be obsessed with your favorite celebrity instead of going out and hanging out with friends or actually dating somebody who you have a shot with or if you're getting into fights because you're constantly defending whoever you stand if it's repeatedly
causing you distress you know I think it's okay to every now and then feel a painful emotions spurred by somebody that we don't actually know somebody who's a public figure of course we often displace and project our issues onto public figures but if it's happening very often then that's not healthy if the public figure is exercising undue influence meaning if they're somehow manipulating you or convincing you to I don't know do something that they want or like give them all your money or vote for a certain political candidate or join their cult or whatever that's
when it gets unhealthy also and especially if it's turning into a delusion or an obsession if you lose sight of the fact that this is an imaginary relationship then it ceases to become healthy it's okay to in your heart feel a connection with people you haven't actually met before or aren't that intimate with what's not okay and what you should be very mindful of is forgetting that that is all just imaginary that there isn't an actual relationship there that this person doesn't know you isn't close with you that you are essentially fabricating a relationship and
I think they also get unhealthy when we idealize or devalue public fig figures when we either think that they're you know the greatest profit of all time and we're doxing their critics online or when we completely devalue them by cancelling them or threatening them or things like that now here's the part that you might not like to hear me say I think online people talk about parasocial relationships quite often as if it is the public figures who are to blame for their viewers inappropriate behavior and while I think that there are some pretty rare occasions
where public figures do sort of stoke the Flames of their fans obsessions like I said that's pretty rare most of the time I think this discussion kind of veers into victim blaming of the public figure it is our responsibility as consumers of whatever form of media to make sure that it doesn't get out of hand to make sure that we don't lose touch with reality or behave inappropriately with other people or make sure that those parasocial relationships don't become unhealthy and extreme a few examples of how public figures can sometimes encourage that kind of unhealthy
parasocial behavior is for instance public figures who constantly make their viewers or subscribers or whatever feel like they're friends like oh hey you know we're friends here or we're part of the same pack like I'm your friend usually because they want your money a really good example of this is when people go on these content creator trips together that is the epitome of a parasocial relationship being fueled when people date fans I think that veers into parasocial I mean sure you could say well okay initially it's a one-sided relationship but once the public figure engages
with the fan it becomes bidirectional yes but you're starting off with a pretty huge power discrepancy you're starting off with one person who has already fabricated a relationship with this person in their head you cannot start a healthy relationship based on a fabrication as the foundation even if you go on to develop an actual relationship it cannot be like this person is your fan you know I think there's a difference between somebody dating like a fan who's obsessed with them versus One content creator reaching out to another content creator because they have things in common
and deciding to become friends you know those things are different one of them has a huge power discrepancy and an unhealthy parasocial relationship and the other is just starting off as a parasocial relationship on an even playing field and becoming an actual relationship or another example of people kind of stoking the Flames I've heard this Taylor Swift quote I need you guys very much for my well-being I would put that as like a little bit dubious to say a little bit stoking the Flames but here's what's not an unhealthy parasocial relationship responding to a viewer
or fan or whatever either online or in person with courtesy and warmth the same level of politeness and kindness that you would give to anybody that you see throughout your day that doesn't make it unhealthy publicly sharing about your personal life that's not necessarily unhealthy feeling happy or sad for somebody whose Journey you followed along that's not unhealthy basically anything that you would do in real life if you're going about your days you see somebody crying on the sidewalk of course as a decent human being you're going to go up to them and ask them
hey are you okay do you need anything just the same if you see somebody who you follow on social media who's posted about something tragic that's happen I think it's perfectly healthy to comment something like that like I'm so sorry that you're going through this or just the same as you're like friendly with the supermarket cashier if a celebrity is equally friendly with a fan of theirs that is not necessarily unhealthy they're just being a decent human being I think if a viewer or fan or whatever you want to call them develops an unhealthy attachment
to a public figure unless the public figure has done something to actually bring on an unhealthy attachment to them that is the viewers responsibility to work through and figure out I say this so often on this channel we are not responsible for the feelings or the actions of other people people don't deserve to be on the receiving end of unhealthy parasocial attachments just because their job requires them to be a public figure and I realize I'm probably biased about this because honestly I have had scary experiences like that you know I do have subscribers who
occasionally get really angry at me for not responding to their message or their comment who sometimes creat countless other accounts from which to harass me for it and even other experiences that I don't even want to talk about because I don't acknowledge stalkers no public figure owes you a relationship just because you have fabricated an imaginary one in your head so there was a very recent and very real incident that spurred this reflection for me I followed this Tik Tock comedy couple their content is just always so relatable they somehow managed to nail the intricate
dynamics of what it means to be married and I don't know how they do it so they're wonderful and I actually mentioned this in a previous video but there was a childfree influencer who made a video about cat and John getting pregnant basically saying that she feels disappointed because their content won't be relatable for her anymore now that they're having a kid and I took issue with this video not because I think it's abnormal to feel disappointment when you can't relate to somebody anymore I think like I said it's okay to have emotional reaction to
what public figures do but in this case I did feel like she was trying to normalize an unhealthy type of parasocial relationship where we feel actually entitled to other people's lives being relatable to us and you know even if that does come up even if you have that sort of emotional content that arises in you I think it's important to be able to work through it if necessary privately you know with a therapist with a journal with your friends rather than putting that sort of sentiment out in the world again let's think about this from
the standpoint of how would this look out in the real world let's say that out in the real world you have like a friend of a friend let's say somebody who's very popular who just got pregnant and you've never actually met her but you've heard a lot about her would it be normal for you to go around telling everybody at that point oh I'm kind of disappointed that she did that cuz you know I look up to her socially and now she's not relatable to me no that would be super inappropriate and unfortunately yesterday I
heard that cat and John had a miscarriage a very late miscarriage the reason why I've been thinking about parasocial relationships a lot is because I cried a lot when they announced that I mean I cried when they announced their pregnancy and I cried when they announced their miscarriage and I was just thinking about how you know there's nothing wrong with having an emotional reaction to What public figures do what can become unhealthy is what we choose to do with those feelings in this situation I think it would be perfectly fine like countless of people have
done to write a saying oh my God I'm so sorry my heart goes out to you I hope you heal on the other hand it wouldn't be normal to say you know email them constantly telling them about your own experiences and ask them to reach out to you so that the two of you can support each other like that would be a boundary violation don't do anything you wouldn't do in real life let's say that you're in a waiting room and you just heard that the couple next to you just had a miscarriage the normal
thing to do would be to express your condolences to ask if they need anything in the moment maybe even to feel sympathy to tear up a little bit for them would it be normal to still be crying about this incident weeks later to try to contact them offering your support to demand to be in their lives no that would not be normal also like just a side note but why is that Tik Tok still up girl why is it still up I find it to be very distasteful to make a Tik Tok expressing disappointment that
a couple you don't know got pregnant and then keep that up even after they had a miscarriage just feels so CL classless to me obviously like she didn't cause this like it's not her fault that this happened but like read the room a little bit anyway that's the situation that kind of sparked me reflecting on parasocial relationships and the ways in which they can be fine or the ways in which they can be unhealthy I think the messages I'd like to drive home about this topic are firstly parasocial relationships are not inherently unhealthy like people
on the internet wants you to believe they're a sign that your ability to relate to other people and to bond to other people are intact and that's a good thing they can become unhealthy this is pretty rare but you should look out for it you should make sure that it's not becoming delusional or that you're not engaging in inappropriate behaviors I think it is the responsibility of the public figure to not encourage unhealthy parasocial relationships and it's also the responsibility of the person engaging with the public figure to make sure they appropriately Express whatever emotions
come up for them to make sure that they're not behaving inappropriately that they're not actually believing they have a relationship with this this person just ask yourself you know especially with like social media interactions every time you're about to have a social media interaction with somebody ask yourself would I do this in real life I think you might be surprised a lot of the things we do online if we stop and ask ourselves that question we might hold back on a little bit there's always great discourse in my comment section so I am genuinely curious
to hear what your thoughts are take care [Music]
