Parasocial Relationships

It is now possible to know more about, and spend more time with, people on the other side of the world, who don't even know we exist than someone we live next door to.

This is the essence of Parasocial relationships. This is a relatively new term used to define a one-sided relationship. I'm not talking about the make believe relationship with the girl you haven't plucked up the courage to speak to, this refers more to celebrities, characters in films/TV series and other public figures. As a consumer of media, whether books, films, social media or the TV we are surrounded by people and personalities that, over time, we begin to feel akin to. You go from watching one episode to feeling empathy and sympathy towards a character's struggles or invested in their progress and success. To take this a step further, actors playing our beloved characters now have fan bases from their ability to play someone else. People flock to see them at premiere's despite the majority of the exposure time to us being them as another person/character.

The other side of the relationship is non-existent. Despite our increasing obsessions with public figures (think the Kardashians or the stars of made in Chelsea) have no bearing on their knowledge of our presence. According to Dunbar's number we can only have around 150 meaningful contacts and 500 acquaintances. With this in mind we look at Jude Bellingham's Instagram following... 38.4 million followers.... 808 following. Jude is actually pushing the boundaries of the acquaintance number with his following count let alone trying to know the 38.4 million people who see every post of his. For reference, that's like the whole of Poland following him.

So we can see from this one example that there is a 38.4 million to 808 ratio for Jude Bellingham. That means for every 1 person Jude follows, there are over 47,500 people who follow him. Or to put it another way, there are 47,500 people who he doesn't know for every 1 person who knows him. And this is what Parasocial relationships are and why they can be dangerous.

What are the dangers of parasocial relationships?

One sided relationships

As I described earlier in the video, we are spending more and more time interacting with public figures that simply do not have the capacity to interact back again. We see their highs, we see some of their lows, as much as they're willing to share and we form a bond with these people that is entirely one sided. This becomes dangerous because our brains don't understand the difference between this and genuine human connection. [[Daniel Priestley]] talks about the "7-11-4" formula with regards to building bonds with people. To truly bond with someone you have to have 7 hours of contact time, from 11 interactions in 4 different contexts/locations.
Try and find a podcast excerpt for this

Think about that for in person bonds, 7 hours with the same person, that's 14 hours of people's time. But for a public figure it's only 7 hours when you consider that the 7 hours they're putting in is split between you and in Jude's case 34 million people.
Social media, YouTube, podcasts and streaming platforms have made it easier than ever for you to spend 7 hours "with" one of your favourite public figures and become attached or bonded with them. With that attachment comes expectation. We expect our friends and family to behave in a certain way. We expect the celebrities we've bonded with to meet certain expectations too. For content creators this might be meeting a certain posting schedule or production value. For sportsmen and women we might think they owe us, the fans, a certain level of dedication to the club, to the badge. Have you ever tried meeting the expectations of more than one person at a time, it's really fucking difficult. Think that, multiplied by millions. Impossible.

These expectations, which are so often impossible to meet, become reasons for public backlash, resulting in the figure feeling more disconnected from their audience than ever before. At the end of the day, you wouldn't have high expectations of a complete stranger, and ultimately, that's the depth of these relationships.

How well do you truly know them?

There's only so much you get through a screen. Even people who post daily vlogs of their lives keep some things hidden away. Kept secret. They're well within their right. At the end of the day they don't truly owe us anything. But this can cloud our judgement of them. It's no secret that social media plays games with our minds about expectations of how life should be. Everyone posts their highlights, very few post their bad days. Even fewer openly admit their mistakes. It becomes easy to idolise public figures based on what they want you to see. It's easy to think that's how everyone should be, how everyone's lives should be. But with a big public following comes money, opportunities, and rewards that most people won't ever reach. We're building up a fallacy in our heads. We can't truly know them. We can't truly know their circumstances, or inner thoughts. You know what they want you to know.

The positives of parasocial relationships

You are a sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

This is a quote that anyone who has been in the "self improvement" world for any given period of time has heard time and time again. It's very often used as a reminder to evaluate one's social circle regularly, ensuring that we surround ourselves with people who have our best interests at heart and often, something we desire to learn from them. For people looking to improve their lives, the recommendation is to add at least one person to your social circle who is already doing the thing you want to be good at and spending as much time as possible with them, in a way that doesn't make you seem needy. This is where the power of parasocial relationships can be found.

If you are surrounded by people who don't have the same dreams as you, or the same interests, or they have no experience in what you're pursuing, guess what? There's a whole world of people out there who have all those things. And you don't even have to become friends with them. By following social accounts, reading books, listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos you can become friends with your desired people in the space of a few days. Many times I have found a new person who shares my values or displays a certain character trait I admire and I spend the next two weeks obsessing over every single piece of content they've ever appeared in. My gym sessions are filled with podcasts, learning from their stories. My evenings are filled with their videos, seeing how they interact in the world. And as I get ready to sleep, I pick up their book to understand their thoughts and ideas on a deeper level. Suddenly Daniel Priestley's 7 hours milestone has been smashed through and left as a dot in the distance. It feels like I know the person. I can begin to predict their words, almost as if I'm talking for them. In this time, they've become one of my 5 people. And my life will be forever changed for "meeting" them.

And, in truth, my life is pretty good. I mean, the pure fact I'm sitting here making a YouTube video right now is ridiculous when you consider there are people without shelter, food or clean drinking water. But the internet and mass media has made these inspirational people easier to come into contact with. In the past, role models had to be in your immediate or slightly extended social circles. Now, a role model can be from the other side of the world, and they don't even need to know you exist.