“No, he would never do that, I know him”, “ Of Course Taylor Swift is my best friend”, “I cannot believe they broke up, they were my favourite celebrity couple.”
Parasocial relationships can be defined as one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest, and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence. Now, what this definition is missing, is that this persona does put in effort to get us obsessed. It’s certainly not because they know or care about us or are just kind. So, how do parasocial relationships work to help public figures?
Influencers’ Use of Personal Information
Well, one of the most popular ways, common with influencers, is using personal information as currency – like sharing personal experiences, stories, mental illnesses, parents, partners, their day, etc. These are things one would usually only share with a close personal friend, and therefore, due to the influencers’ apparent “ trust”, the consumers of their content start to feel like they are friends and start to trust them too.
This weaves a path for the influencer to be able to sell them products easily because a majority of the consumer base has developed trust in them. However, some find leaving “crumbs” or giving titbits of personal information to fans as a better alternative, especially those who are established celebrities. This allows them to maintain their privacy, while also driving fans into a craze, trying to piece together their life through talk show interviews, and occasional Instagram posts.
This leaves them wanting more, and searching more, watching and re-watching interviews, and posting theories related to an interview or Instagram story, leading to more publicity and more revenue, because people are dying, dying to see them and dying to hear from them. Let us take the example of “ Swifties”, or diehard Taylor Swift fans, always ‘ sleuthing’ or ‘clowning’ on the internet, grasping at straws, coming up with crazy theories, just because of how desperate they are to know her better. Her relationships are always in the limelight too, with people making speculations, and rooting for specific pairings.
Another strategy is also employed, where celebrities flaunt their relationships, regardless of whether they are real or fake to their fans and to the media. This ‘ relationship strategy’ is very popular amongst movie stars, especially those who are a romantic pairing in their movies as well. When people root for a relationship, they are both interested in seeing more of them together [ like in the movie] and more positively invested in the couple, providing great publicity.
Impacts on Public Figures and Fans
These publicity stunts and sales techniques seem to be relatively harmless ways for influencers and celebrities to make money, but get more dangerous when they are based on insecurities. Influencers can portray themselves to be the ideal person that individuals [often teenagers] want to be, feeding off their insecurities and poor self-image to ‘guide’ them towards a ‘better’ path or a ‘necessary’ product. One notable example is Andrew Tate, who, by feeding off their self-doubt and fragile ideas of masculinity, in turn, fed teenage boys extremely dangerous and violent misogynistic ideas, hyper-capitalistic views, and a volatile amount of toxic masculinity.
His fans, rather than dying to hear about his personal life, instead, were dying to be on the same path and learn from him, becoming involved in his ‘ economic and educational program’ called ‘The Real World’, which has since been compared to a pyramid scheme and likened to a hypermasculine misogynistic cult. This strategy is also commonly used to promote fad diets, weight loss drinks, shapewear, and makeup to those with a poor self-image.
The victims of the dark side of parasocial relationships are both public figures themselves along with their fans or consumers. Public figures suffer from stalking and harassment as well as unrealistic expectations and burdens placed on them by fans. For fans, the level of economic influence held by public figures can lead to them falling for scams. The parasocial relationship, if encouraged by the subject, also has the potential to change the attitude of the subject.
The last section of my article explores how the intensity of parasocial relationships is heightened due to the rise of influencer culture. I will be broadly classifying influencer culture into two stages; The first stage saw some very famous influencers that everyone knew – like Charlie D’Amelio, Addison Rae, etc. These influencers were made into celebrities – they were invited to big events and were as popular and well-known as movie stars or singers.
The second or newer stage is characterized by a smaller and more invested following, such that one might not even know that the influencer that their best friend loves even exists. Due to the increasing number of influencers, any normal person can become an influencer and they feel less unreachable and inaccessible. Therefore, you feel closer to them, hence increasing the likelihood and intensity of a parasocial relationship
This can have positive impacts such as feeling represented and seen by diverse kinds of influencers, as well as getting content specialized for you. This is seen through the example of an influencer by the name of Monica Ravichandran [glowbymonica] who refers to herself as “your brown girl makeup bestie”, and provides good makeup reviews and advice for those with darker skin tones.
With a relatively smaller following [Under 350K followers], and catering to a specific audience, she builds trust and is, therefore, able to truly help people. A parasocial relationship also provides people with a sense of companionship and it makes people feel less lonely, because they feel like they have a friend and that someone actually cares about and understands them.
Ethical Considerations
However, its terrible negative impacts must not be ignored – the situation can get quite dangerous when fans start feeling like they should have a say in a celebrity or an influencer’s life and are “owed more information”. They tend to experience a sense of personal betrayal and hurt when influencers do something they don’t agree with, causing hate comments to be more intense and personal.
Additionally, influencers begin to have more sway over their fans’ decisions and choices because of the increased trust and feeling of connection they experience. Fans also expect them to have a closer relationship, which can lead to feelings of rejection or can provide a way for the influencer to exploit their emotions. Often, the influencers can also feel guilty and overburdened due to the demands and emotional pressure put on them by fans.
While parasocial relationships to a certain extent can help one socially develop, they should be a tool exercised cautiously by any responsible influencer and not exploited. Additionally, while starting to invest time in and beginning to grow fond of a distant figure, one should tread carefully, not get overly attached, do their research before trusting blindly, and remind themselves, no matter what, that an influencer is not their best friend.