Splash No. 157 - Parasocial
Parasocial
Despite the fact that I spend most of my days traipsing around San Francisco, I still manage to learn new things. Recently, I stumbled upon the term “parasocial relationships,” which are the one-sided relationships that an audience or consumers feel that they have with the entertainers they watch, the characters that they love, the writer of the weekly newsletter that comes out on Thursdays at 11AM ET that they lovingly read without fail. I never thought about it before, but parasocial relationships have been some of the most important to me in certain times — feeling connected to my favorite YouTubers when I felt completely alone, resonating with my favorite artists who seemed to understand exactly how I felt through their music.
In my own life, I’ve been realizing that there’s a nonzero amount of people that have some level of a parasocial relationship with me, through this newsletter or my tweets or the other content I have put out on the internet. The only reason I know this is because some folks break the mold of the parasocial relationship by actually talking to me, telling me what they enjoy and what they don’t, making me realize that there are people who read my words that I’ve never interacted with directly and may be multiple degrees of separation away from. This is a weird phenomenon for me since I usually assume that only my family is reading anything I put out and that mostly out of obligation. Yet, the evidence points to an alternative: that there’s value in my work, unrelated to any filial bond or obligation as a friend.
And sometimes the parasocial relationships become normal friendships, in all their two-sided glory. However, even when I meet new people, I often notice an asymmetry in how much I know about a person versus how much they know about me. With just a little bit of effort, someone can learn some of the most intimate details about my life — the heart and soul I pour into my writing or the dumb humor that underlies most of my social media. On the other hand, I’ll often be starting from zero with the other person, strangely enough. To feed my ego even more, I like to imagine that this is what it’s like to be a celebrity, speaking to people who know before you know them. It’s helpful at times, knowing that there are no major surprises, that they at least have a sense of who I am, and that we’re likely on the same page, ideally.
More than anything else, I’m realizing that I live a life more public than I thought. Even if most people aren’t paying attention, much of what I think is visible and accessible online, and even a stranger could take the time to trace the paths that I’ve traversed, the growth I’ve experienced, the lessons that I’ve learned, if they really wanted to. And if that stranger could put in that effort, they could also break the proverbial one-sided wall of the parasocial relationship and become my future best friend or romantic partner or doubles tennis partner or barber or chess teacher or anything! So, I continue my public life, dedicated to cultivating a digital version of myself that’s authentic — to build new relationships, parasocial and not.
Drops of the Week
SINGLE - "Lumberjack" by Tyler, the Creator - new Tyler! I'm excited for the new album!
ARTICLE - "Crawling the City" by Will Payne - interesting article about how apps like FourSquare and Yelp help to cause gentrification.
BOOK - Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose - just got this book of essays and the prose is more poetic than many poems I've read.
With each day, we can move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
Donate to Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta Mutual Aid Networks
Anti-racism resources
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In multiple directions,
Nikhil