If you are someone who has kept up with nearly any piece of media within the last two weeks, you have likely been made aware of the relationship between Kansas City Chiefs’ tide-end Travis Kelce and mega pop star Taylor Swift. This news quickly took the internet by storm and has been a nonstop topic of discussion. As an avid user of Twitter (I refuse to refer to it differently), I wanted to feel as invested in this recent development as everyone else. So, while researching who Travis Kelce was, I wondered, “Why do I care so much about Taylor Swift’s relationship status? Why do so many other people care so much?”
Numerous fans of Swift have proven to have a “parasocial relationship” with her.
If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, a parasocial relationship, according to Science Direct can be described as “a one-sided, non-reciprocal relationship with media figures.” It has recently become a hot topic as celebrities and other public figures have been moving towards marketing themselves as “relatable,” and many of the fans of those celebrities embrace that to a large extent. This phenomenon, along with the advent of internet celebrities, has caused a surge in fans gaining the feeling of knowing these figures on a more personal level.
Parasocial relationships have become a common marketing tactic for celebrities. I’ve noticed that more celebrities have avoided seeming cool and mysterious in favor of seeming more grounded and relatable, which is clear when observing trends in how celebrities engage with fans and the media. When looking at social media, you’ll notice that many more media figures have posted vlogs of their day, going live on Instagram to showcase themselves cooking in their own kitchen or starting their own podcast. Public figures have capitalized on the opportunity to present themselves as being authentic and connected to their audience to be seen in a positive light and have their fans feel as if they’re a friend.
As someone who is an avid consumer of pop culture, I feel as if I’ve noticed a slight shift in how celebrities present themselves. I remember being very young and seeing the stars I liked sharing parts of their lives through interviews; nowadays, there’s almost an overabundance of celebrity information out in the open. Part of the benefits of seeming relatable to an audience is that they’ll likely see themselves in the celebrity and develop an attachment to them. This connection that fans feel is useful as growing a dedicated fanbase, such as Swift’s, proves to be very lucrative.
One might wonder if parasocial relationships are inherently unhealthy because the emotions a fan has toward whoever they’re admiring are not reciprocated. As someone who has been a fan of K-pop since the age of ten, I’ve noticed that K-pop is built on parasocial relationships. Groups are constantly making fun content and communicating with fans through multiple forms such as live streams, meet and greets where the idols sit down and talk to their fans for minutes, or pseudo-messaging apps where idols “text” their fans. Those apps involve the idols sending messages to many fans who can only see what the idol and themselves say, giving fans the illusion of having a one-on-one conversation with the idol.
The connection that fans feel gets very concerning as fans of K-pop idols are known to have an alarming amount of emotional attachment to their idols. Often, K-pop fans will feel a somewhat romantic attraction to the group members, causing openly dating to be discouraged for idols. The labels in charge of these groups continually feed into this issue. Similar to how boy groups that were big in the West would often have different archetypes of guys that would appeal to a large variety of girls, K-pop boy groups often have members fit specific images to gain fans who’ll fawn over them. That idea is taken to another level in K-pop, as the idols will often speak on how much they love their fandom (which will always have its own name specific to the group) and will constantly act in ways that fans would enjoy. In turn, fans collectively consume the idols’ content, stream their releases multiple times for their songs to chart well, buy mass amounts of physical copies of their albums and merchandise, and participate in that fandom’s social media presence. Parasocial relationships are very lucrative, and building them can be a very effective marketing strategy.
As someone who used to participate in fandoms where strong parasocial relationships were prevalent, it is very unhealthy as it can cause people to substitute real-life bonds with parasocial bonds and distance themselves from those around them. One’s emotions can be determined by the celebrity they’re attached to and lead to people not having healthy ways of dealing with their feelings. It can also cause an addiction to social media as those with parasocial attachments to celebrities tend to keep up with them through social media.
Though parasocial relationships, in my experience, can be very harmful, I believe that if fans can be aware of the nature of the attachment they have with the celebrity and maintain their relationships with the real people in their lives, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.