The life and deathlessness of our parasocial relationships

I have always been aware that I define myself through what I love — or, less romantically, through my parasocial relationships. My lockscreen had to be a photo of Lorde and my laptop had to have a sticker photo from The Royal Tenenbaums and my Twitter header had to be Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It was like I was wearing dozens of heart-shaped lockets around my neck, all housing photos of people I had never met. Rosé was simply among the long line of many: a line I have cultivated and have been reliant on ever since I grasped the concept of celebrity.

Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships where one invests energy, time and emotions on a (real or fictional) figure who is completely unaware of the other’s existence. When I asked fans of all kinds why they develop such relationships, it’s clear that its benefits encompass both the intrapersonal and the interpersonal. Comfort was a primary reason, with our favorite artists becoming “an integral part of our security blanket” especially in times of sadness and stress. Frankly, it makes life more bearable. Paul, a 20-year-old K-pop stan from Cavite, muses: “You can’t just go home from school to do homework and eat dinner. After that, now what?” 

This phenomenon of finding comfort in the mere existence of people we have never met, while seemingly odd or silly on paper, actually has a very uncomplicated explanation. In an essay for HuffPost, Brittany Wong writes, “When we’re deeply invested in a celebrity we often project ourselves onto them; they become aspirational figures, surrogates for our hopes, dreams and expectations for our own lives.” 

Parasocial relationships also present people with opportunities to model themselves after someone they deeply admire. “All celebrities I got into are older than me, with established lives and careers. I think I just wanted to pretend that, in some way, my life was going to look like that: stable,” says Felipe, an artist from Baguio. Rice, a 20-year-old Swiftie, shares the sentiment: “Stanning Taylor Swift as a child was like having a map on how I would handle future problems. It helped me be at peace with my emotions.” 

While the absence of reciprocity is often the most frustrating part of being a stan, it is also the most crucial to its function. Because one half of the parasocial relationship is being a passive participant, it essentially removes the anxiety and discomfort that often comes with certain face-to-face interactions. Juan, a student from Laguna, stanned the group Pentatonix from the beginning of their career. He shares, “I was just a teenager when I formed these parasocial relationships; I didn’t really know how to socialize back then. It was easy to make my relationships based on information readily searchable on the internet: ‘Ah, ganito pala birthday ni Scott. Ah alam mo ba marunong mag-Chinese si Kevin kasi nag-exchange student siya sa China for 18 months?’” He found it comfortable because it was the artists doing the talking.

Despite the flak stans get for the flaws of fandom, there’s nothing particularly unusual about parasocial relationships. The myth that parasocial relationships are a symptom of loneliness or pathology has been debunked, with multiple researchers empirically proving that loneliness has no correlation with the intensity of individuals’ parasocial interactions. And while face-to-face interaction remains the superior petri dish for social skills, digital interactions in comparison are not inherently brain-melting or completely separate from our real lives. As researchers at the University of Delaware found, individuals who are good at making friendships in real life are also good at experiencing parasocial relationships. It is not a zero-sum game; rather than restricting one’s social networks, parasocial relationships actually expand it.

In the same way that the internet makes it easier for fans to come together, it also shrinks the distance between the two halves of a parasocial relationship. There is also an increased likelihood for actual interaction between stan and stanned: among the fans I spoke with for this piece, almost half have experienced the coveted Twitter reply, the double-tap on an Instagram edit. One former 5 Seconds of Summer fan said they exchanged direct messages with bassist Calum Hood for a week. True to the axiom that the world wide web bridges borders, there is the direct link of social media. The fact that celebrities coexist with our friends and family on our feeds coats their social media presence with a sheen of authenticity, intensifying parasocial interaction by making actual interaction seem more possible.

Eri, a K-pop stan, explains that part of what draws her to parasocial relationships is not just the music, but the artists themselves. “When you see them perform versus when you see them in vlogs and variety shows, it makes it more interesting because sometimes they’re really different.” She also expresses that the regularity of new releases in K-pop helps maintain her parasocial participation; she was previously in the One Direction fandom but left because they haven’t been active as a group for years (always in our hearts!).

Frankly speaking, I can’t imagine life without my parasocial relationships. Whenever I develop that affinity towards a new person, it’s a familiar feeling; like it’s growing out of a specific part of my body, similar to how old habits are reincarnated from muscle memory. When I asked fans if they think we can ever unlearn the tendency to form these relationships, I got mixed responses, but Rice put it succinctly: “Yes, but why?”