A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship formed when one party extends energy, interest, and time and the other person in reality doesn’t know they exist, according to the National Register of Health Services Psychologists.
The term was first used in an article from 1956, when two researchers noted new relationships forming between audiences and stars of news programs, television, and movies.
It’s helpful for explaining why, for example, when someone’s favorite weather person delivers the morning forecast, that viewer’s attitude is: “I trust this weatherman and what this weatherman is saying must be true,” says Rachel Kowert, PhD, an Ottawa, Canada–based research psychologist and the research director of Take This, a mental health advocacy organization with a focus on the digital gaming industry. “The viewer or the fan feels like they really know, relate, and have a sense of familiarity to the person they’re following.”
Parasocial relationships go beyond simply following an influencer and engaging with their content. “It involves a level of commitment to a public figure where you even begin to view the celebrity as a friend or confidante,” says Jessica Leader, a licensed marriage and family therapist with Root to Rise Therapy in Los Angeles. “There is one-sided intimacy.”
These days, parasocial relationships may seem especially intimate since it’s simple for famous people to engage with their followers on social media, but not necessarily in the deep, meaningful ways that we connect with our real-life friends and family.
“What’s unique is that it’s reciprocal now and that makes the lines even blurrier,” Dr. Kowert says.
What’s more, there’s some evidence that people’s parasocial relationships may have gotten stronger during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when social distancing protocols led to more people interacting virtually with their real-life friends and family — and this was found to be true particularly among those who had more parasocial engagement overall and did less face-to-face socializing.
“Increased exposure to real-life friends through screen media may blur the lines between the social and parasocial, increasing the value of parasocial relationships during social distancing,” the researchers of that study concluded.
