The Rise of Parasocial Relationships

0:04 This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Dunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Hello and welcome to another solo episode of Crappy to Happy. So, first of all, what did you think of the new music? I obviously found an alternative, so I hope you like it. I hope we all get used to it. After having my previous music for the last six years, I'm sure that we are adaptable that we will cope with the new intro music. Second of all, how about those Matilda's and the Women's World Cup. What a uniting moment for the country and maybe the world, but especially the country in Australia. Obviously, I've been watching it from overseas, and to be honest, I didn't even start tuning in until that semi final, not the semi the quarter final, which happened to be on a Saturday obviously, so I was able to watch it in the morning here in the UK, and I thought, I'll watch this for a couple of hours and then we'll go out and do something. And we ended up,

1:35 like many people glued to that television set for way longer than we anticipated. And I think that's the match that just hooked everybody in who wasn't already hooked into that tournament. It is so good for women's sport, for the profile of women's sport. I really really hope that this continues the attention, the recognition, most importantly the funding. I hope that they can just continue to draw the crowds that they did. One thing that is a real bonus for me being over here in the UK is obviously we watch a lot more football in this country than what we ever did in Australia. It's everybody lives and breeds it over here. And I was joking the other day because we went to a charity match at Chelsea Football Club and I was saying, maybe Chelsea will become my team. I haven't really locked onto a team yet, and I quite like Chelsea's colors. They were a nice blue and white uniform and I could see myself in the blue and white, and everybody was laughing at me saying that is not how you pick a football team, but hey, I think it's just as good a way as any if you have no other way of choosing a football team. It's also quite close to where we live.

2:43 It's very easy to get to. Proximity is important. What I found out watching the Women's World Cup is that Sam Kerr plays for Chelsea. So I hopped onto the Chelsea website and they are selling packages of all of the women's Chelsea Football Club home games a really really reasonable fee, so you can buy the four games that they're playing on the home ground up the road here at Chelsea at Stamford Bridge is the name of the pitch and I've done that. I've bought tickets for the family. I've even bought myself with the Chelsea jersey. And I think if more people can do that. Obviously you maybe can't do that, you can't go to Premier League football when if you're in Australia. But I hope that more people around the world tune in, watch the games, show up live if you can, and just keep on continuing to support women's sport. But enough about that. My topic today is parasocial relationships. Now, maybe you've heard this term thrown around, maybe you've heard that term used with kind of tone of it being a really unhealthy, really toxic thing.

3:50 What we're talking about here is kind of a fandom, it's sort of celebrity worship. But it's actually much more than that and less than that. What it is technically speaking, the definition of a parasocial relationship is a relationship or an interaction in which one person is heavily invested in the other and the other person, typically a media personality, a celebrity, somebody in the public eye, somebody with a high profile, doesn't even know that that person exists. So it's this very one sided relationship. Where and it does it typically relates to people who are fans of somebody famous, or these days just anybody who's even a little bit famous, anybody who's got a sort of a public profile. So let's talk about this. I thought we would break this down, talk about what this idea is, where it came from, and also is it all bad our? Parasocial relationships really unhealthy and unbalanced and a symptom that you're lonely and introverted and isolated. And that you need to get a life, which is what some people would say about them, or can they actually have some upside? And then we can all think about our own interactions and how we find that sense of balance. Yes, so just a bit of a personal story to start with. I guess I mean, I am not a famous person, but I do have a public profile. I have been communicating ideas about psychology on this podcast obviously for six years. I've been associated with various online fitness programs, for example with my friend tif Hall before that, with various other programs where I

5:23 would do Facebook lives and share amongst the community. I have a somewhat of a media presence. I've been interviewed on TV, but you know, we're not talking about big superstar status here. We're just talking about having a fairly low level kind of media profile. And as part of my role in the media, I would share ideas and you know, try to be helpful. Try to share ideas from psychology and from coaching and mindfulness that are practical and useful for people in a very generic way, because obviously they are legal and ethical guidelines which prevent me from giving personal advice to strangers on the Internet. When I started to note as I started to do this work, is that people do have a very real sense of being connected to me. And obviously there's plenty of people in my community who I feel a sense of connection to as well, the people that I have more interaction with than others, for example. But what started to happen was that I would start getting messages, either messages on Facebook or emails to me or maybe dms on Instagram, with people really asking me for very specific personal advice, sharing a lot of very personal information about themselves in their own life and their situation, and kind of wanting me to give them something. And this is problematic for a couple of reasons. So number one, as I just said, legally and ethically, I'm not able to do that. Number Two, I do not have a relationship with this person, and they're almost approaching me as if they know me and trust me, which is great, which I actually really appreciate,

6:56 but asking me for the kind of advice that they should be asking a friend or a close another family member or going to see a professional. And so what it brought up in me was truthfully a feeling of resentment. A lot of the time, like a feeling like my boundaries had been crossed and that this was an unreasonable expectation. Especially when I would get these messages. I would open up my phone as we all do, and it might be eight o'clock at night, it might be eight o'clock on a Saturday morning when I'm with my family and having this very personal sometimes you know, somebody's expressing distress and I'm being left to deal with that in my own time, unpaid, and that request is coming from a person that I don't even know, Like I've never met this person. They're certainly not a paying client, but they're not even a person who is in my circle. They're not a friend. And that's when I heard later the term parasocial relationships and thought, okay, so this is exactly what we're talking about here. This is this dynamic where they feel a connection to me that isn't reciprocated. It is not that relationship at all. And so it really got me to thinking about where do we draw these lines.

8:10 In my reading about this too, just as a matter of interest, you know, I was reading about Zara and Mish from the Shameless podcast, and they've obviously got millions of listeners of their podcast now I've had them on my podcast before. I think the other thing that's very appealing about duos like that is the friendship dynamic. They represent the kind of friendship that many of us wish we had and perhaps we don't have that, especially that ideal best friend story. I'm thinking also of Laura and Steph from Kick. Obviously recently had Steph on the podcast I'm Sarah and Lee's from those two girls. Now the Sarah and Lee's show those kind of best friend relationships, I think I'm much more likely too, I shouldn't say much more likely, are equally as likely to invite those kinds of parasocial connections because we all look at that friendship and that wish that we had that kind of friendship.

9:01 We want to be a part of it. And when they're having a conversation that we're listening to, we feel like we're sitting around at table. I know that's what people used to say about Tiff and I when we first started this podcast. People felt like they were sitting in the room listening to us having a conversation and being a part of that conversation. So that's really beneficial. I mean, that's really nice to be able to have that sense of affiliation and connection with people who give you that sense of that you're a part of their crowd, that you're a part of their group. I really like that, But again it's about realizing that there is a line and that they're not your friends. In an interview that I read with Zara and Mish, I think was Zara actually she said that people would be astonished that Zara and Mesh didn't respond to their dinner requests. I don't want to go out to dinner with them, don't want to catch up with them on the weekend, And people really get these blurred boundaries about whether relationship starts and stops. Interestingly, what often happens is it is the people with the smaller following that are more the target of these parasocial communications and interactions because we're more accessible. So you might send a message to Taylor Swift or I don't know Kim Kardashian and have absolutely no expectation of a reply because they've been followed by millions of people. You know, you're just one of you know, many many millions, Whereas if somebody's got a smaller following, then you actually do feel a closer connection that it is more of an intimate kind of a community, so there is more of an expectation that this will be reciprocated, that that you

10:32 will get something back. So the term parasocial relationships I think has been around since the fifties, and at the time it really related to the relationships that people felt or the connection that people felt with television personalities. That was kind of the main source of media that we had at the time, and they weren't even reality TV shows that were scripted television programs, but people felt a real connection. Obviously, then you have Hollywood celebrities, probably musicians, pop bands that people feel this real affection for and this real sense of connection to back in the day. I mean, I'm probably really dating myself. But you know, back in the day, if you wanted to communicate with somebody that you were a fan of, had to write them a fan letter, probably send it to their fan mail box, and wait for it to be delivered, and then wait for months and months and months and months to see if you're going to get a reply, and most of the time you never did. And in fact, you're just talking about that. I think I might have written a letter to I don't know. I think maybe Michael Jackson when I was young. I'm trying to think.

11:34 I know I've sent fan letters when I was a child. You know, there's no expectation. And if you ever heard a story about somebody getting a reply back when that was just like so so extraordinary. So then prior to social media, also, if you were going to learn about a celebrity, something about their life, about their relationships, where they live, where they grew up, then you would read it in magazine articles. You know, there wasn't an Internet when I was growing up. And of course now not only is everything accessible on the Internet, but we have social media, and I think that has been the game changer. With social media, people in the public eye can communicate very directly with their followers and with their fans. There is no longer this barrier, this kind of gatekeeper that is the mainstream media needing to wait for a magazine to be published to read somebody's interview and hearing secondhand what that person said. They can hop on their social media now and communicate with you live in real time, very directly. They can reply if you comment or you say something, So this has been a game changer in terms of the level of access that we have to people in the public eye and the intensity I think of the connections or the feeling of connection we have to public figures back in the early two thousands, and I think this is interesting because this even when I refer to this research, you know, if I'm talking about a woman who developed a celebrity attitude scale, which she did in two thousand and two, even then early days of internet and definitely not a lot of social media happening.

13:07 But anyway, as it is, she developed a scale called the Celebrity Attitude Scale where she was able to come up with a almost a rating of fandom. So what she did was she's able to rate the intensity of people's attraction or connection that they felt with a celebrity in three categories. So the first one is entertainment social. So I'm going to read you this now. So this is when fans are attracted to a favorite celebrity because of their perceived ability to entertain and become a source of social interaction and gossip. Items on the scale that would tick this box would be things like my friends and I like to discuss what my favorite celebrity has done or learning the life story of my favorite celebrity is a lot of fun. That's entertainment social. I'd like to think that the majority of us who have favorite actors, celebrities, movie stars, musicians would probably fall into that kind of category.

14:06 The next level is called intense personal, and the intense personal aspect of celebrity worship reflects intensive and compulsive feelings about the celebrity, akin to the obsessional tendencies of fans often referred to in the literature. I'm reading this from an article, so items on the scale that would reflect this kind of intensity. My favorite celebrity is practically perfect in every way now I can think of a few swifties. He'd probably tick that box. And I consider my favorite celebrity to be my soulmate, so this is getting obviously much more committed to the fandom. Then. The third level, and this is probably the one that we hear about in the news, is the borderline pathological, and this dimension is typified by uncontrollable behaviors and fantasies about their celebrities.

14:55 Items that would tick this box include I would gladly die in order to save the life of my favorite celebrity or if I walked through the door of my favorite celebrities house, she or he would be happy to see me. So this is this delusion there is a real relationship between the fan and the celebrity. This is where we see stalkers breaking into the house of celebrities and really honestly expecting that the celebrity is going to be really happy to see them there. It's that real crossing of a line. Apparently, according to this researcher, three to five percent of people would fall into that category.

15:37 And I suppose when we think about that, or we see cases like that, then we it's natural that we consider these kinds of relationships to be really unhealthy and toxic. And historically parasocial relationships have been kind of viewed as pathological and a symptom of loneliness or social isolation or social anxiety. You know, it's like this fake relationship that has been seen to be replacing real life relationships in a really unhealthy way. But in actual fact, they are not all bad. And this is why I guess I wanted to have a chat about this, not just to talk about, you know, the downsides and where that line can be crossed even in a small way, like for example, in the example that I gave you about me, all the way through to full fledged kind of stalking and really, you know, creepy behavior and illegal behavior. But what are the benefits of parasocial relationships? In actual fact, they're doing more and more research into this now, and it turns out that there actually isn't necessarily any correlation between loneliness and parasocial behavior. In fact, there are many examples of there being real benefits to these kinds of relationships. So, for example, if you think about the person who might be in hospital suffering from a chronic illness, and every day they tune into maybe back in the day it was the Oprah Show, or maybe it was the Ellen Show, or these days it could be Drew Barrymore talk show hosts.

16:58 People feel a real connection. Thinking now of friends. Anybody who watched the Friends Reunion and they did all of those interviews with people who said that the friends, the Friends and the TV show friends became their friends and in a really positive way, like helped people through really difficult times just because of this perceived relationship, this affection that they had for these fictitious characters, on TV, and a lot of people report that their favorite musician, their favorite rock band, their favorite you know, Taylor Swift, for example. I keep coming back to Taylor Swift because she's probably the most famous at the moment that I can think of, with the biggest fandom, but pulling people through really dark times just because of that sense of connection that they have.

17:41 The other thing is that there is a sense of community and belonging amongst all of those people who belong to the same fan group you know as the Swifties who look out for other Swifties, or just the sense of connection and community that comes when everybody is equally attached to the same celebrity, almost like joining any group or any club. There is a sense of affiliation which is fundamental to human experience, like it's necessary for us. People sometimes report that they have their own sense of themselves and their identity and their values are shaped in a positive way. And again because there's this real time kind of interaction that's able to happen, now, this unfiltered interaction that's able to happen, that people are able to get a real sense of what that person is like, what their values are, the support that they give for various causes, and people can see that and they can take inspiration from that. They want it, they aspire to be more like that, often in a very healthy way. Obviously, there is upside to this for the celebrity as well, and I think it goes without saying that many celebrities are encouraged and at every level, I will say, are encouraged to lean into this kind of relationship, to really lean into to nurturing that fan base, for sharing more of themselves, more honestly, more behind the scenes, more unfiltered, authentic, day in the life kind of material, because that's what

19:11 people really relate to. That kind of interaction really increases engagement, and that kind of engagement is good for business, So it increases ticket sales, merch sales, it increases just general you know, following numbers. And I will say that even for the most anybody who's starting an online community, anybody who aspires to be an influencer, who is building a presence on social media, they are encouraged to really lean into that kind of interaction because it gets sales. People are more likely to buy what you're selling if you have that kind of support from a community and so they encourage it. It's really interesting, isn't it, Because it's it's it's like where is the line? Whereas the ethical line here? But it's the truth of it. I'm in business communities with online business owners who are selling you know, online coaching or digital products and services, and this message is always getting the DMS. Getting the DMS, You've got to be talking to people in the DMS, fostering those relationships because that's how you're going to sell to people.

20:18 And I've probably always felt a little uncomfortable about that. I am not a person who has lent into the DMS as a way of selling my mindfulness course or anything else. Like. I will have chit chat in the DMS occasionally with people, but it is really just chitchat and interaction because I enjoyed as much as that person enjoys it. But I'm not in there then trying to get people to hop on a sales call. No disrespect to the people who do. I mean, everybody's going to make a living, but you do really wonder about the motivation behind that when somebody out there in the community is a very real has a very real sense of respect and admiration for the influence. I guess, so, I guess you could ask, then, what are the downsides? Obviously, I think the more you start getting up into that intense and pathological kind of territory, the more you start being aware of the potential risk factors here. It was really interesting that just this morning I saw some news come out. I'm going to go back to Taylor Swift again.

21:21 I'm sorry I keep referring to Taylor Swift, but Taylor Swift's one of her very good friends, her producer Jack Antonoff, he got married. This happened just this week, just in the last couple of days, and Taylor Swift fans stormed his rehearsal dinner. They started screaming out her name fully expecting that she's going to what come out take selfies with them. They had to call the police, they had to draw the blinds, and then these people started booing like they were so annoyed that Taylor Swift wouldn't come out and speak to them. So that is where we start getting into the really unhealthy territory with these fandoms and with these parasocial relationships, the expectations that fans have of celebrities to appreciate them, to validate them, to give them time. People in the public who encroach on somebody's space when they're out with their kids, for example. These expectations that fans have of celebrities can really flip and go into really unreasonable territory. We're really crossing a line.

22:27 There's been examples of celebrities who maybe having a public conflict. One said this, the other one said that, and then you see the fans taking sides and creating real life conflict because of what they perceive to be like they think that they're defending their celebrity, and so they go into bat and it's they absolutely have got nothing to do with these people, but they feel so personally invested and so personally involved. They feel like if their celebrity is hurt or upset, that it's their job to go in to defend them. So I don't know necessarily if there are more people than we think, maybe in that really intense borderline sort of pathological area with the rise of social media. I don't know how recently those studies have been done, but I do think it's really important to acknowledge that these are not all unhealthy, that there are some real benefits that come out of them, and that they are for the majority of people, this entertainment social kind of thing. It's pretty standard, it's pretty par for the course. I think we are all we've all participated in that kind of thing. The research would show that it's mostly adolescents teenagers is when it really peaks these kind of parasocial connections. They tend to taper off after early adulthood, become less intense as people get busy with their own lives and careers. That's the typical kind of trajectory. I guess there's been some research done into whether a particular attachment style is more likely to result

23:58 in people developing parasocial connections with celebrities. That's a kind of interesting one because I was as I was trawling through the available research, and not that I have read all of it, mind you, but I did see one article that said perhaps people with an anxious attachment were more likely to invest in parasocial relationships. So, if you go back to my episode that I did on attachment styles, anxious attachment is when you have a highly activated your nervous system is activated by too much distance because you haven't had secure consistent nurturing in or you've had very inconsistent caregiving when you were young. It's represented by being quite clingy and needy and jealous and insecure, needing constant reassurance, looking for proximity, looking for closeness from another person. But then I just read another research article that was more recent twenty twenty one, so that in fact, avoidant attachment is more likely to be associated with parasocial relationships because the other infestation of an insecure attachment is the avoidant attachment, and that is when there has been a kind of a lack of available emotional support in early childhood. And so that leads to this profile where the person is kind of arms length, keeps emotions and connections at arms links.

25:18 They're the ones who get more activated the nervous system is activated by too much closeness, So they're the people who they're kind of pushing other people away. They're the loaners I don't really need people in my life. They actually do, mind you, but they become too anxious with too much closeness, so they're more likely to keep on putting distance. And so it sort of makes sense to me from intuitively, it makes sense that they would potentially be the ones more into a parasocial relationship because there's no danger of any real intimacy, they can really call the shots and dictate the terms of this interaction. There is no danger that this person is going to want to get close to them. They're out there over there on the internet in the media, and you know, this is not a this is not a threat, this is not a risk factor. So when we talk about the typical sort of personality traits of those who fall into the intents or the borderline pathological categories. Lynn McCutcheon, who was that psychologist who developed the scale, she said that impulsivity, trouble with intimate relationships, and high levels of anxiety and neurosis are some of the kinds of traits that you would associate with people who are falling into those intense personal and borderline pathological categories. She also said to my point earlier that recently scores on the Celebrity Attitude Scale began increasing slightly over all, which means that a growing number of people are having those unhealthy attachments. So to some extent it is obviously fueled by greater accessibility to celebrities, but still She even says that the bad behavior, the

26:50 really toxic, unhealthy behavior, is the exception rather than the rule. I guess the takeaway here is that these kinds of relationships can provide something of value to people, and we shouldn't be dismissing them. We certainly shouldn't be mocking anybody's interest or their sense of connection with somebody who is in the public eye. That can be really beneficial in terms of like I said, that feeling of belonging, that sense that somebody understands them, that they have something positive to aspire to. It just brings them joy. That is really really good. The extreme behaviors are in the minority. And also I guess, just you know, for everybody to think a little bit about what are your expectations of somebody in the public eye, and if you are messaging somebody and don't worry, Like I've sent my share of dms, not a lot, but you know, I've sent dms to people in reply to their stories on Instagram. If something is of interest to me, I've got something to share, I'll send a DM to somebody on Instagram. But where are we crossing that line when we start expecting a response from people or expecting them to give us something that is incredibly unrealistic and unreasonable. So let's just be able to enjoy these relationships. Take value from them, let them bring your joy. Take what people are offering. If there is something that is of value, but being wary about expecting too much of somebody who really is not your friend. Harsh as that sounds, it's interesting. It's an interesting topic. I thought that I would just break it down.

28:21 I hope you found that interesting too. I think the key obviously is to it's all about balance. And I guess you know, if you've got young people in your house, you've got young people in your life, and you are concerned about their level of obsession with somebody with a celebrity, then you know, maybe that information can help you to keep it in perspective to know where the line. Is more than happy to put a link to the celebrity attitude scale in the show notes if I can find it for you, if you want to do a little rating like where is this at? But also know that typically what the research has shown is that typically this will kind of really emerge in preadolescence, adolescence, adulthood and then start to taper off and you know, get back into kind of a normal, healthy perspective. So that's it from me. I hope you found that interesting. Have got such a fabulous episode for you next week. I'm Crappy to Happy. I've just finished the interview for next week's episode.

29:15 I will tell you more about that later. We now have an amazing week. Thank you so much for being here. Obviously, now I'm producing the show on my own, so please do tell your friends your support really counts more than ever and I cannot wait to catch you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy.