DGST Final Project: The Parasocial Relationship on Social Media
To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for this project for a while. Every time I tried to brainstorm ideas, I just drew blanks in every direction. I was getting more and more worried as I counted the days going by.
I finally had a conversation with one of my friends to help me brainstorm. After talking about the project description with her, I finally landed on something; the parasocial relationship phenomenon.
A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship where you feel connected to a social media figure, a celebrity, or even a fictional character, despite them not knowing of your existence. Nowdays, it is much easier to communicate with a celebrity or popular content creator thanks to social media. But even with that, the vast majority of messages directed at a certain figure often go unanswered by said figure.
Many people today are familiar with and involved on social media in some way, whether that be through creating content for people to view and interact with, or simply by viewing other’s content as an audience member. Some of the most popular sites for creating content and watching content are YouTube and Twitch. (I’m sure you have a favorite YouTuber or Twitch streamer in mind.)
I’ve taken an article I read about the “parasocial relationship”, and I put it into a word cloud.
(Link to article: https://www.marriage.com/advice/relationship/all-you-need-to-know-about-parasocial-relationships/).
The biggest words in here are “relationships, parasocial, celebrity, connection, social,” and “individual.”
I think this captures the essence of parasocial relationships; an individual forms a connection to a celebrity or Internet content creator that they like, and forms a sort of “relationship” with them. This connection is a huge part of what keeps the viewer interested and coming back to the same YouTubers, Twitch streamers, or even TV shows and movies.
Think about it. Can you say you like a YouTuber, a streamer, a blogger, a celebrity, etc. without feeling some sort of connection to them, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem?
