Parasocial Relationships
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In its original use, a “persona” is a mask utilized in theatre to indicate a change in the character being portrayed by an actor.
Using such masks, a performer could act out an argument or discussion between two or more characters by quickly swapping in one mask for another and changing their tone of voice and posture, which made it feasible for small troupes, or even ambitious individuals, to put on multi-character shows.
The term was eventually used more metaphorically to refer to the character of something, like a work of art, rather than a literal character in a play. A restaurant’s persona might be brazen and edgy, a painting’s persona might be calm and subtle, a performance might have a frantic persona due to the rapid shifting of masks, of personas, the actors employed.
The term further evolved, becoming even more expansive, with the dawn of modern media, and today is often used in reference to a person’s outward-facing character: their ostensible personality, reinforced by the work they publish, the photos they post, the videos they record, and other, similar bits of interpretable data.
These bits are cobbled together on the receiving end by media consumers, and a persona of the media-creating entity behind the curtain coalesces in their minds as a result.
Recognizing this tendency, many makers of things carefully sculpt their personae so that folks on the receiving end of their work will perceive them as accurately, flatteringly, and/or lucratively as possible. They intentionally craft these masks, in other words, so that they’re more likely to achieve their intended outcomes.
This isn’t altogether different from the age-old practice of gussying ourselves up with a nice haircut, the right clothing, fancy makeup, a well-trimmed beard—anything we can do to appear to be the right person for the job, the relationship, or to be seated at a particular restaurant. We’re no strangers to packaging ourselves for success, whatever “success” might mean in a particular situation, and whatever shape that packaging might take.
The modern, tech-enabled version of this behavior is primarily different in that the relationships we create via online mediums tend to be one-sided—or at the very least imbalanced in terms of the number of people on each end of things.
In 1956, sociologists Richard Wohl and Donald Horton posited the concept of “parasocial interaction,” which referred to a type of interaction that only became truly possible on vast scales with the emergence of mass media, beginning with the consumer-grade radio but amplified by the dawn of early television.
A parasocial interaction is one in which someone watching television, seeing the same character on their favorite soap opera every day for months or years on end, may come to have a sort of relationship with that person—the fictional character and/or the actor playing them—in a way that can feel like a true relationship, but which in reality is one-way: the actor has no idea that specific viewer exists and will likely never know they exist.
According to some theories on the subject, parasocial interactions can, with time, lead to what’s called a parasocial relationship, in which a consumer of media feels truly close to the person on the other end of these one-way interactions and perhaps even begins to receive the same neural and biological rewards we experience when developing a relationship with another person in real life; when we feel fondness for or a connection with someone who is actually there with us, engaging with us, rather than performing on screen for countless, faceless strangers.
The emergence of mass media is what allowed one-to-many communication of this kind to exist on scale, and thus, increased the potential number of such perceived relationships. But in practice, these sorts of distant, imbalanced relationships are really not all that different from the relationships we have traditionally developed with our leaders and our gods.
It’s unlikely the Emperor knows us, specifically, or that we’ll ever engage with them directly, but we feel we have some kind of relationship with the Emperor, because we see their face everywhere, we hear their name and stories about them constantly, we keep tabs on their comings and goings and exploits, and we worry about them, even to the point of becoming emotional if we think they might be sick or have died in battle.
The same is true of our politicians and celebrities, but also certain ideas: sports teams, corporations, and our favorite fictional characters.
Research is still being done in this field, and some interesting work has already been published within the world of communication-focused sociology, alongside formal research conducted by scholarly psychologists. Neuroscientists are beginning to get in on the action, as well, investigating which portions of the brain light up when exposed to familiar people, brands, and ideas, to see how closely our one-to-one relationships compare and contrast with the one-to-many relationships in which we also partake.
Some researchers believe that these relationships are generally beneficial, because they can allow people who don’t have the capacity for, or who are stressed out by more typical relationships to engage with other people—perhaps large numbers of other people—from a safe and relatively emotionally defensible place, while other people who are looking for connection but who don’t have enough suitable recipients of their attention in their lives are able to use these communication tools to reach out across space and time to find a connection with someone who can make them feel seen and understood, allowing them to experience a sense of belonging.
There are concerns, however, that some people perceive these relationships as being more than they are, which can lead to emotional angst, but also trolling, stalking, and other unsavory behavior. It’s thought that this effect might be especially pronounced in young people, who generally have fewer examples of other types of relationships to use as a means of comparison, and who may as a consequence perceive their love for a heavily branded YouTuber or even a favorite video game character to be real love—resulting, in some cases, in break-up-scale sadness when that YouTuber takes a break, or when that video game ends.
Of course, much of what happens in these online and mass media spaces are happening all around us, all day every day, across many always-on channels, in the modern world.
We’re not just listening to the radio and developing a relationship with the host of the news program we listen to each night after work, we’re exposed to tens of thousands of celebrities, influencers, politicians, brands, trademarked characters, and logo-faced corporations each day. And whether it manifests as fandom, Instagram-stalking, or buying every album they release, most of us have experienced some kind of parasocial interaction with someone or something—perhaps many someones and many somethings—on a daily basis, our entire lives.
Most of our relationships are a blend of fact and fiction to begin with, which may partially explain why we’re so comfortable with these one-to-many relationships.
When you sit down with a friend for a coffee and conversation, the person at the other end of the table is partly themselves, partly a version of themselves optimized for that specific scenario. Some of that optimization might be physical—the way they’re dressed or carrying themselves—but it may also involve an adjustment to their speaking pace or tone, a tweak to their eating or drinking habits, their pretending to be more or less expert on a particular topic based on what seems prudent and beneficial to the flow of conversation, and other such taken-for-granted, reality-distorting elements that allow us to engage in comfortable conversation with each other on a regular basis, without having tiny character traits, misalignments of behaviors, or minor disagreements trip us up.
We do the same auto-adjustment dance, and these minor fictions help us engage with each other, socially, and build relationships that are partially predicated on subconsciously agreed-upon, shared realities.
The tools we use online to create our personae are augmented versions of the same concept.
The countless photo filters, publishing platforms, blogging tools, and broadcast suites to which we have access allow us to share pieces of ourselves, meant to be reassembled on the other side of an interaction, presenting a more-polished version of who we really are, which caters to the dynamic of the relationship being perceived by the person on the other end.
In some cases, though, we opt to take these socially acceptable distortions a step further and present ourselves as a different person entirely—this fiction possible in real-life, but more casually enabled by these digital tools.
The incentives that exist on platforms like Instagram and YouTube can encourage users to stay in performative mode more of the time, dressing up and behaving as a fanciful version of themselves not just on their channel, but across all mediums, even bleeding over into real life.
Sometimes these performances are harmless and even beneficial, leading to the creation of valuable, entertaining works. Sometimes, though, they can lead to abuse, with performers pulling their audience into a fake world, milking them for attention or resources, and never providing anything more than manipulative falsehoods in return.
Of course, exploitation can go both ways. Sometimes folks who accumulate an audience will be torn down by viewers or readers or listeners who feel entitled to more of that person than they’re willing or able to give.
That one-to-many dynamic doesn’t always work in the favor of the person at the center of attention, then, as it can lead to imbalances—perhaps especially if their well-polished persona ever slips, revealing the more complex truth underneath, or if their persona ever changes, alienating some of the people who were previously fans and supporters, but who now feel betrayed.
At their best, these personae and the parasocial relationships that grow around them, can help us catch glimpses of deeper truths that would be otherwise tricky to observe.
Such relationships can be quite potent, though, and it’s possible that many of our opinions and actions are influenced by emotionally significant relationships we have with brands, tribes, sports teams, and online personae that feel similar to what we have with our friends, family, and significant others.
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