The dangers of parasocial relationships: why your favourite celebrities aren't your best friends

Everyone has their favourites who are in the public eye – celebrities who they’ve looked up to from a young age or perhaps celebrities they have come to admire in recent years. However, in this age of social media, what can be considered harmless adoration and respect can rapidly twist into toxic idolisation and blind worshipping.

With the many different forms of media that circulate within today’s society, we are granted ways of getting to know people from all over the world that we most likely could have gone our whole lives without hearing of. It’s certainly allowed us to get to know celebrities on a deeper level and, whilst I believe there’s an innocent pleasure in that, it’s crucial to not get this form of interaction confused. Many fans and their perceived relationships with their idols have distorted fan culture into something very harmful, with social media giving them a false sense of personal connection. In reality, their favourite celebrities are ultimately strangers. The friendship that fans believe to have built through the screen is completely one-sided – parasocial.

Undoubtedly, parasocial relationships don’t exclusively cause harm. Media personas possess a huge influence and – when used as a force of good – can positively influence fans' attitudes towards a wide range of things from voting to body positivity to all kinds of social and political movements. Furthermore, they actually encourage the formation of real-life friendships. Fanbases act as a foundation for building friendships as fans share the commonality of having a parasocial connection with a certain celebrity and their work, creating a space for fans to bond.

Nonetheless, despite its positives, parasocial relationships are also problematic for a multitude of reasons. Not only is it damaging for the psyche of the fans themselves who are forming these parasocial attachments, but fanbases can become an extremely toxic force to people and communities that have been negatively affected by their beloved celebrity. When certain communities have been hurt as a direct result of a celebrity, a lot of fans will jump to their parasocial hero’s defence, belittling that community and their feelings in the process. Even when the legal system gets involved, a victim’s trauma is often ignored or downplayed by the fans. A lot of fans run to make excuses for their favourite celebrity because they refuse to believe that they are capable of doing what they’ve been accused (and sometimes convicted) of, because ‘they know them’ – because it completely shatters the illusion that fans have parasocially created in their heads. Or even the fans who accept their favourite celebrity is not who they believed to be can be equally ignorant; they feel devastated, but not for the victim’s sake, complaining on social media how their favourite songs or favourite movies are now ruined. This is when the impact of parasocial relationships becomes dangerous – turning fan culture into something toxic rather than wholesome, and fans becoming tone-deaf and insensitive in fear that they completely misjudged the person they looked up to. 

Whilst I appreciate that parasocial connections don’t always have to be destructive, and they can be a source of comfort and security for a lot of fans, it’s important to not let this comforting parasocial bubble misguide you. I’m not saying to never form a bond with any celebrity ever again, but don’t let these bonds seep into your real life and cloud your judgement. It’s very easy to put celebrities on a pedestal when you only know them through a filtered context.