Parasocial Relationships, Fandom and the Parasitic
I'm currently writing a novel. I haven't been posting on Patreon very often, because I've actually been working on the novel. The first draft is getting written, instead of just rolling around as an outline or idea, and this is surprising to me, so I'm taking advantage of the momentum while I have it. Be warned, I'm only going to give this piece a cursory edit for the same reason. I don't want to spend too much writing time away from the novel right now. A significant part of that novel is concerned with parasocial relationships and fandom. If you're not familiar, the following is taken from Wikipedia, which I chose because the more scholarly links I could find tend to focus on the original definition from when the term was coined by David Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956. It was primarily concerned with television then. Most of those more scholarly sources also require a subscription to read further than the basic definition or a basic summary of the work discussing it. The Wikipedia entry takes into account the way the term has changed to include other forms of media as well.
Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television.[1][2] Viewers or listeners come to consider media personalities as friends, despite having limited interactions with them. PSI is described as an illusionaryexperience, such that media audiences interact with personas (e.g., talk show hosts, celebrities, fictional characters, social media influencers) as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them. The term was coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956.[3]
A parasocial interaction, an exposure that garners interest in a persona,[4] becomes a parasocial relationship after repeated exposure to the media persona causes the media user to develop illusions of intimacy, friendship, and identification.[3] Positive information learned about the media persona results in increased attraction, and the relationship progresses.[4] Parasocial relationships are enhanced due to trust and self-disclosure provided by the media persona.[3] Media users are loyal and feel directly connected to the persona, much as they are connected to their close friends, by observing and interpreting their appearance, gestures, voice, conversation, and conduct.[4] Media personas have a significant amount of influence over media users, positive or negative, informing the way that they perceive certain topics or even their purchasing habits.
Social media introduces additional opportunities for parasocial relationships to intensify because it provides more opportunities for intimate, reciprocal, and frequent interactions between the user and persona.[3]
These parasocial relationships are related in some way to a number of my other obsessions. Certainly the business of the cinematic arts involves some kind of parasocial relationship, between filmmakers and the audience, especially now as the lines between film and television have become so blurred. Politics can absolutely have a variety of parasocial relationship involved. I'd suggest a good majority of the people who are casually interested in politics, and who aren't necessarily involved in specific issue campaigns have a relationship with a political party or movement which is essentially a parasocial relationship. This is a significant part of why I tend to stay away from being hyper supportive of any specific politician or party. We're all susceptible to being manipulated through these relationships. They're presenting a kind of illusory persona, and at least where politicians and parties are concerned, those illusory personas are part of how we, as a general public, come to accept the unacceptable. Today, the media/content which most directly matches the original definition of what engenders a parasocial relationship is that of the political pundit/commentator, be it a television show, a video podcast, manipulating that relationship in order to inspire loyalty to a political ideology, movement or party. A number of them are also basically masquerading as inspiring loyalty to an ideology, movement or party, and are basically just attempting to inspire a cult of personality.
A number of the arts, be it film, television, theater, music, even the fine arts, have entire industries profiting from their ability to nurture or feed parasocial relationships. Sports certainly has it's own as well. Beyond those separate industries, there's the industry of celebrity more broadly, which has its hand in all of these to some degree. We've been taught the "rules" of these relationships by these industries, as much or more than by anything or anyone else.
Of late, there have been some topics of discussion and news pieces where parasocial relationships play a fairly significant part, but it almost seems like a good deal of the news and political media are reticent to make the connection between what ever particular part of a story they're covering and how they are often affected by, and also affect parasocial relationships. Because these relationships are at least tangentially related to a number of things I have interests in, I can't help but see how the "rules" we've come to accept encourage something which is unhealthy in us as the viewers, the audience or fans, and how these also take a toll on people who are in the public eye, and the only real benefit is for those industries which are essentially making a profit through the encouragement and manipulation of these relationships. They make money off of them, at our expense literally and figuratively.
This relates to the recent controversy over Naomi Osaka deciding to drop out of the French Open, instead of attending press conferences, in order to safe guard her mental health. I have very little interest in sports, and tennis wasn't even one of the sports which caught my attention as a youngster, but the controversy surrounding a young woman (a young Black woman particularly) deciding her mental health was more important than performing at an event of such prestige as the French Open was certainly exemplary of some of the deeply unhealthy aspects we have been inculcated to think about these parasocial relationships. It also tells us something about the way we more generally think about people with mental illness. Interestingly, these two things didn't seem too often be connected where discussion of this controversy was concerned. There were a number of different articles written about mental health and our attitudes about it, but few really tackling parasocial relationships, and I haven't seen or been able to find a single piece discussing the interplay of the two. If you have, please pass it along.
It's not enough for Naomi Osaka to be able to play at a level 99.9% of the world never could, and for fans of the sport to be entertained by the exhibition of that skill. She has to be willing to disregard her own mental health and prostrate herself before the public, by being subject to an often offensive and belittling press, in an expression of submission to the fans, viewers, journalists and sponsors. That she has a diagnosed mental health issue which that ritual inflames symptoms of doesn't matter. Serena Williams has been upfront and open about what the process of doing this has been like for her, as a Black woman, coming to be the sport's premiere athlete. Characteristically, it seems the majority of fans, press, tournaments and sponsors weren't paying attention. Naomi Osaka being unwilling to express that submission, provoked quite the ugly response, suggesting she was correct to safeguard her mental health, and by so doing, highlighting the sense of ownership in these parasocial relationships.
To be clear, it's not just women or Black women who have experiences like this, yet women generally and especially women of color, do seem to be subject to a much more acute sense of propriety, resulting in a more nakedly vicious response when they don't conform to it. With men experiencing some difficulty with the combination of mental health and navigating these parasocial relationships where an extreme level of fame is concerned, there's usually either an attitude of "he's a rebel" or sympathy. Given this, even in many cases where we have white men having a public struggle with the combination of mental illness and intense fame, we end up with dead people. Kurt Cobain was seen as an eccentric or a stereotype of the "tortured artist/rebel," where his battle with navigating this same crossroads was concerned. He was also pretty directly challenging gender norms and was uniquely vocal in his support of feminism, and there was some treatment of him in conservative circles as being devoid of masculinity and therefore a threat to social standards, but it didn't change his treatment by the music industry and the majority of music press. He was the pre-eminent talent of his time, whether he was struggling with what that meant or not, and there were no demands by the music press for him to somehow struggle in a way more conducive to them. Even the hostility to them he often expressed was cannibalized. Considering how many times we've seen scenarios like this play out, we can't say this cannibalization didn't contribute to his death. River Pheonix, Anthony Bourdain, Chris Cornell, Corey Haim, Scott Weiland, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger, Chris Farley, Ian Curtis, John Belushi... It's a long, long, long list, and this is white men, who society gives the most latitude where their behavior in the process of being famous is concerned.
In the case of Naomi Osaka, there's an absolute sense of ownership which didn't even apply to Cobain or the many other examples I listed. Even where there may have been some hostility to their public lives or personas, it didn't extend to a sense of being able to demand they adhere to their detractors sense of propriety. For the men, it seems to much more be a matter of "make these people go away" in the sense of boycotts, calls for record companies or film studios to drop them etc. With Naomi Osaka, it's been much more as if the public is owed not only her exhibition of the skill she has put in the effort, time and sacrifice to hone and to make so awe inspiring, but that she also emotionally and psychologically prostrate herself before the public. There's been no sense empathy or sympathy for the fact that she's dealing with a mental health issue, and in fact, that's either been altogether belittled (get it together and do your job little girl) or it's been treated as a reason someone who is still able to play the game at this incredibly competitive level, which is ostensibly why anyone is interested in her in the first place, shouldn't be playing the game. The game itself is what all the rest of this is centered around and the fact that she is still able to be one of its most formidable competitors is being shrugged off by the fact that she's not willing to submit her emotional and psychological well being to threat by the public and press.
I also can't help but think of many other young women who've reached some level of fame, while also attempting to manage or coming to be diagnosed with a mental illness, and the way there's almost a feeding frenzy of attention and media coverage. Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Amanda Bynes, Fiona Apple are all basically the same generation of women who've been subjected to the same process. Marilyn Monroe is probably the most infamous incidence of it, the blueprint for the modern version of it, though I'm sure other women experienced it before her. Billie Holiday was one of the first targets of The War On Drugs, because she refused to stop performing Strange Fruit, and we're only now beginning to reckon with that story. The press was one of the foremost weapons the FBI used. The industries which were profiting most from the parasocial relationship they'd created between the public and Princess Diana were directly responsible for the death. They literally chased her to her death. Her son, Harry, and his wife Megan are undergoing a similar process, and Megan seems to be the unfortunate focus of the most vicious aspects of it, being a woman and bi-racial, it would suggest gender and race certainly can turn all of this even more acute.
Heather Donahue, who rocketed to fame in a unconventional way, by being declared dead while being the star of a film which was raking in hundreds of millions of dollars and becoming a cultural phenomenon. She was subjected to a similar form strange feeding frenzy, and not even for anything she had done as a celebrity, but instead as the character she played in the film The Blair Witch Project. Because of the unorthodox nature of the production, Heather and the other members of the cast were basically writers and cinematographers, as there wasn't a conventional script and nearly all of the dialog was unscripted, and they were actually filming what ended up being the final film. At the time, none of the cast was given credit for those contributions, they were all still quite broke as the film was turning the movie industry upside down and becoming the most financially successful independent film of all time. It was an impressive feat, as the record had been held by John Carpenter's Halloween from 1978 until the release of The Blair Witch Project in 1999. A good deal of the press and movie going public wasn't able to separate Heather Donahue, actress and aspiring filmmaker, from her character in the film, who they blamed for the events of the film. As all of this was happening and Artisan films was becoming extremely wealthy, Heather was still languishing in poverty. Though the public hadn't had a significant length of time to feel we had developed a parasocial relationship with her, the ubiquitousness of the film as part of the culture at the time, due to its success, seemed to be enough. She was subject to a similar variety of public belittlement and dismissal of her well being, though it was well before the internet had fully taken hold on the film culture, horror culture or American culture has a whole.
Janet Jackson was an icon for my generation. We grew up with Janet, in the literal and figurative sense. Hit records, sold out world tours, a film and television career outside of music. Janet's records were at every party, every school dance, every nightclub. Though there has now been some effort to change it, her viability as a pop culture figure was irreparably damaged, through someone else's actions. Justin Timberlake pulling down her top during a Super Bowl performance, exposing one of her breasts for less than a full second. Jackson's stylist from the performance has since gone on record to say Timberlake came up with the idea because he wanted to "upstage" ex Britney Spears who had shared a kiss with Madonna on the MTV Music Awards a few weeks prior. The firestorm of controversy which followed was all encompassing. Every conceivable news outlet, and no shortage of other entities with platforms in media, hammered away on the story for months. Timberlake certainly achieved what he intended.
Les Moonves, then CEO at CBS went about trying to ruin Jackson's career because she was "insufficiently apologetic." Janet had all but disappeared from the public eye for 15 years, before mounting a new world tour, which was cancelled due to COVID 19. Moonves, however, was removed from his position at CBS, as numerous allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment came to light as the fires of accountability that was #MeToo started smoking predators out across the entertainment industry. Timberlake's role in the "Nipplegate" controversy as well as his participation in the media's treatment of Britney Spears has come under new scrutiny, as the result of a documentary about Britney's treatment by the media and the conservancy which followed.
This might all sound like ridiculous celebrity gossip, which to some degree it is, but it's illuminating in the degree it it demonstrates the way we approach people who are at the center of the industries which are driven by these parasocial relationships, especially how we're willing to see and participate in this treatment of women.
Now, there's an argument often made that these are people who are incredibly privileged, and we should all focus on the people who aren't so privileged. They are living a level of economic privilege and social status it's not even really possible for the rest of us to fully imagine. Basically, "Boo hoo! Why should I feel bad for these millionaires?" I certainly understand the emotional draw of this argument. When we're talking about the people who have this level of celebrity and fame, they are often free from many, if not all of the most pressing issues the rest of us face on a daily basis, it can seem like there's no real reason to care about this. I get it. I truly do. As a person struggling through the beginnings of trying to move toward making my living in the creative arts, I understand how easy it is to look at the level of economic security and cultural status the super famous are afforded and be suspicious of arguments to feel any kind of empathy or sympathy for what public struggles they encounter.
However, I'm also never far from some part of my thoughts being clear that the people whose fame I'm responding to this way, have basically just succeeded at doing something generations of people before them didn't, be they athletes or artists, which is getting the multinational mega-corporations built on their labor to share a larger percentage of the profits. In the generations prior, the number of athletes and artists who died in poverty, after these industries had used them up and succeeded in paying them as little as possible, is in the tens of thousands. Little Richard was headed for this fate, except that for all of his other eccentricity and whatever else he may have done, Michael Jackson bought the publishing rights to Little Richard's music, and gifted them back to the legend who is among the most responsible for the invention of rock and roll. What artists and athletes create, be it an artistic work or the sporting event we are audience to, is what we as a public want. We have to be clear that the rest of this has been part of those same industries need for greater profit. The culture of celebrity which surrounds all of this is about creating more profit, and that's all it is. And just as these industries and multinationals didn't care if the artists and athletes responsible for their wealth and longevity were dying in poverty, they don't care about their mental health either. It's an act of dehumanization, and as we look around us, seeing a fascist movement marching slowly toward power, with a deeply ineffective opposition, our understanding of the process of dehumanization in all its forms can be nothing but helpful.
The question of exactly why industries like sports or the arts are so incredibly lucrative, but still concentrated in the hands of such a small number of people, is something we're entirely unready to address. The reality is that many more people could have a living wage in these industries, and part of why this isn't the case is specifically due to these secondary industries which rely wholly and completely on parasocial relationships for their existence. Our relationships with art and sports has been functionally shaped by the need for these industries to have a constant influx of billions of dollars.
In this, it's also important to understand that if we are willing to dehumanize people at such a public level and people who are so incredibly privileged, it gives us some idea of how badly we're fumbling the understanding of the way people who aren't afforded these privileges are dehumanized. If a Black woman like Naomi Osaka, who is performing what is just short of miraculous, can be treated this way, how is it we're willing to treat Black women who are living in the daily struggle to survive without that economic security and social status? How are we willing to treat a young Black woman struggling with a mental health issue, who doesn't have anything remotely like this level of economic security and cultural status? Understand, one of the most fundamental pieces of this privilege is to be able to say, "I can't do this, right now. My mental health has to come first, and this is an obstacle in the path to health." Looking across our current cultural and political landscape, it's pretty clear there are consequences for the fact that we don't much focus on the experience of the young Black woman who isn't afforded that level of economic privilege. There's also evidence of the circular nature of cultural status in the degree we don't have this focus. If they were afforded this cultural status, we'd give their stories more attention, but we don't give them the attention which would give them cultural status, because they don't already have it, even given the evidence which has emerged in the last few decades pointing to the mental health effects of both racism and sexism. There's been a cultural meme saying, "We need to listen to Black women," but it goes left unsaid that like so much else, it seems we only need to listen to Black women when they're saying what we want to hear.
It's true the privilege for someone to just say, "No, I can't do this right now," isn't afforded to many millions of people in this country, no matter their race, gender or otherwise. Again though, it's still instructive to look at people who have been afforded a variety of privilege and status to see this doesn't fall on all of us equally, and to question how the evidence of these disparities in how we treat the most privilege are at work in the rest of society, where we are far, far less privileged. It's also true people with mental illnesses are required to meet ancillary conditions, often unrelated to the purpose of their actual jobs, whether or not those conditions are harmful to their mental health, and we certainly don't care about them when they're not celebrities.
I can't help but think the sense of ownership we see being expressed in so many of these parasocial relationships comes down to the alienation of modern life and capitalism. This is part of the battle we see over representation in media. How many times have we heard the stories of young queer people living in some small town which is at best suspiciousness of queerness or at worst, openly hostile, and what the work of someone in the artistic world meant to them? We hear similar stories about racism, sexism, classism... The stories of a sense of hope for the future found in these parasocial relationships or a sense that someone else out there understands when it seems the people around us don't. I can't help but wonder if part of these conditions are not just allowed to continue, but are also enforced is due to the amount of profit which wouldn't be there if they didn't.
I'm in no way saying it's bad for any of us to find what solace we need to in the arts or sports, to be very clear. I know very well what it is to have a specific album or work feel like it's practically a lifeline. As I was a teenager struggling with mental illness and very regular thoughts of suicide, I can confidently say music, books and film kept me alive, even as I did have some very close, intimate friendships. They were also the source of my education in music history, film history and literature. I spent an inordinate amount of time digging through written interviews which explored the artists who influenced those who'd made those works I held onto for dear life, and then further researching their influences and so on and on and on.
I certainly have come to wonder whether these parasocial relationships are necessary because of our various prejudices, and the way we dehumanize each other as a result, and then capitalism presents them as one of the solutions, which then helps to keep them in place, and exploits them, to the detriment of the public and to the people who are the focus of them.