You—yes, I’m talking to you—are, or have been, in a parasocial relationship. It could be the feeling of comfort when you hear the chatter of your favourite podcast hosts or an exasperated shout at the TV when a reality-show contestant fumbles the bag. Maybe a refresh of the Instagram feed always brings one particular influencer’s story to the top or you feel like you’ve grown up with a similarly aged pop star.
Fandom has long been a way for people to form their identity and find community, strength and entertainment. It has become the leading lexicon of the internet, where fan accounts can rally a pop star’s followers to break streaming records, and the instantaneous, always-on nature of the digital space can create direct lines of communication with an extremely online actor du jour. Celebrity-dom today means receiving unsolicited advice and opinions on their career and personal life. Some people are critics. Some are fans. Everyone’s a bit parasocial.
The internet has created an illusion of a two-way interaction. When someone speaks to the camera, full eye contact, it can feel intimate. And studies show the human brain struggles to regulate any difference between emotions they see onscreen and IRL. “Social media platforms allow users to like, comment, and even directly message celebrities,” says Pamela Rutledge, director at the Media Psychology Research Center and professor emerita in media psychology at the Fielding Graduate University.
Fans who comment on celebrity posts feel more engaged in the relationship than passive viewers, says Dr. Rutledge. Even though direct responses from celebrities are rare, the possibility of interaction can “create the impression of a two-way relationship, heighten feelings of closeness.”
And these feelings of closeness can yield strange results. In December 2024, Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco announced their engagement to an internet frenzy. Friends and peers from Cardi B to Jennifer Aniston popped up in their Instagram comments to extend their congratulations—amid hundreds of thousands of others with similarly personal reach-outs. Gomez is the most followed woman on Instagram, after all. And among those 402 million followers, there were a lot of opinions on how Gomez’s relationship with Blanco was going. There were dogged comparisons to Gomez’s ex Justin Bieber and his wife, Hailey. There were cruel passes at Blanco’s appearance and unfounded analysis of their behaviour together. Viral X threads were dedicated to why they need to break up or how Gomez can be “saved.” No word from Gomez, of course, on said saving.
Around the same time, in the wake of his breakup with Sabrina Carpenter, actor Barry Keoghan put out a statement about the “inhumane” abuse and bullying he’d weathered amid ferocious, unverified accusations of cheating. He accused people of “knocking on my granny’s door” and “sitting outside my baby boy’s house intimidating them. That’s crossing a line.”
Since then, ‘parasocial’ was named Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year in 2025, manifested in our intense emotional reaction around Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding earlier this year and dictated how much discourse has emerged around the recent Koffee With Karan episode starring Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna. Sure, Deverakonda made some eyebrow-raising statements—and no woman should have to ask a man to marry her 100 times—but does it really justify how it has overtaken the news cycle for close to a week? I’m aware that posting a hot take is an easy way to engagement-farm, but perhaps we must stop and consider how far we’ve come when we start comparing celebrities like Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna to deities like Shiva and Parvati, and “the feminine knowing what she wants”. Then we know it’s time to put our phones down and touch grass; hell, touch anything that is not the Instagram icon on your phone screen.
I guess it’s fair to ask: Are we capable of healthy fandom anymore? Have we reached peak parasocial? As human beings, we’re innately social creatures. Finding something to relate to in a celebrity is really quite normal, especially when celebrities use their platforms to share their very human struggles, insecurities, and anxieties.
But, as Dr. Rutledge explains, online communities can normalise boundary-crossing behaviours. “Fans can justify stalking, harassment, or unsolicited contact by convincing themselves or others that it’s harmless or supportive or that contact is a badge of honour,” she says.
In 2002, psychologists Lynn McCutcheon, Rense Lange and James Houran devised the Celebrity Attitude Scale, which evaluates a person’s level of interest (or worship or obsession) with celebrities on three levels: entertainment-social, intense-personal and borderline-pathological. The highest level is when people aren’t able to control their actions or fantasies involving their favourite celebrity. But that’s a small minority of people; they consider around 3 to 5% of people with parasocial relationships actually meet this criteria. Still, they’ve seen scores on the scale begin to increase year on year.
The pitfalls of parasociality
The evolving digital space has accelerated the development and intensity of parasocial relationships, and social media promotes the expectation of 24/7 access. “When artists don’t respond quickly, post regularly or keep fans in the loop of their lives, fans and followers can feel entitled to demand explanations,” explains Dr. Rutlege.
“Parasocial relationships also create a sense of entitlement and engender a lopsided sense of reciprocity,” she says. “Fans can feel they deserve attention and make overwhelming demands for interaction because they have invested time and emotions in the artist. When disappointed, fans can become angry at the celebrity for failing to meet their expectations by criticising their behaviour or worse, as Barry Keoghan experienced.”
A 2019 study found that people with stronger parasocial relationships with celebrities may be less satisfied with their romantic relationships—a kind of para-loveshock. People may become less motivated to invest in their real-life relationships. There’s also the possibility of media addiction, social isolation and impaired cognitive function that lead to unhealthy behaviours.
Why are we seeing a rise in parasocial behaviour?
Gomez, in particular, has been open and candid about her health and mental well-being online. “Unlike traditional PR handling—which presents celebrities in controlled, polished formats—social media gives fans a glimpse into lives, fostering the illusion of intimacy and creating stronger emotional connections,” says Dr. Rutledge.
For smaller content creators, the social media algorithm prizes big emotions and personal storylines; they’re encouraged to monetise their lives by sharing personal stories. “It can lead to followers viewing them as open books,” says Dr. Rutledge. “This dynamic can make it harder for creators to establish boundaries later.”
Authenticity and vulnerability can build an engaged, trusting and loyal fan base, but there’s no stopper for the bottle. “Fans who buy music and concert tickets [can] feel like they have the right to voice an opinion on events like an actor’s engagement,” says Dr. Rutledge. “Even when misguided, fans often perceive their responses as a sign of support or a form of protection.” Mandanna made a nine-slide carousel post to address the wave of criticism that had formed in the days since the KWK episode aired, admitting that although she “generally doesn’t address these things because everyone has a right to their opinions… the current frenzy over our interview feels less like people having opinions and more like an angry mob looking for someone to vent at.” She went on to talk about how “I am the happiest I have ever been” and “the fact that some people would rather believe random narratives, misleading edits and absolute lies created on the internet than believe what I say about my own life is honestly a little creepy”. For all her efforts, coupled with Deverakonda’s more terse “Now, with absolutely no intended kindness or respect,
everyone else can go fuck themselves”, the internet only doubled down on what they think the private relationship between two public figures is actually like.
So can you be a healthy parasocial?
From Gomez to Keoghan to Rashmika-Vijay, there remain challenges with setting personal boundaries and having fans respect them. Still, as Dr Rutledge explains, celebrities must also recognise “that many of the marketing and social-engagement behaviours necessary for fame across digital media also encourage fans to overstep.”
Having a celebrity as a role model can be liberating and inspiring, and finding others with a shared passion can create a sense of community. Parasocial relationships are only a concern when they become less parasocial and more pathological obsessions. You should always try to prioritise the real people in your life. You can be a ViRosh stan, but save that number-one fan behaviour for your pals too.
This article first appeared on Vogue.com
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