#Parasocial Relationships

[subpixie420]

If you romanticized me based on my old posts

That's your own problem and please touch grass

[shewhotellsstories]

"Maybe she's not built for fame!"

Honestly, given how many people have struggled with substance abuse, and mental illness, and died by suicide, is anyone truly? I don't get how many people have to say they were damaged by celebrity culture for us to get that this system is incredibly toxic.

[texaschainsawmascara]

[san-sebastienne]

With truly all the love and empathy in my heart: crying daily over the sexual assault allegations against Gaiman isn’t healthy. I’ve seen multiple people –especially fans of GO – saying this since they came out, and it’s really fucking concerning me.

I wonder if it has to do with the insidious ideas that 1) people are either Bad or Good, 2) Bad people can only do Bad things, and 3) liking Bad things or Bad people makes you Bad.

None of these things are true.

People are mixed up and incredibly complicated. Someone can be an incredible artist/friend/chef/ally against racism/drag queen and still be predatory/homophobic/antisemitic/never tips their wait staff. People do things that harm others in big and small ways all the time. You do too. I promise.

(Also the idea of anyone, even people who do genuinely insurmountable harm, becoming somehow less than human is an inherently fascist ideology)

The fact that you (yes, you!!) do harmful things doesn’t immediately make you Bad. There are certainly things that someone might do that causes more harm (say, assault) versus less, but that doesn’t somehow infect all the things they’ve done in the past with their Badness. Gaiman helped write Good Omens. There’s no way now to say “I was wrong and this book was Bad all along” or even “oh, all the parts I like were written by Pratchett, the Bad parts must have been Gaiman.” You didn’t miss an inherent evil by liking the book in the past. It doesn’t make you Bad for liking it now.

(It also doesn’t mean that people associated with Gaiman, like David Tennant, are also Tainted by inherent Badness. Tennant isn’t, you aren’t. Saying otherwise is also a slippery slope argument into dehumanization and fascist ideas)

By all means: if it feels right, stop giving Gaiman your money. Stop tagging him in your Azi/Crowley fanart. But do this as a way to disentangle yourself from parasocial relationships that are actively causing you grief and to vote with your wallet, not because unlinking yourself from Bad Art and Bad People will somehow absolve you and make you Good again. If you already have a copy of Good Omens or Sandman, whether you reread it is between you and your gods. Interacting with a text you find important doesn’t make you Bad or Good. It’s just reading. What you do with the stories is what matters (ironically, that’s the message of a lot of both Gaiman and Pratchett’s work).

Maybe take a peek at Good Omens and re familiarize yourself with its other core message: People are not Bad or Good. People do bad and good things.

Then maybe drink a cup of tea. You need to rehydrate.

[incognitopolls]

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[shitswiftiessay]

swifties are angry at joe alwyn for posting about gaza on taylor’s birthday, calling him “pathetic,” “manipulative,” and “evil.”

I wish I could tell you that this was all a joke, that these are all parody accounts, but they’re dead serious. and of course we get the conspiracy theory about HIS TEAM trying to make him look good, because anyone who comes online and says anything critical about taylor MUST be a member of joe alwyn’s PR team. 🙄

but yeah, swifties are convinced that joe was trying to SHADE taylor by posting about gaza on her birthday, because s hasn’t said or done shit regarding this issue. also, they literally cannot fathom that there is anything happening in the world that is MORE IMPORTANT than a billionaire’s birthday.

and these swifties really need to ask themselves: WHY does joe alwyn posting about gaza make them SO ANGRY? is it because they’re reminded that taylor has not done or said JACK SHIT about palestine because she’s too afraid to lose money by being too “controversial?”

“not to mention it’s a screenshot and it’s not even a donation link like…”

it’s a LINK TO AN ARTICLE and it’s still more than TAYLOR has ever posted?? y’all think he was trying to “shade” taylor on her birthday (even if he was, so what? she + her team + her stupid friends have been shading him SINCE APRIL) by bringing to attention her lack of care about palestine or really any issue that doesn’t directly affect her (or her “home state.”). and the fact is, taylor could VERY QUICKLY AND EASILY shut up the critics who say she hasn’t said or done enough regarding palestine, but she won’t. miss americana, the goth punk billionaire, who spent a whole documentary crying about how she wasn’t allowed to speak up on important issues, has suddenly become ALLERGIC to saying anything remotely political or controversial. and at some point you’re gonna have to ask yourself why.

[the-uncanny-dag]

Comes out of the parasocial relationship covered in blood & filth saying "you should see the other guy ;)", meanwhile the other guy is posting my weird ass anon messages to their followers, exhausted with my shit & perplexed as to why someone would say that to strangers

[plasmalink]

the thing about parasocial relationships is that if you jump on them their wings fall off and they just become social relationships

[screampotato]

Parasociality is not a weird internet illness, it's normal human behaviour. It's part of how we organise ourselves in groups, where a leader has to hold emotional sway over the whole group, even though the whole group can't be close enough to them to form a true interpersonal bond.

So if you find yourself becoming attached to a public figure you don't know, it's not anything wrong with you. It is, however, an urge that can lead you astray, just as it could throughout history, when people would swear passionate fealty to faulty leaders who would lead them to disaster, or become embroiled in destructive cults.

Just moderate it. Use your head as well as your heart. Challenge your less rational thoughts, thoughts like "but they would NEVER do something like that" - you don't know what they would do, because you don't actually know them.

Restrain yourself from calling them by their first name or a nickname, as that encourages the illusion that you know them personally, and makes you more vulnerable to the pitfalls of parasociality.

Even if you do all this, it will still hurt if your hero falls. But it won't drive you to despair, or worse, to blindly saddling up in defence of someone who does not deserve it, and possibly harming the people they have already hurt.

[drifting-in-otter-space]

I love a good hyperfixation as much as the next person, but can we all chill the fuck out about actual real people?

Or at the very least afford them some decency by respecting their boundaries?

Parasocial relationships are scary, man.

Go off on your fictional blorbos, that's hurting no one.

But please, please don't blur the line between the fictional character and the person who plays the fictional character. Because you don't actually know that person, at all. Just their public persona... and you're entitled to nothing from them.

[angel-tears1004]

What's up with people that can't grasp the concept of others wanting to know all the hot, messy tea of someone famous just because it's hot and messy tea and not necessarily a pArASoCiaL relationship. Let us be nosey and shut up

[lumoskillercrispin]

I think another reason Joe is getting so much hate from Taylor and Swifties that isn’t talked about is…

He is proof Taylor is the problem.

When they started dating it was doing the time everyone was calling her a snake. Which she might not have deserved it when it came to Kim and Kanye but she is still a snake. She always has been because she will attack anyone that she believe she is justified to.

Anyway, Joe and her staying together for so long allowed Taylor and Swifties to tell the world that she was never to blame for all her failed relationships.

Even when she wrote songs about how she causes/caused problems in joe and her relationship him sticking around meant that all those other men were terrible for not putting up with it.

Now that the relationship is over she and her fans are back in the same position they were before him. Were non Swifties are once again proving Taylor is the problem. This has caused her and them to have to try harder to convince the world she is only a victim.

Taylor won’t take personal responsibility for her actions ruining her relationships and her fans, cult honestly, refuse to see her true colors so they are all taking it out on Joe.

Honestly this is disturbing behavior.

[positively--speculative]

I, again, cannot help but think of my days as an early 20-something having a crush on Tom Hiddleston and thinking how cool it was that he was so open and friendly with his fans both online and in person and how some people had to be weirdos about him until he slowly started to pull back and they all wondered why and eventually ended up blaming Taylor Swift.

I have my problems with Taylor Swift, but you're delusional if you think it didn't have more to do with just how bold some of you were long before she came into the picture lmao.

People need to get a grip. Celebrities are strangers to you. They don't owe you shit.

[xcarveoutmyheart]

[shitswiftiessay]

What a bunch of fucking word salad, just to justify why your fave’s new album is getting dragged.

[abigailunderthemoon]

Me: I honestly don’t get parasocial relationships. That singer is not your friend. Don’t call that author by their first name. Your favorite YouTuber doesn’t know you and probably wouldn’t care to. Just consume their media and move on. Their work can be important to you, but you won’t be important to them. Just be normal.

Dropout and Dimension20: *exists*

Me: The only thing stopping me and Brennan Lee Mulligan from being the very best of friends is that we’ve never actually met.