#the real parasocial relationship was the friends we made along the way

[atomicradiogirl]

happy wilson wednesday (valentine’s day)

[raytorosaurus]

maybe this is a 'hot take' for which i apologize but. i feel like fanart is a big aspect of this too- how different even is it to make 'rpf' of gerards stage characters as opposed to fanart of it. it's essentially only a different medium. keeping it separate from gerard (Person In Reality Who Has A Life) outside of (character he made up to have fun with) can also easily be an invitation for fans to have fun with it too. which is why a healthy relationship with it can and does bring good things. in theory i mean. ive never seen an mcr fanfic i really liked but :p

yeah i see what you mean, it's one of the reasons that the step from tumblr (or twitter) fandom to the ao3 tag feels like. quite an arbitrary place to draw the line? as if the same thoughts and behaviours are fine right up into they're intentionally put to prose - but images or even comics are okay, textposts discussing their emotions and states of mind as extrapolated from live shows or song lyrics, putting research into constructing timelines of their lives or compiling facts about them as people - even writing (sometimes quite detailed) sexually explicit posts/tags about them is common around here. i do a lot of these things too - i'm not saying they're inherently wrong or bad - but i genuinely don't see how they're any less prone to being disrespectful or invasive or comically removed from reality than a writer putting them in a situation lol. they all involve some level of assumption, scrutiny, and interpretation.

there are definitely valid arguments to make against engaging with rpf in a fandom sense! i totally respect that, and it's something i felt kind of ashamed/guilty about when i first got into mcr, so i understand the reservations. it's just that...the way i see it, i truly think those arguments just as reasonably apply to so much of what happens in any fandom involving real people. behaviours that are extremely common and far from unique to the online fan spaces of today, to the point where avoiding them is a more conscious decision than engaging in them. i respect if people do make that choice, but...that isn't any of us who are running mcr fanblogs yk? haha.

anyway yeah. i agree with you anon, i reckon most people's definition of what does and doesn't entail rpf is just a lot narrower than the reality. there's a lot of extremely beautiful, highly-skilled emotive fanart out there, for which i'm so appreciative! i 100% don't mean it as an insult when i say those often a different kind of rpf. so are the emotive posts about how much this tour means to all the guys, how happy they are, how much they love each other and how they're all friends. i'm not saying these things are untrue, i'm just saying they absolutely don't paint an unbiased holistic picture of real human beings and their genuine emotional states hahaha. neither does fanfiction. and i just think it's impossible to not realise that if you're engaging with fanfic in any kind of thoughtful way, as opposed to reblogging textposts about them on tumblr that also project a lot onto them, yk?

and okay. i also think "the bible/succession/velvet goldmine etc etc is rpf too! shakespeare wrote rpf!" is equally as reductive as "rpf is when fangirls write about band members boning each other." as always, there's just so much more nuance there. what does and doesn't make rpf is a lot more about intent, and if you're parasocially attached to these people as deeply as we all are, most of us just share that same intent. and from what i've seen (though in fairness this is the first real person fandom i've been in, and i only really talk to other adults) it tends to be the people actively engaging with fanfic who are a better at accepting how much of fandom is pure projection and assumption based on very limited information. and that acceptance is a huge part of having a healthier relationship with celebrities/bands/bandom (along with the conscious acknowledgement that these people don't owe us anything at all besides the shows we bought tickets for - least of all insight into their personal lives or private thoughts.)

like genuinely? free your minds. we're all making shit up based on the little parts we see, i think it's healthier and more fun to openly accept that. who cares what's real when we can talk about things in terms of narratives and arcs and metaphors - none of which truly exist in real life, which is infinitely complex and individual and messy. or, more precisely, who cares what's real as long as you know what isn't! and keep that stuff far far away from the real human people involved in the band.

[otsukare-katsukare]

some thoughts about 'kayfabe compliance'

i don't have 'moral issues' with RPF but i do engage with it on quite a different level to regular fanfiction (except john and paul they're a secret third thing to me but i digress). it's hard to fully put my finger on what's different about it, maybe there's a much stronger sense of thinking "this isn't real" the whole time because the disconnect between actual full people ive become parasocial with and the AO3 interface with fanfic tropes on it is much greater. anyway, it's a whole different mode of engagement is the point, so reading wrestling fic has a tendency to be a VERY whiplash inducing experience, due to how fast and loose one can play when it comes to what is the text we are writing fanfiction about here. cue a ramble

the basic divide is kayfabe vs shoot, where a fic is either about the fictional wrestling personas in their storyline, as if wrestling is just a very strangely set up long form soap opera (which it is), or it's RPF about the wrestlers themselves, and will reference their fictional personas as just that, fictional. both are fine and chill, i personally vastly prefer the former not just because it's less uncomfortable but also because, well, that's where all the conflict and angst is and I did sort of come here for that. but the existence of the second option is so interesting, because it's not actually a basic divide, it's a bizarre spectrum and nothing is certain. using sami and kevin as the illustrative example:

the very fact that throughout a 'shoot' fic, sami will still be called, well, sami. if he's called his real name you know you're in full speed ahead RPF mode, but using 'sami' places a layer of fictionality onto the whole thing, as if this is still a made up story about wrestling, it's just a story about wrestlers making up stories. i've never read any drag queen fanfic but i'd guess this is the same effect as using the drag names and writing about their reality TV personas which are varying degrees of authentic, but all basically created for audience entertainment, so is it even 'real people' fanfiction?

stories about el generico where el generico is sami in a mask, but wrestling is real. so he really loses/wins matches, he really gets betrayed and hurt by kevin, but the gimmick is kayfabe, meaning kayfabe also exists but then what is real and what's acting doe sit matter

this is a small thing but it speaks to the whole mindfuck, which is a fic in which kayfabe doesn't exist, everything wrestlers experience happened for real, but wrestling jargon keeps appearing like 'mark', 'bump' and most maddeningly of all 'jobber'! who's jobbing! they're just losing fights!

and then there's just the level at which the writer simply does not give a fuck about any supposed 'rules' and just picks and chooses what's kayfabed and what's not. case in point, a fic i read last night which started as a clear shoot/rpf fic - kevin and sami in the aftermath of Battleground, congratulating each other on putting on such a banger and chilling out in the locker room. only for the fic to reveal half way through that kevin's betrayal at r evolution was real he and sami just made up and i guess decided to keep the feud going for TV. sami went into his pre planned semi choreographed match with his best friend to conclude the story that began with said friend nearly breaking his back for real.

and all that is very cool, but the thing is it means such a different thing to me when i perceive something as entirely fictional vs actual feelings and events with the real person who made that fictional thing. i want the real person to be happy. i want an uncomplicated unmessy parasocial relationship there. i want the fictional character tormented in agony, and i usually specifically seek this out in fic. so when i enter a story, and it's not clear from the get go if im reading about fictional characters who caused each other terrible pain, fictionalised versions of real people who get along very well as far as we know and who are untouched by that pain, or some strange mixing and matching of the two, there's a real tension there as my brain tries to recalibrate what kind of narrative engagement is about to occur

[doctor-looneys-remedy]

Bi-erasure, part 3

In the early 90's we had a small flurry of mostly people in the grunge and alternative music category claiming bisexuality as an identity. Some of these felt honest. Some felt, at least to the outsider, as if they were just grabbing onto another way of being alternative.

Bisexuality was there and a clear identity, but it still wasn't very real to most of us on a daily basis. Celebrities had a far greater distance from their audience than the parasocial relationships they have today. In college, I knew a lot of straight people, a good number of gay people, and a couple of people who said they were bi.

Pretty celebrities could be bisexual. Most people rolled their eyes and generally just didn't believe in the "Pretty alternative girl bisexual" that was typical in music. Some fanboys did, but largely, it was met with a "whatever."

Regular people who said they were bi were largely regarded as just gay men who hadn't figured it out yet, and unattractive, desperate women who willing to hop into bed with whoever came along. Beggars can't be choosers, after all.

Bisexuality wasn't an attraction pattern for the regular person, it was seen as a coping mechanism. It was cool for celebrities, but celebrities back then were just abstract beings separate from the rest of us in a way that doesn't exist today. It was what you resort to when you can't get the thing you naturally want.

In the few gay bars I had gone to, and even around the gay, lesbian and trans people I knew, there was a huge tendency to talk down about bisexual people. We didn't quite fit in, even among well-meaning members.

Of course, I have to address that one episode of Sex in the City. I don't know what bothers me more- that it was said, OR that people my age and older who should have fucking known better at that point in their lives took it as gospel because it appeared on a dramedy about a narcissistic disaster human who constantly acted like she and her friends just plain knew it all (even though their decisions were constantly made a point of proving how stupid they were.)

So, let's meet in the present.

We are more visible than ever. Still some battles, but definitely in a much better place than we were.

I am in a much better place than I was.

But we still have a few bones to pick:

Bisexual erasure happens every time when a bisexual person (usually a male) is called "gay" instead of bisexual, when they clearly call themselves bisexual. A woman who clearly identifies herself as bisexual is relegated to the label of "ally" instead of being called bisexual.

If I could put every single person inside my head to understand what it is I am experiencing to better explain it, I would. But I can't do that.

I am bisexual. I am physically attracted to mostly men, but sometimes also women. It is not something I choose. It isn't something I control. When I say attraction I mean the same attraction you experience when you see that hot movie star or musician - and you are attracted in a way that bypasses your thought process.

Believe me, my life would be much much easier if I was one thing or the other. But the pain and confusion could have been lessened if the word itself wasn't bogged down with the level of BS that it was. If I had lived in a world where someone could have explained literally any of it to me. If I had been made to feel as if I could be comfortable discussing it with literally anyone at all ever.

Gen X ... we have a hard time owning up to the shit we have done. I know a good 75% of us probably went to a drag show in 1997. So why, in this era of super hate, are we saying nothing? The books that Moms for Liberty is banning regularly were books that were required reading, that made us better people. No one cared if our feelings were hurt by legitimate historical facts, and we took all of that in and it made us better people.

There is a positive note from my high school experience:

My Lit teacher in high school wasn't weird about the solid possibility of Shakespeare's sexuality when we started reading poems he wrote about men. She just said, "People think he as probably bisexual." and we all took that in for a minute and went on with it. No fuss, no muss.

That is what I hope for. No Fuss, no muss. No screaming about how bi people are this, that and the other. No shit about how we are confused. No crappy attitudes. No censorship of a real thing about a real person in history.

[blonde-n-dirty]

Why delete social media I’m sure people still want to keep up with you and make sure your okay

Because I’m growing up. I’m almost 30, this little social media game feels childish.

Social media has ruined my life in every aspect of the phrase. My attention span is shit, my parasocial relationships are better than real life ones, I have the hardest time thinking of words & having real convos without a panic attack, most importantly I’m terrified to leave my home. I need to learn to re-live in the real world that actually matters. None of this online crap matters & it just causes emotions nobody needs. I was bullied yesterday by a HUGE creator along with all of her following because SHE read my comment wrong, not a single one of those ppl would’ve said that shit to my face. It’s just not real & not worth caring about likes, if I took a pic for my feed if I went anywhere, if I look photo ready every time I get to leave the house in case something happens for social media. It’s just a waste of time to me. I have a whole dream life I imagine for my little family, & phones have no place in my little house on the prairie dreams lol

And honestly there’s nobody who needs to keep up with me. I have shown such obvious signs I’m gunna kill myself any day now since I was 16, & if I did it tomorrow, anybody who’s ever been my friend will say they didn’t see it coming🙄 nobody truly knows me & never has, just a facade I got really good at perfecting. There may be ppl who wanna stalk me, but if they’re not in my life personally then they don’t need to know how I’m doing. It’s fine, they’ll survive. Anyone who’s close with me the day I move can have my new number, other than that, nah I don’t wanna be found.

I just need a fresh start. This house, this town, this state has SO SO SO MUCH trauma attached to it, you’d cry if I wrote a book. That trauma has created me, but it’s trauma I wanna leave behind because it doesn’t matter anymore. I have created the most loving little family- my husband & I have never fought in 4 years, we literally move w love in every way, & I wanna focus on only the good that I, myself, have created for ME. My entire life has been lived for my family or friends, every move I’ve made has been for someone else & I’m done. It’s time to make me happy & find who I am without worrying if anyone else is happy about it. I wish that for everyone. Life is about more than this tiny screen.

[markets]

MCYTBLR AWARDS SEASON 3 RESULTS

THATS RIGHT!! THEY ARE LONG OVERDUE BUT THEY ARE HERE!! a few contestants had to be disqualified for getting around 8000 votes which is unfortunately impossible without cheating thohgh if you guys made me famous we could do a rematch and then you could get 8000 votes for real. i didnt feel good about disqualifyign them btw It felt like shooting theme in the head but it had to be done. anyway HERE ARE THE RESULTS!!

most likely to be in your nightmare blunt rotation: @inniter

always acts like theyre right: @timedeo

mutual in law you have a parasocial relationship with: @dyke-crossing

mutual in law you have a parasocial relationship with but not in a good way like you want to kill them: @sootings (fuck you)

gets vagued the most: @timedeo

tends to starts drama for fun to hurt the community: @markets (big one)

most likely to be infiltrating mcytblr like as a spy for some group or organization: @dyke-crossing

most likely to double book a villa in miami you dont even own then steal a van to chase after your friend's crush who ran away after they had a fight then get arrested for numerous crimes including the stolen villa and van: @leftistgnf

most skrimbly skrumble vibes: @dwter

blog youd get along the best with irl: @geoguessbur

blog who, if you saw them in real life, would beat to pulp: @inniter

most spien!wilbur blog (@30smp aka spien!wilbur forced me to include this): @inniter

blog who has probably cried over c!tommy the most: @inniter (Tbhjh i think its a bit unfair that cj has won 3 awards in a row but this wouldnt be happening jf you guys hadnt tried to rig the fucking vote)

best miku blog that also likes c!tommy: @miku3 (WHO WOULDVE GUESSED)

blog you hope gets sniped next: @lovej0ys

AND THAT CONCLUDES THE RESULTS!! thank you to everyone who voted!! And if ur the person who cheated i am outside ur home wiith a bomb

[wlwcarries]

i'm becoming more and more convinced that charlie's dms are real. i’m going to give you guys the evidence there is so far, for you all to make your own conclusions. personally, as much as i hate to say it, i think the dms are real.

i want to preface this by saying that i hoped as much as everyone else that the screenshots were fake. i honestly debated even posting about it at this point because everyone seems to have made their peace that they’re fabricated and moved on, and i don’t want to start or rehash anything. i promise you, i hated making this post as much as you guys are probably going to hate reading this. but i feel like we as a fandom deserve to know and address the truth, and choosing to ignore this will only do more harm than good.

there are two tiktoks showing proof of the messages: here and here

it’s pretty clear imo that charlie sent those messages in that group chat. there’s publicly available information proving a lot of what i’m going to talk about, but i’m not going to expose anyone especially since a lot of the people involved are minors. if you want to talk more about it, feel free to dm me but i’m not going to post anything publicly beyond those tiktoks. 

so yeah. charlie talked about smut in a group chat with at least one confirmed minor as far as we know. in the screenshot you can see that someone explained what smut was to him, and then he continued on talking about the explicit fic. 

i know that a lot of us on here, myself included, love to harp on l*lex shippers, and while the racism involved with the ship should by no means pushed aside that's also not my biggest concern at the moment. a lot of these people are young teenage girls and there’s a clear power imbalance involved. they’re fans, and he’s an adult man who they look up to. yes, they shouldn’t have sent the fic to him in the first place, but charlie’s an adult and should have known better than to encourage this. this is on him. he really can’t see that interacting and talking about sexually explicit material with minors isn’t alright??? is he that scared of his fans turning on him if he doesn’t act like he’s their close personal friend???

he needs to realize that he’s not going to lose his fanbase if he establishes boundaries with them. honestly, there’s more of a chance that he’ll lose them if he doesn’t establish boundaries. other people said this better than me (i’d like to link chloe @willexx’s post here which makes a lot of really important points regarding this as well as discussing madi, and this post by @reggieshairflip which goes really in depth into a lot of great points), but this is really concerning. 

i also went on twitter last night to see what people were saying on there, and i’m beyond words. the majority of the commentary seems to be along the lines of “protect charlie from the smut!!” 

y’all. charlie isn’t the one who needs protecting. regardless of the legal situation, if he wants to read fanfic he’s gonna find ways to read it. he’s a grown man, he’ll be fine. that’s so far removed from the actual point, i don’t know how else to explain it. charlie will be fine. we don’t have to be worried about him. 

maybe people should focus on the fact that he’s talking about smut in a group chat with minors on it? like first off, don't be in a group chat with fans of your show, but especially don't talk about smut with minors, what the fuck. and the fact that he doesn’t even seem to realize the issues with what he’s doing is troubling in and of itself.

charlie has been involved in various other groupchats with fans for a while (this isn’t a new thing by any means), and i will admit that most of those interactions thus far have been innocent and harmless. regardless, the fact that he’s in group chats with fans at all worries me. these people are largely young, teenaged girls who idolize charlie--they’ve practically developed a parasocial relationship with him, and that’s not healthy in the slightest. 

he’s not their “bestie,” he’s a celebrity. he keeps up with the innocent and harmless things, and encourages them, but doesn’t establish boundaries--and that’s what leads to people thinking that doing more is okay because he hasn’t said otherwise. people meeting him at the airport at 2am, fans showing up to owen’s house at midnight and then charlie entertaining them. that’s what this kind of behavior leads to, and i fear that it will inevitably lead to much worse in the future. i’m not trying to take blame away from the people who did these things--fans have to respect boundaries, set or not--but as a public figure charlie has a responsibility to set clear lines.

the point of this post is absolutely not to “cancel” him or anything. that wouldn’t be productive at all, and one of my favorite things about the jatp fandom on tumblr is our ability to have actually constructive conversations about things like this. this is tumblr, and i know i’m basically speaking to an echo chamber here-- but i feel this is important enough that it has to be said, even if nobody outside of this site will probably see it. 

he needs to be held accountable and made to realize that what he’s doing isn’t okay. i get that this is his first experience being at the center of a large fandom like this, and i understand that he’s probably really excited about all the fans and wants to connect with them as much as possible. but he would do well to take notes from jeremy (and hell, madi, and she’s sixteen and didn’t have any prior acting experience at all), and engage in a healthy, responsible way like they do. i’m not going to speak about owen because i don’t really have much info or knowledge about how he interacts, but this potentially extends to him as well.

this is a really complicated and messy situation, and i get that. feel free to share your thoughts, but please be respectful. sending love to all of you guys rn 💜💜💜

EDIT: TO CLARIFY. i have seen this post making the rounds on twitter. i’m okay with that as long as it’s not a screenshot and the post is directly linked HOWEVER charlie did not straight up send smut to that group chat. they sent him the title, and he looked the fic up and sent the link in the group chat to clarify it was the one they were talking about. he was informed that it was smut, but it wasn’t just him sending the fic unprovoked. everything i said above still applies, he should not have engaged or encouraged the conversation but please don’t spread false information. 

[qqueenofhades]

So this is probably a dumb question and there is probably something wrong with me but I’m going to ask anyway. Have you ever fallen totally, madly, and deeply in love with a fictional character and all you do is think about them and it hurts to think about them but you really just want to talk to them and tell them things and hear their take on things? And you then form a weird attachment to the actor, who you are not in love with because you love the fake character, not the actor, because the actor is kind of a jerk, but since the actor played the fake character and you think they are hot now you are semi-in love with the actor by proxy since they played that stupid fake character that you’re aching to talk to/be with and they also look like them. So now you are in this stupid place where you are both in love with a fake being and in by proxy love with a jerky actor and you are hyper-fixated both on this stupid character that isn’t even real but you have real achy pains of longing for them AND the hot disaster mess that you clearly are because you’re in love with a fake character. Meanwhile, you need to get out more and make friends but you can’t because now you have a sort of real broken heart over a pretend nonexistent romantic relationship with a made up person and a proximal, nonexistent, your face is hot relationship with the sack of skin that played them. Does this ever happen to other ppl or is it just me?

Okay look. I have NOT for the life of me ever been able to find this post again, or remember the name of the category (I think it starts with the letter i, but that is all, and my attempts to Google search for it have, of course, turned up nothing but porn). But some while ago, I read a definition of a subsidiary sexual orientation called something like "ideosexual" or "imagosexual" that turned me into the DEFINITION of "I came out to have a good time and I'm feeling so attacked right now." Because the list included, among other things, experiences/feelings like:

Being primarily attracted to fictional characters, celebrities, or other people who don't exist in real life or exist only far away from you, so that you're fantasizing about them from a safe distance rather than engaging them as a real person/actual relationship;

Enjoying fictional depictions of sex/smut more than you're drawn to seek out actual sexual experiences in real life, no matter your primary orientation or the gender of the people you're attracted to;

Being mostly satisfied in experiencing these imagined or idealistic relationships, and finding fulfillment in them.

This fell somewhere on the demiromantic/asexual spectrum, where you felt sexual and romantic attraction, but for a person who was not somebody you ever expected to actually be with or who might not even be real. You enjoyed fantasizing about them and experiencing fictional sex through them, whether of the written or visual medium, but didn't really feel particularly drawn to do so in real life. As a strongly ace-spec queer and fairly nonbinary person who has a very complicated relationship with my body/a dislike of close physical touch/no particular need to have a real partner of any kind, I was a bit like... wow, that sounds a lot like me. We've all had deep crushes on characters before, we're all aware that boundaries in fandom can get confused, some people write fanfiction about real people/actors (which I find.... deeply off-putting and mystifying, to say the least, but you know, each to their own, they have their things and I have mine), and it in general creates a semi-fictional erotic space that relies heavily on personal fantasies and curated imagery. But all people do this. Even people who aren't in fandom do this. You fantasize about strangers or you watch porn or you find a celebrity hot and have an intense parasocial crush on them. Humans are inherently visual creatures who LOVE stories. It's no surprise that sex, one of our other big preoccupations, is one of the chief sources for this.

Anyway, that is to say: there's nothing wrong with you, most people on Tumblr can probably relate to this experience in some way, and the fact that you're able to set clear boundaries (this is the character, this is the actor, this is real, this is not real, this is what I feel for one, this is what I feel for another, I recognize this is confused and mixed up but I'm not sure what to do) is a very good sign. It would be much more of a problem if you weren't able to make all those distinctions, and while it absolutely does suck, the upside is that a fictional character (especially one that you have extensively created through your own headcanons) will always be with you. Real partners come and go, and this isn't to say that you only ever need fictional characters, but you don't need to completely disavow them either. If that's a secret thing you have and which you really feel, it's okay. We've all cried buckets over fake people, whether for happy or sad reasons. We all have that one character death we'll never get over (or several). And you know, I like that. The fact that we can get so invested in fake people (in a way, frankly, we should get more invested in REAL people) shows our empathy and our willingness to engage with others apart from ourselves, and that is rather lovely.

The age of social media has allowed people both to freely share their personal fantasies and private thoughts, and to be judged for them, which is a bit of a mixed bag. We're all here on Tumblr reminding ourselves that these are technically our blogs (and they are) and we can say or enjoy whatever we want, but we're all wary of some random jerk coming along and judging us for it, since we have put it into the public sphere to be consumed. This is the case even though it's placed/framed in a way where we are supposed to understand that is just one's own personal opinion. There are some truly miserable people on the internet who are on an apparent never-ending crusade to serve as the latter-day Comstock Police, but those people have existed throughout history, and they just have more tools to do it now. And guess what? I'm pretty sure those people have secret fantasies too, but they can't talk about them now because they would likewise put themselves in a position to be judged, and they don't want that.

Anyway. There's nothing wrong with you, and you're not dumb. This is a deeply normal experience for many people, and that is the truth. <3

[dotthings]

Since yes I do remember I have a tumblr and should probably use it to express myself because I’m wordy. After witnessing stan twitter 1,345, on a platform where nuance isn’t exactly common, I have some thoughts.

First: No EP or writer from spn has ever denied Destiel exists or ever told shippers to stop seeing or stop talking about it or mocked us for seeing it in their work. The writing team (which includes several queer writers) continues to work in textual level material as well as subtext and queer coding.

Second: A majority of Destiel fandom doesn’t harass and hate on the cast/crew/writers and we can see how Destiel’s now becoming increasingly textual in intent. We’re pragmatic about the chances of openly declared confirmation. That doesn’t make it less “real.” It’s getting more and more exhausting witnessing a subset angrily shouting down their own ship and attacking the show as a whole. That isn’t how I feel about spn and Destiel and I know I’m not alone on this. I’m not invalidating their rage. I’m tired of all of Destiel fandom being blamed for the behavior of a few and I don’t think the ones who behave like that are how most Destiel shippers act or how they see the situation (which is complicated) or how most shippers feel. Some are more wary than others, without being vitriolic or close-minded about Destiel and canon. Destiel fandom is not a groupthink.

Destiel is an important part of the show. It’s actually the relationship that is my personal heart center, and I’ve been yelled at plenty just for feeling that way about it, but it’s moot, canon made me feel that, canon gave me the ample content for Dean and Cas and their relationship, canon had opportunities to remove it, to end it, and never did. Instead canon built it up and added layers and made them even closer. Their relationship has been part of the A-plot. Even if it’s not the center of the show, it’s still crucial. (When are people going to get this simple concept? Something doesn’t have to be THE center to still be greatly important). For context, I’m a fan of Team Free Will too, and the bro bond, not just Destiel, and have been watching SPN since the pilot aired.

At some point under Dabb’s tenure on SPN, the way canon handled Destiel changed, from subtext, to moments where it broke into full text in ways I could no longer unsee how seriously the writing team takes this ship. I went from calmly resigned it was never going to actually be a thing, to the hair on the back of my arms standing on end because stuff was happening, and continued to happen, and it was no longer confined entirely to subtext, even if it wasn’t consummated or loudly confirmed.

Because there’s still people who straw man this kind of discussion, let me state very clearly: you are not wrong to want more open, loud representation.

Also: there is nothing wrong with wanting Dean and Cas to kiss. Or hoping for a sex scene. I’d be delighted if SPN goes that far. But if you’re out there insisting a kiss or some other explicitly sexual gesture is the absolutely, hard line the only way it will ever “count” you are hurting other fans, you are erasing the actual queer content. If you would burn the internet down in rage because Dean and Cas gets confirmation via a hand-hold or verbal confirmation or even a 3rd party statement penny drop when they aren’t even in the room, and claim that it doesn’t “count” and it’s “not enough” while you go on the attack, that’s not supportive of the ship or the work the writers have done to give it to fans as much as they can.

There has to be room for ships that fall between “loudly openly confirmed with sex scenes” and “nothing in canon backs this ship and it’s only fanon.”

Destiel in canon has had to date more canon build-up, more material, more arcing, than some canon ships in various fandoms. Yet people still deny its validity. Why is that? Why is that?

I’m not going around claiming a ship like that is incredible representation. There’s better representation available. Maybe go support that instead of obsessively attacking SPN, the crew, the cast, and turning against your own OTP.

There has to be room for multiple choice options rather than just “malicious queerbaiters!!” to allow for ships like Destiel where it’s obvious from the canon the creatives are taking it seriously in terms of story but are being held back from taking it where they would like to go with it. We won’t know until spn is over whether Destiel is getting its loudly open confirmation and consummation or not. I’m not making you promises, I’m not claiming to have inside info, I’m not claiming I know how this will go. I’m describing to you what I can see, with my eyes, so far, in both canon, which is borne out by extra-textual comments and incidents, but the extra-textual back-up is just support for what I can see in the canon.

I’d also like to know since when is fandom wank more important than the actual canon content. When did the drama and conflicts within the parasocial relationship between the people who make the show and fans become the thing calling all the shots here while people ignore the canon.

Let’s play a game. Close your eyes. Breath deeply. Imagine SPN canon, everything playing out exactly as it has in canon up to this point, but in fandom there was never a loud group of obsessed antis pounding in your ears calling you delusional or fake fans or ruining spn for seeing it. There were never antis repeating the weirdly contradictory “this show is about FAMILY so Destiel can’t be a thing.” There were never antis twisting the canon into uncrecognizable knots so they could deny and deny and deny how much Dean and Cas care for each other even as friends, along with their phobic anti-shipping concern trolling. There were never antis supposedly on your ship team (Destiel shippers who are hurt and disappointed at the lack of loud, open confirmation, which is valid, but some turned toxic over it) telling you there’s nothing there and you’re only being baited and it’s not real and you’re delusional for seeing it and a traitor to the ship if you see anything good for Destiel in the canon. Imagine you never heard of twitter.

Imagine that.

Would you doubt what’s before your eyes? Would you deny it was valid?

[thermie]

h h hewwo owoo 22 / 23 / 29 / 31 / 34 / 50 / 58 / 61 / 88 in any order, and u can also just. pick only those that u want :3

hhhh-ewwwo? I did say I wanted to chat and I desperately do not want to do work or studies so buckle in for a long post (derogatory). 22. role model? Oh man, I don’t think I have any, like, specific ones for entire things, though I do fall in my hero-worship phaes and then fall out of them like everyone else. I think that taking an entire person and being like I wanna be like them is... not for me though. But I do look up to some people for specific things - I look up to, weirdly enough, Abigail Phylosohpytube who I didn’t watch before her coming out for her graceful coming out video though she admits that the experience wasn’t obviously as smooth. I look up to lots and lots of people for their ability to create and their art (not gonna tag my fav artists bc am tiny and do not want people to look at me, but i do be reblogging). I look up to people like ConcernedApe Stardewvalley and Supergiantgames Hades for their ability to put so much soul in their work, smth I aspire to do. I look up to @not-poignant for, among other things, their idk how to say it best, wisdom in understanding and communicating with others and with myself? I’ve learned a lot by just sort of being in their periphery and seeing how they articulate their thoughts and choose to be kind and witness other’s pain. Hell, I look up to twitch streamers and youtubers sometimes (the recent nice trait I’d like to have if I ever went into bigger content production is how ibxtoycat deals with parasocial relationship realities). 23. strange habits? Hm. I don’t think drinking tea whenever I need a pick-me-up is strange, that’s just probably forcefully assigning a British nationality to me. I think my insistence on misspelling words in a way I think is lowkey funny might be one, I say thamks bc it feels softer, or thank bc it’s funny, I say sleeb, I say finkers or tryink or otherwise replace g with k for lulz. I also don’t know if it counts as a habit but I have a small leather band around my wrist that’s been there for a year soon. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm I probs have like, stranger habits but I can’t recall rn. 29. best way to bond with you? Hmm. Well, if you show initiative and are explicit about wanting to spend time with me, that’s already a big chance of me spending time with you. And then if our interests match and I don’t think that you’re like, young in a way that automatically puts me in a position where I don’t feel comfortable really being myself around you bc in my head I have to look out for you (it has happened with two of my friends, sigh), and we regularly spend time together, voila, friend acquired. It simultaneously doesn’t take much and takes a bit to be my friend and bond with me - it’s easy af to become a casual friend cuz I’m always open to new people, but there has to be a level of trust to become like, a close friend. Respecting my boundaries, talking shit with me, being explicitly committal about wanting to bond with me are big steps that way. 31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names? Uh, I don’t do neither, but a current fave that is reasonably badass is my black tshirt with like, a ritual circle and a deer skull. V edgy, 10/10. I also used to have like a real edgy tshirt with a jester and some dice that said the game of life, but I threw it out bc dysphoria. or maybe I put it at the back of my closet along with one other shirt In Case I Get Top Surgery so I can wear them then. 34. advertisements you have stuck in your head? Many, such is the nature of advertising, alas. I have managed to avoid most of it tbh though, so the only place I am forced to sit through ads so they stick is my scrabble capitalist nightmare app where I play and always beat haha my coursemate. And they have adds for those shitty apps where you have to solve a puzzle that ends up failing in the add and like, drenching a man in green goo. I find those kinda fascinating tbh. Who plays these games? Who plays these shitty shitty games whose ad has to be “prove your IQ“ to make you want to prove yourself to play them? Oh and also, the insidious nature of ads in media I consume - the mcelroys have gotten me informed about many many things bc they do it in a funny way. Have you heard about squarespace? What about meundies? I also literally installed honey yesterday that I knew abt bc of the relentless adds and I wanted to save, uh, 2.50 from my minecraft server purchase (and then spent some time googling how they make money before giving up. just say u sell my data, that’s easier than not knowing what part of this makes you money). I was tired and in a weird mood, ok. 50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have? It’s always the stupidest jokes, what matters more is laughing together with someone and getting caught in a laughing loop. I still remember laughing with my siblings until our stomachs really really hurt bc I think one of us said a rug was vomit-colored and it was funny in the moment. How many times have I laughed like that with you too, vit. I know that Laura’s one is nostrilatu, right? :D :D It’s just something that catches you off guard, I think.

58. four talents you’re proud of having? Oh shid. Hm. 1) My ability to analyze data and understand the basic building blocks of something. Makes me cool at studying and sexy at explaining things to my course-mates. 2) Not a talent more like a skill that I’ve worked hard on through therapy - but my inner positive voice/healthy parent is very strong and automatic (something I was sure would never happen). A good example is me going out for a walk, my phone dying so I can’t listen to music, when I went in my head “well I can always make music in my head. do-do-do *drum sound*“ and I could feel the wave of self-reprimand cresting but before I could actually hear any negative comments the positive voice said with a light of a thousand suns NO THAT IS ACTUALLY CUTE AND SEXY and just haaaaaaah. 3) I sing good. Need to sing more. 4) I think I’m good at making conversation. Even with people I don’t necessarily like or want to talk to. More of a skill again but whatever. 61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.? Do not come to me and ask for favorites, witch. Uh, I have some quotes in my notes app, like 7 from Pia’s writing :D. But imma go with “It’s a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world“ by Mary Oliver. It counts, ok. Or, wait, something I will for real one day either crosstitch of commission shitpostcalligrapher: “t’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. “What are we holding onto Sam?” “There’s good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.“” 88. your greatest wish? Hrm. Right now? To have like a couple days with no responsibilities and without the outside world bearing on me as heavily, to be tiny tiny tiny so I’m invisible and can drink tiny tea on a tiny leaf. Uh, in general? My recently formulated wish or a goal is stability/peace. Then everything else becomes ok because you can bounce back to stable ground between feeling shit or everything happening so much. And I’ve sort of reached that. Also like, half a million euros would be nice too so I can get a house and a car and go on a few trips abroad. :D // there’s two ask memes in my blog recently, go wild

[1dreality]

Why The Normalization of Stan Culture is Unhealthy

How a tweet about Ariana Grande made me realize the extent of harm this subculture has done.

Haaniyah Angus

FollowJan 27

The way in which pop culture is consumed in the 2010s is unlike anything else we have witnessed since the dawn of pop culture itself. Social media has created a hyperreality wherein the distance between regular individuals and their idols is slowly shortening, or at least appearing to. This is most obviously seen within ‘stan Twitter’, a section of Twitter dedicated to celebrities even to the most harmful lengths.

I want to make myself clear here: I don’t hate stans or stan Twitter. Throughout my teenage years, I was part of this subculture in various ways, whether it be K-Pop, One Direction, Justin Bieber, 5SOS and — ironically enough — Ariana Grande. Through ‘standoms’ I was able to meet people and make friends in a way I couldn’t in real life. I felt as if I were part of a community, that I finally belonged. But, as I got older, I realized the obsession I had wasn’t healthy, and that’s why I worry about the direction that many young people seem to be heading in. Their dedication to strangers in order to boost their own self-esteem feels almost like a car crash ready to happen and, for some, it already has.

But, though this is undoubtedly a phenomenon of the social media era, in order to understand what stan Twitter is and its origin, we need to travel back to a time before Twitter even existed.

Currently, on Urban Dictionary, a stan is defined as an overzealous maniacal fan for any celebrity or athlete, stemming from Eminem’s 2002 hit, Stan. In the video, Stan wants Eminem to make contact with him but Eminem doesn’t reply to his letters and, due to this, Stan thinks he has been ignored. As revenge, Stan ties up his own girlfriend, stows her in his trunk, drives along a rain-soaked highway and drives off a bridge. Eminem gets around to responding and says how thankful he is for the support, only to understand that Stan is obsessed with him and then, finally, to connect the dots and realize that he’s the man who killed his girlfriend.

What many psychological professionals would describe this as is a parasocial relationship. This is not a made up disorder nor an armchair diagnosis, but simply the definition to a relationship many people have with famous figures. Parasocial relationships are one-sided dynamics in which energy, interest and time are extended towards the object of obsession whilst they (commonly a celebrity) remain ignorant of the existence of the other.

But, though critics and think piece writers often frame them as a symptom of young people’s generational rot, behaviours such as this are not new in the slightest. Before the boom of social media, obsessive fans had existed for a long, long time — such as during the Roman reign, where people collected gladiators’ sweat out of admiration; or the Victorian era, when hordes of fans forced author Arthur Conan Doyle to revive his star character, Sherlock Holmes. The Beatles had a superfan plotting to murder John Lennon, Michael Jackson had to prove that he didn’t impregnate a stalker, and Uma Thurman received a card from a fan that had a drawing of an open grave, a headstone and a man standing on the edge of a razor blade.

This is not an exclusively Western phenomenon either. In Korea, this type of idolatry exists heavily within the K-Pop industry. Sasaeng fans are over-obsessive fans of musical idols, to the point that they engage in stalking. According to Yahoo Lifestyle, Korean idols have been filmed, had their phones wiretapped, and even had fans breaking into their homes.

What makes this new era of ‘stalker fans’ different, in my opinion, is the admiration that seems to be growing towards such behaviours. Today, even as a joke, the terminology of ‘stalker fan’ or ‘stan’ has been the latest object of amelioration — where a word’s negative meaning is elevated to a positive one.

Last year when culture writer Wanna Thompson received a hateful DM from rapper Nicki Minaj and decided to share it, the following backlash shone a light for many in regards to this behaviour. Minaj clapped back at a comment Thompson had made on her Twitter account and Thompson brought it to her timeline, shocked that a celebrity of that magnitude could do such a thing. According to an interview with the New York Times, Wanna received hateful messages via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and even email; including insults to her infant daughter and suicide bait. The majority of these hateful words came from stans, who seemed to have a soldier-like sense of duty to protect Minaj. It was as if they would do anything for their idol.

Though Wanna and Nicki’s beef was recent and particularly notorious, one could pick any of all the major stan groups and they’d find that they all exhibit this need to protect their idols from critique, even when it is valid. Which brings me to the point of this article.

We need to talk about Ariana Grande.

It was last week when Grande released her song ‘7 Rings’ and, as a longtime fan of the 25-year-old star, I was ecstatic. I loved the song and felt like she was finally blossoming into the artist she could always be. That was until it was rightfully pointed out to me that Ariana was walking along a tightrope that many young white pop stars toe — and often fall off of. Like many ex-child stars before her, Ariana was rebelling against her ‘good girl’ image by appropriating Black culture.

As stated by writer Erin Dyana:

Viewing her 7 Rings video after seeing her come up in real time throughout the years has left a bizarre taste in my mouth and I’m not sure if there’s anything that can cleanse my palate of it. The video has quite literally glamorized a trap house (something she wouldn’t know anything about) while she raps in an airy voice about buying weave, being rich, and having a “stacked” ass (a lie). These lyrics and visuals aren’t fitting and belong to a Black woman, period. It’s inauthentic and corny to me that she felt the need to cherry pick from Black culture to make something that’ll sell and get clicks.

As much as I love Grande, I couldn’t ignore this issue, which has plagued Black culture for years. The more I listened to 7 Rings, the more I understood why it made people, specifically Black women uncomfortable. While I wasn’t the most damning critic of Grande’s song, I immediately got pushback for suggesting that those who dislike it weren’t in the wrong. Historically white pop stars have been able to cross genres (pop to trap, in Grande’s case) while Black singers haven’t.

I was noticing that anytime someone dared speak about Grande, they were silenced by her fans and stans alike, even though some of the people criticizing Ariana might have disliked her already, or been indifferent to her, many of us truly loved her music. Though stan Twitter might have you thinking otherwise, critical consumption doesn’t negate enjoyment. I and many others are perfectly able to spot the problematic aspects of music, writing and film whilst still having fun with it. Critical thinking only makes our experience richer, and definitely doesn’t mean that we hate an artist for making mistakes.

The drama culminated when people noticed that Ariana herself was liking tweets defending 7 Rings, its music video and the genre choice. I find that, when celebrities try to defend themselves against valid critiques such as cultural appropriation, it does more harm than good. This self-victimization causes the stans to be even more defensive and thus lash out against anyone critiquing their idol. Grande seemingly felt attacked or felt that these critics — mainly Black women — were harassing her. Her fans didn’t just internalize those feelings as their own but, of course, felt the need to defend Ariana by attacking anyone who dared criticize her.

I probably wouldn’t be paying as much attention to this if I hadn’t been also a victim of the harassment her stans were dishing out online. What sparked it, you may ask! I had simply tweeted a ‘judgemental’ reaction image in response to Ariana’s Instagram story. In it, it seemed that someone had jokingly written in their Insta-story: You like my hair? Gee, thanks just bought it” *kissing emoji*!!!! white women talking about their weaves is how we’re going to solve racism. Grande then proceeded to repost that story, thanking the OP for praise, even though it was clearly a mockery of that line.

As I mentioned earlier, I’d already gotten pushback from Ariana’s stans, and I didn’t care if people got mad at me. I would have continued on not caring but, after that tweet started circulating, it got to a point where my direct messages started blowing up with fans threatening me and telling me to delete it or else. I didn’t pay them any mind since I felt that there was no reason to take their threats seriously. However, come the next morning I woke and saw that my Twitter account had been suspended. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had been falsely reported by stans in order to get the tweet taken down.

You see, Twitter’s reporting system is beyond repair. Reports are evaluated by algorithms, making it ridiculously easy for abusive accounts to skirt suspension by misspelling slurs, and even easier for ill-intentioned people to ‘game’ the system by mass-reporting innocent users. I only got a tenth of the backlash that Thompson received from Minaj fans and yet my Twitter account, a platform on which I had built a following of 12,000 and which held contacts throughout various industries was gone. Not only that but, once I tweeted on my new account that I had been suspended unfairly, stans started to mock me and say that I deserved it for posting that tweet. A tweet that simply reacted to a foolish post of Grande’s — which, mind you, she acknowledged as such and took down.

But why do these things happen? Why do hordes of fans maliciously attack critics? Why do ‘stans’ behave in such an obsessive manner? Some say that social media is to blame and that isn’t a completely ludicrous view. As stated earlier, stans existed long before the age of the Internet, but the anonymity and the mass reach of social media allow their harassment and stalking to be extremely harmful while sheltering them from consequences. You can’t get a restraining order against an anonymous person who could use various accounts to stalk you. If stans are harassing those critiquing their favourite celebrity, blocks may prove futile, as they could make uncountable new accounts, and online harassment may continue until the aggressors get bored or the target finally gives in and deletes their account, whatever happens first.

I want to be positive when it comes to stans, I want to say hey! let these kids do what they want and oh, they’ll grow out of it, but I’m worried it may be too late. These stans have projected their own self-esteem issues and insecurities upon celebrities that make them feel whole. I know this because I did this, and many of my friends did this. Maybe obsessive fanaticism is an inescapable part of growing up, and maybe stans will come across this article and drag me for it. They will say that I’m being extra and that I just want clicks but — while I do want clicks, that’s why we’re all here, right? — I am genuinely worried. What was seen as fringe behaviour before — the invasion of privacy, obsessive fantasies, aggression and possessiveness, absolute disregard for others’ wellbeing — seems to be expected now in order to be “a true fan”. I’m worried that this has become the new norm for celebrity culture, and that the popularization of ‘standom’ has cemented this behaviour for years to come.

Edited By: Andrea Merodeadora

[wfuanthrotheory2022]

Annie Choi's response to Nina’s “Yes, Harry Styles is my best friend…no, you cannot argue with me on this”

Hi Nina!

   I think you made really nice points on your posts, and I honestly find it fascinating to think about the parasocial relationships we make nowadays so easily. Like you pointed out in your blog post, there are so many connections and relationships that people make online, following YouTubers, streamers, and celebrities that we find joy and comfort in despite never having met them in real life. Likewise, the YouTubers, streamers, and celebrities who have never met most of their supporters in real life engage with their platforms in a way that feels as if people are actually with them. They talk into their cameras and say phrases like, “Hey guys! I can’t wait to bring you all along as I run my errands for the day,” or “Thank you for the immense love and support that you all send me.” Though both parties have never met, the digital world provides them a bridge in which they can connect with one another and interact. This phenomenon makes me think of the “Fireside Chats” that Franklin D. Roosevelt had during World War II. It was immensely successful because people found it comforting to hear the words of their president so casually through their radio in the living room. It made ordinary citizens feel a connection towards their president and feel as if he was their friend or “uncle” though FDR was never present in their living rooms. Compared to presidents of the past who did not have access to technology like the radio, FDR seemed way more friendly and people-oriented than his predecessors. 

It’s interesting to see how parasocial relationships and the way they take place changed as technology and media evolved throughout the years as well. FDR’s “Fireside Chats” were made possible through the popularity and widespread use of the radio. Now, with the widespread use of platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok that can be easily accessed through phones and computers, celebrities and influencers have even more ways in which they can interact with followers and give followers the opportunity to interact as well through comments and likes. I wonder what would happen in the future if we are given access to even newer technology like holograms that allows us to interact with such celebrities and influencers on a whole new level. Would we grow closer to these people that we might never meet in real life or would too much digitalization make people feel as if these YouTubers, streamers, and celebrities are not real people any more and cause us to grow away from them?

[blogdience]

(3) Audience Involvement with Media Personae: The Four Processes

Do you have a favourite celebrity or TV character that you idolize? Have you ever been so, incredibly, attached to a show that mentally and emotionally the story consumes you? Is there a media personality that makes you feel like there is a relationship or bond between you two? Or maybe there are traits and characteristics you admire from this idol that you try to embody in order to become more like them and less like you?

There are four ways we, as audience members, get involved with media personas.

“Involved with media pers- WHAT?”, you may ask?

To start, let me define for you what media persona means. Persona is defined as a “real person or a fictional character encountered through any form of mediated interaction”. Therefore, it is whoever, and whatever, you encounter while engaging with media outlets such as news, your favourite movie, cartoon, television show, video game or even your favourite book.

There are four processes of audience involvement while engaging with media personas, these include, transportation, para-social interaction, identification, and worship.

Transportation is when an audience member is both mentally and emotionally involved in a story.

Lets Transport into this post a little more...

Transportation

So, I’ll ask you again...

Have you ever been so incredibly involved with a media persona that mentally and emotionally you are consumed by it?

I’ll answer for you, yes, because I know that you are enjoying this blog post so much that you are hooked and want to keep reading to see where I am going with all of this knowledge... I know, I am so entertaining, you are welcome.

On a serious note...

When I engage with the famous television series Game of Thrones (GOT) I genuinely get invested in the characters, the narrative, and the actual world of Westeros and Essos as if I am part of the show. When a character I am devoted to dies, it emotionally affects me whether I cry or get angry. In this way, without even realizing I have done so, I have transported myself mentally and emotionally into the Game of Thrones world. 

If you are wondering, yes, when I am there John Snow IS my husband and he IS cheating on me with the Dragon Queen, but I do not want to talk about that right now.

Hold up...

 I DO want to talk about that right now

Para-Social Relationships/Interactions (PSR/PSI)

This “relationship” I tell myself I have with the tall, manly, dark and handsome John Snow is a para-social interaction (PSI). 

PSI is an imaginary relationship between yourself and a media personality. It can create a feeling of intimacy during media consumption. This happens a lot, I have a boyfriend in almost every show or movie I watch. I believe it is the transportation process that makes these para-social interactions feel so incredibly strong. 

Have you ever been to a concert and genuinely felt in your heart that you have a personal relationship with the artist on stage? Maybe this “relationship” was built through social media following, liking their posts, or viewing their live Instagram stories. These media interactions we have with our favourite celebrities or television characters make us feel closer to the star then we really are. 

After I finish watching a show, I find that I will continue to love and idolize the actors who played my favourite characters. This is because I feel like I know them, but really, I only know their fictional character who I felt a false sense of intimacy with while watching the series. Once you are emotionally and mentally devoted to the media you are engaging with, it is hard to let go or see things differently. 

After watching 8 seasons of GOT, equivalent to 8 years for those fans who watched it on cable TV in real-time, it is hard to detach those feelings and para-social relationships that have been in the works for 8 seasons. 

This sort of para-social interaction does not always have to be as dramatic as my Game of Thrones relationship with John Snow. While watching game shows, for example, I find myself playing along as if the host of Family Feud was asking me the questions. Of course, I win the game every time...!

Identification

“OKURR”

“BIBLE”

Have you ever met someone new and caught yourself using their “lingo”? For example, if you hang around the same friends or have a significant other, you may naturally start saying phrases that they say or start watching similar shows that they watch. 

Charles Cooley suggests that as humans, we naturally pick up on the traits and characteristics surrounding us or in the media that we consume. This is the identification process of audience involvement. Just how we form to our friends’ characteristics, humans may also form to media persona personalities that they consume. 

Some may say Keeping Up with The Kardashians is their “guilty pleasure”, it is honestly, truly just one of my favourite television shows. It is a show of famous sisters who are greatly admired in the world of social media. Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie are all fashion and beauty icons. Although they may be an unrealistic image of perfect, their personalities on the show and their humour is why I love them as a family. It is their relationship with one another that keeps me coming back. In saying this, while watching the show I find myself admiring their characteristics such as Khloe’s humorous; straightforward personality, Kylie’s style, or Kourtney’s sass. In the show, the family always creates their own weird phrases or responses that I would then find myself, and my friends, using with one another. For example, Khloe Kardashian always says “OKURR” instead of “okay”. My friends and I quickly picked this up and jokingly used OKURR in place of “Okay”. I also identify my style choices being similar to the ones presented throughout the Kardashian family’s social media.

The Youtuber David Dobrik is a vlogger who has a friend group named the “vlog squad”. I admire David, he has a creative, hardworking, and positive nature about him. I admire his work ethic because he moved to California at 19 to pursue a social media career that was just emerging at the time. David did what every filmmaker or student wishes they had the courage to do. Now he is a millionaire and all he does is create funny content with his best friends. David recently bought FIJI disposable cameras and created an Instagram account to post the developed photos. Although I already had a film camera, I went out to Walmart and bought a disposable camera because I thought it was an extremely cool and affordable idea. In this way, I identified with David’s new hobby and made it my hobby too.

Worship

When you think of a God, who do you picture? Fans of Leonardo DiCaprio may say “LEO IS A GOD”. 

However, as I recall, Arianna Grande once said “God is a woman”, therefore, is Miley Cyrus a God to you? Jenny from the block? Madonna? Marilyn Monroe? 

If you ask me, I do have a hand full of celebrities who I would get seriously star-struck over. However, I have always loved, admired, and “worshipped” Rihanna. 

Remember those para-social relationships I discussed earlier? I believe this process of media engagement is what creates humans to “worship” and idolize other humans who are seen as higher in society.

I leave you with this...

Think about the content you consume and how you consume it. How have you been affected by these four stages?

Stay tuned for next weeks post!!

References

Sullivan, J. (2013 or 2020). Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power (1st or 2nd ed.). Sage Publications Inc., New York, NY.

Brown, W. (2015). Examining four processes of audience involvement with media personae: Transportation, parasocial interaction, identification, and worship. Communication Theory, 25, 259-283.

[yogpetshame]

Partis will never write anything bad about the Yogscast. It has nothing to do with what she may or may not know, and I would not be surprised if she does have details that would make them look bad, it is simply she wants to keep a positive relationship with the Yogscast to grow her own career of the back of. Look at the Caff article on her site, she got some other "journalist" to write it, so she does not have to be the one to tell the truth about their shit and gets to keep shilling for them.

You do have a point. And I doubt she knows anything that nobody else knows. But I think she’s already been crossing the line by messaging Turps’ accusers directly this way. Danielle Partis might not be reaping ad revenue from Turps, but she’s still made it clear that she’s not one of the Lads.

IMO she’s gone too far and can’t claw her way back into their good graces from here, but she’s definitely not the sort of person to recognize that. She’ll go back to the coal mine to try and get their favor back way before she ever realizes a “heel turn” (relative to the Yogscast) is a less evil move.

I’m so glad we started watching her, she’s such a tragic character. Literally related to her subjects, too insipid and illiterate to make it as a real journalist, but a real award-winning boot-licker. Makes “friends” by building up parasocial relationships, and then is constantly running along the razor’s edge of “I could sell out my ‘Influencer’ friend for being a monster” or “I could have my reputation destroyed by associating with a monster.”

It’s pointless to even try to apply standards like “conflict of interest” or “confidential sources” or pretty much any kind of ethics to her. The preteen from this morning came back with:

And I want to say, “Because real journalists don’t wait for ‘official confirmation,’ they just go do the legwork on their own?” As though Woodward and Bernstein just sat at home tweeting about houseplants waiting for Nixon to give them Official Confirmation…

But who knows with Partis! She could literally be waiting on the starting line waiting for the Official Mark Turpin is Fired PR Letter - not so she can feel like she has enough sources to write the article, but so she can just copy and paste the letter onto her website and avoid trying to figure out how to write in complete sentences.

That’s why she’s fun to watch. Keeps you on your toes.

[noahfence1d]

We, as the viewing audience, are drawn to celebrities and famous people in ways we are not even aware. Within the lives of the celebrated lie the hopes and dreams of the rest of us.

As sitting ducks, if you will, or sitting persons, our minds are like sponges for incoming data and information, because the mind by its very nature is curious. If not for that, it would be difficult to survive. So the mind, and the brain activity that comprises what we have come to consider as “the mind,” rapidly assesses, absorbs, and decides most things in milliseconds. With the process so swift, oftentimes we haven’t a clue as to why we decide what we decide when we decide it. Our minds are swept away by deluded assumptions, as we bet all we have on our “rightness” when, in fact, in that very instance we are wrong. I know because I have been guilty of it countless times myself. Therefore, our minds, so to speak, often have minds of their own.

There is research pointing to the extent to which the viewing public is hijacked, unawares, into to the deluded thinking that comes with celebrity dynamics. From hours of viewing our favorite TV shows, listening to our favorite podcast, or following our favorite social media star, we have made decisions and taken for fact many un-factual things. After repeatedly tuning into the reality TV show of the time: from Survivor, to Lost, to the Biggest Loser, to the coast-to-coast Housewives shows, to the new Celebrity Apprentice, our brains are bathed in this unreal “reality look-alike” genre. Water cooler fare is now consumed with the minutia of the unreality, from Kim & Kanye to our favorite “housewife” to [fill in the latest bachelor & bachelorette here].

In the context of worshiping celebrities in ways that find us blind-sighted, there is actual research on the topic. In my doctoral dissertation on the psychology of fame and celebrity, I examined much of it. The following are some quotes and paraphrased sections of my research analysis, and its underlying query into the relationship between celebrity and the rest of us. My operating question was:

To what extent ... do celebrities carry the hopes and aspirations of the society that celebrates them? And what is at stake for the celebrity if the public over-identifies with his or her pop icon image? In order to understand the celebrity’s being-in-the-world within the experience of being famous, it is important to look at both sides of the celebrity/fan relationship, because it is ultimately through fan appraisal that celebrity is defined.

Researchers Horton & Wohl first described this media oriented one-way relationship between the celebrity and a “fan” in 1956, as a parasocial relationship. In 1987, Rubin & McHugh defined parasocial relationships as “...a type of intimate, friend-like relationship that occurs between a mediated persona and a viewer. ...As time goes on, predictability about the character is increased. The character is reliable. The fan is loyal.” The research shows that parasocial relationships are encouraged by several factors: (1) degree of reality approximation of the persona and the media, (2) frequency and consistency of appearance by the persona, (3) stylized behavior and conversational manner of the persona, and (4) effective use of the formal features of television. According Rubin, Perse, & Powell‘s 1985 study, Loneliness, Parasocial Interaction, and Local Television News Viewing, “these factors work together to make the persona a predictable, nonthreatening, and, hence, perfect role partner for the viewer.”

By examining celebrity as a cultural linchpin within a growing global fascination with fame, being famous, and those who are famous, we can better understand a dynamic that plays out at an unconscious level, controlling our thoughts and behaviors in ways it would be best to become aware. Are we choosing opinions and and worldviews with at least some degree of personal agency, or are we absorbing messages flooding into our consciousness and embedded in unconscious drives derived from external media sources, each faction aligned with its own seeds of propaganda (to further their own causes and missions), strategies of disinformation (to deflect attention away from actual intelligent analysis), to that which hypes and ballyhoos the particular “brand” in question (with motivational undertones that seek out personal, corporate, and institutional advancement and fiscal growth at all costs), with the results, oftentimes, of humanity be damned?

I remember in college reading the book Subliminal Seduction, which spoke to the way advertisers and others seek to sneak triggers into our subconscious mind chatter so that, on autopilot, we act out buying behaviors that bring us into their purchasing tents. This sort of manipulation of perceived needs underwrites the advertising industry, and in some sense, capitalism itself, which in its present form cannot exist without consumers to buy products which generate the capital and churn the markets, profits, and growth. We become unwitting “fans” of the products we consume, and create parasocial relationships with the celebrity barkers and salespeople who tout the product’s exceptionalism.

Many years ago former music writer, now Winchester University senior psychology lecturer, David Giles decided to conduct research on the parasocial aspects of celebrity relationships after observing the lifestyle of musicians he interviewed. While he was attending a concert in Switzerland to interview “a very minor pop band who were never going to make it big,” he reports realizing that “all bands in the music business were surrounded by sycophants.” Most all celebrities are.

A sycophant, as described by the Merriam Webster dictionary is “a person who praises powerful people in order to get their approval.” And charismatic celebrities can make sycophants from even the most grounded of us, who will throw away all self-respect and exhibit “fawning” behavior when in the presence of a famous person. The problem begins when fans over identify with celebrities. Film director Martin Scorsese describes the mind-hijacking dynamic of parasocial adoration in The King of Comedy, his meditation on the sublime absurdity of the fan-star relationship in which abject allegiance to a fantasy figure is played out in real life. In the movie, out of a sense of fame-lust, a couple of obsessed fans (Robert De Niro and Sandra Bernhard) kidnap their favorite TV star (Jerry Lewis). Scorsese described how he sees the fan’s out-of-whack attachment to celebrities:

You really get to love them. They don’t know you. But you love them. But you love, I think, what you imagine they are. You put more into the person to a certain extent than they may even be giving out on the screen, because they represent a dream. You lose yourself in those people. Finally when you do “satisfy the request of a fan,” after saying a few things—after [they] say, “I really loved your last film. I thought you were great. You really meant a lot to me.” Well, like what’s next? Ultimately what do they want? What do they want from you?

In a study investigating levels of what is called “Celebrity Worship” in the general public, a full 1/3 of the population was found to suffer from what the authors describe as “borderline-pathological” levels of “Celebrity Worship Syndrome,” evidencing a preoccupation with a favorite celebrity.

In the 2003 study, researchers Maltby, Houran & McCutcheon defined the phenomenon as a three-tiered parasocial relationship hierarchy between fans and celebrities, with an “Absorption-Addiction” model to explain the etiology of Celebrity Worship Syndrome:

According to this model, a compromised identity structure in some individuals facilitates psychological absorption with a celebrity in an attempt to establish an identity and a sense of fulfillment. The dynamics of the motivational forces driving this absorption might in turn take on an addictive component, leading to more extreme (and perhaps delusional) behaviors to sustain the individual’s satisfaction with the parasocial relationship. Several studies based on the Celebrity Attitude Scale ... are consistent with this proposed model and suggest that there are three increasingly more extreme sets of attitudes and behaviors associated with celebrity worship.

The questionnaire sheds light on the depths of the parasocial relationship, as the three levels of absorption move from a low level of Entertainment-social, defined through survey answers such as, “My friends and I like to discuss what my favorite celebrity has done,” to the intermediate level, characterized by Intense-personal feelings, defined by responses like, “I consider my favorite celebrity to be my soul mate,” and “I have frequent thoughts about my celebrity, even when I don’t want to,” to the Borderline-pathological level, reflected in answers like, “If someone gave me several thousand dollars (pounds) to do with as I please, I would consider spending it on a personal possession (like a napkin or paper plate) once used by my favorite celebrity,” and “If I were lucky enough to meet my favorite celebrity, and he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favor I would probably do it.”

Interestingly, in their 2002 investigation,

McCutcheon, Lange & Houran

conclude that in both pathological and nonpathological forms of Celebrity Worship, the deeper levels reflect an attempt to soothe an “empty self”:

Addiction [to celebrities] has likewise been conceptualized as a search for a solid identity and social role ... and compulsive and obsessional elements are noted at advanced stages of addiction ... Thus, while absorption can partially account for the vividness of delusions related to dissociative experience ... the progression along our hierarchy of celebrity worship might reflect increases in the thresholds of the need and capacity of psychological absorption. In other words, worshippers might develop a “tolerance” to behaviors that initially satisfied their need for absorption. As a result, celebrity worshippers must progressively evidence stronger dissociative behaviors in order to feel adequately connected to the celebrity.

In fact, the study’s author James Houran told Katie Couric on the Today Show in 2003 that there is no refuge from celebrity influence:

We’re not just a media saturated society but an entertainment saturated society, and so we turn to these celebrities for all aspects of our life. Now these figures are larger than life. Celebrities just don’t sell us products anymore; it’s not just for entertainment. But now you start seeing entertainment being part of mainstream media, mainstream news shows. You can’t get away from it. We are bombarded by it wherever we look.

Celebrities, rather than being authentic and freely expressing human beings, are actually images that are framed, groomed, packaged and highly produced solely for the purpose of dissemination through mass media onto our living room television sets, and through the Internet to our device screens. As audience members, we are spoon fed these images, more or less helpless to what we see, hear, and feel. For example, in 2000, researchers Auter & Palmgreen found that “there was a positive relationship between television viewing level and parasocial interaction in adolescents.” While the level was less than they thought, the researchers believe the more a person views a celebrity, the more invested in a parasocial relationship the fan may become.

In the place of role models and examples of altruistic heroism, we search for solutions to our problems by living through forms of media escapism, and the celebrities who rise up from it. Even as far back as 1983, author Barbara Goldsmith wrote in a New York Times Magazine piece titled, The Meaning of Celebrity that:

Image is essential to the celebrity because the public judges him by what it sees—his public posture as distinguished from his private person. Entertainers are particularly adept at perfecting their images, learning to refine the nuances of personality. Indeed, the words “celebrity” and “personality” have become interchangeable in our language.

As a result, she described a society that:

...encourages us to manufacture our fantasies while simultaneously destroying our former role models and ripping away the guideposts of the past. The result is that we have created synthetic celebrities whom we worship, however briefly, because they vicariously act out our noblest or basest desires.

Unknowingly, through our bonding and parasocial relationships with various celebrities, perhaps we are seeking something that is Freudian, after all, casting us in our own psyches as abandoned children, fearful and buffeted by existential and emotional vagaries that rise up, and leave us raw, exposed and vulnerable in a world where regardless of how diligently we strive, we discover how little control we actually have over our life’s path.

As suggested by sociologist Ernest van den Haag in Goldsmith’s article, the blind worshiping of celebrity, in the end, in all its forms, may amount to nothing more than our basic, hungering and continuing need for authority figures, like our parents.

[bl0nd3-amb1t1on]

Blog Post #1

August 8th 2014, my best friend and I went to a concert in Toronto at the Virgin Mobile Mod Club, her having just turned 19 and me being three months away from turning 19 it was both of our first experiences in a club. Even though I suppose it only half counts as that night it was just a small concert venue with a bar on one side and small seating area on the other. The whole day was quite an adventure and it made the day and the experience that much better. Not being fully honest with my parents about where we were going and then spending the night at her house so we wouldn’t get caught. For our specific experience we went for the VIP experience where we got to meet MKTO before the show and even had the chance to listen to an acoustic set before they were to actually perform. Relating this to lecture, it would be audience-as-agents because it sees the audience not as objects that are affected by the media, but that people are allowed to choose what media we will consume, allowing us to bring in our own interpretive skills that allow us to create our own meaning (Sullivan p. 7). We arrived at the venue shortly before 4 o’clock as we had to be there earlier than everyone else for the perks of being a VIP. We signed in, showed ID to prove that we were the ones that bought the tickets, and we got our backstage pass, and a small poster of the group. As we lined up outside of the venue waiting for them to let us in, one of the opening acts came out to greet fans and offer us some candy and even take pictures with us if we wanted. Unfortunately at that time I had not heard of this particular artist known by the name of Tiffany Houghton. She came down the walk way introducing herself to everyone and chatting with them for a few minutes before moving on to the next person in line. When she arrived and my friend Marissa and I she talked for a brief moment before pausing and commenting on how long my eyelashes were, naturally I was in heaven having a famous person, even if not famous world-wide still famous enough, to compliment me. She continued on about how I was the third or fourth person she had seen in the line with long eyelashes and stated that it must be something in the Canadian water. She talked for a few more moments and asked if we would like some candy to which we respectfully declined before continuing on to the next person. Once she was done she went back inside but not before telling us how excited she was to play for all of us.

The line eventually started moving as they were letting us into the venue, the security guard at the top of the line was asking if anyone was of legal age and if they wanted to wrist band to allow them to purchase alcohol at the bar during the show. This unfortunately slowed the line down and we’re impatiently waiting to not only see the band play but to actually get to meet them. The line was moving fairly quickly but it still felt slow.  Once we had reached the threshold of the doors to the club and we knew it wouldn’t be long now. The director to help make sure things moved slowly was asking fans if they were with a group of people if they wanted their photo’s with the group or separately. I personally wanted to get separate photos but my friend wanted to get them done together so I agreed, ultimately it didn’t matter it just would have been nice. Our turn was quickly approaching and I could feel my heartbeat increase, I was sure that everyone around me could hear it but at that point I was so happy that my heart could have exploded out of chest and I wouldn’t have cared.

The director yelled “Next!” It was our turn, we climbed up stairs to the stage and were instantly greeted by them hugging us and asking for our names. I’m trying to get my brain to cooperate so I can actually form a proper sentence amongst my excitement. I tell them my name and Marissa does the same. They call us by our name and we have a short conversation before the photographer calls our attention to have our picture taken. The boys stand on either side of us and the picture is taken, the photographer informs us that in 24-48 hours the photographs will be available online for us to save a copy, and that they will only be up for a week and then taken down. He said “it’s a very small window so make sure you don’t miss your chance”. It came and passed so quickly and yet it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. The idea of a parasocial relationship where I invest time and energy into following them on social media, watching anything they are involved in, and know so much personal information about them but they have no idea I exist; until this moment. In that moment I exist to them, they know how much I love them and support their dreams, and while they continue their tour and see hundreds of fans faces and inevitably they forget my face, my name, but in that moment it doesn’t matter. And now the idea of you has been planted in their thoughts, maybe they will remember you, maybe they will not. But no one will know so I can create whatever ideas I want and maintain this parasocial relationship.

Once we had our meet and greet, we were able to claim a spot to watch the rest of the show from, there was no seats so you would just stand around the stage, and another benefit of being in the VIP was you were able to get extremely close to the stage. In this case there was only one row of people between us and the stage. Even being that close you could still perfectly see the entire stage. We waited and just talked amongst ourselves while the band finished the rest of the meet and greets and once they were finished they started the acoustic set. They played their more popular songs for this one ending off with their most popular song Classic. It was incredible to see them perform live; you get that feeling where it all of a sudden hits you that these people are real. If you have ever been to a concert you know the feeling I am talking about. Where you get a thrill and that excited feeling just being in the same room, to actually be able to see someone you admire in person, it is an indescribable feeling.

After the acoustic set was over the next act was not coming on was not until 7PM so we had an hour and a half to just hang around. This is when most people went to go get drinks or some even went back to the seating area to sit down while others, myself included, stayed where we were as we did not want to lose our spots. Time seemed to move fairly slowly, it was odd just standing there waiting for the next thing to happen, there was no music playing from the speakers just to have some form of noise, the only thing happening was the stage hands setting up between acts. This relates to Social Learning Theory in the way that we looked and observed those around us to find out how to use the time in between acts. What people did to pass the time, how people behaved, to try to fit into the crowd (Sullivan p. 45). Now where social learning theory is often applied to child it can be used in all lie stages and people grow and have new experiences and we learn how to act because of these experiences and also how these experiences affect our learning. Although hundreds of people were at this particular concert, not everyone experienced it the same way.

When the time finally came the lights dimmed and Tiffany came on to the stage. She talked to the crowd a bit to get a feel of what we were into as far as music goes. She asked if we like boybands and followed it up with a cover of What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction, the audience went crazy. She admits her love for boybands and how that inspired the first song she was going to preform: Band Boys. She played 4 or 5 songs then thanked the crowd for being a wonderful audience and that she couldn’t wait to come back and play for us again. This was followed by another intermission of 30-45 minutes long; most of the crowd seemed unfazed by this large gap of time in between acts where Marissa and I were confused. It was the first time we had been to concert in such a small venue, no more than 200 people in the crowd. Is this how it always was? Even at large concert there is usually a break but it is no more than 15 minutes and even then they usually still play music to keep the audience entertained but there was nothing. As odd as we found it, it didn’t really matter because overall the experience was amazing, being so close to the stage and still excited over the fact that we got to meet them.

�xMš

Finally the next opening act came on, another odd thing, never had I been to a concert where they had more than one opening act. This band was called Action Item, they had a small splay list of 5 songs, none of which I knew but they were catchy songs and I wanted to learn more about this band. They interacted with the crowd getting them to sing the lyrics along with them or trying to get us to dance along with them. At the end of their set, they asked if it was okay if they took a picture of the crowd, it was a ritual they had for each of their shows.

Once they finished their set, there was a short intermission of 30 minutes before the main act came on. The lights dimmed one last time and the crowd went crazy as they walked on stage and their music started playing. They started off by doing what every artist does, asking how the crowd is doing, which is usually not followed by an answer but by a large amount of screaming. Of the 11 songs on their only album they played 10 songs, the one song they left out Marissa and I were disappointed as that was one of our favourites. During the performance, they included the crowd by reaching out to the crowd and holding hands with fans and at some points in the show hold the microphone out to the audience to allow the crowd to sing back to them. The idea of a concert follows along the lines of the three models of audiences, in this case it can fit into two categories: audience-as-mass in the sense that while you are aware of the people around you, but when the music starts playing you are now essentially in your own world, interpreting the music how you want, subject to your ideas and experiences. Everyone else around you simply just fades away while you focus on the band preforming (Sullivan p. 6). Or seen as audience-as-agents because the audience knowingly chose to come to this venue to hear them perform, they bought the tickets. We chose to listen to their music and support this group.

Once the concert was over, that was the time to buy any merchandise. The one opening act Action Item came out and was standing at a both that had their EP that they were selling to try to get their name out there and to grow their fan base. That was the time you got to talk to them and we even got to take a selfie with one of the band members. They were walking around talking to fans to build that relationship with them and they were able to share their social media with the audience to allow them to get updates on when new material came out by these artists. We went up to the table that Action Item had set up because we liked their music and wanted to hear more. Marissa and I got to talk to the band directly while they were selling their EP and even got a selfie with one of the members.

With all of the material that has been covered in lecture, I can now look back at this experience and think about how the audience reacts to the medium and why they act that way. This entire experience and it came to be can be shown through Sullivan’s idea of the power of the media, he states that power involves the ability of one party to alter the decisions made and experienced by another (Sullivan p. 19). My friend was introduced to the group because every time we were in the car I forced her to listen to one of their songs as I drove her home from school. Since then she also was interested in the group, so when I saw the opportunity to go and see them preform live there was no question, I bought the tickets. She was going regardless. Even when comparing the idea of the audience, and how it has changed through history much has stayed the same. Audience as a crowd which referred to the working class commoners which gathered at specific times and places to experience some form routinized behaviour (Sullivan p. 13). In this case, while it is not just for the working class anymore it is still very similar to this definition. Usually to maintain some fairness in the idea of a concert, there is a set list that does not change, so there is a certain level of predictability to a concert, there are still small changes made to make it appear like it is not the same show played over and over again. Essentially a crowd is gathering at a specific time and place for a show to be put on. Even during the concert there can be a modern form of media propaganda, in the sense of vendors trying to sell you merchandise with the groups, name or logo or even pictures on it, which are meant to be worn and act as walking billboard and essentially free advertisement While media propaganda typically refers to “disseminate or promote particular ideas” (Sullivan p. 36). It does work for concerts, the merchandise is a way to promote the band or group which ca help the popularity of the group grow.

 Works Cited

Sullivan, J. (2013). Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power. Sage Publications Inc., New York, NY.