Cambridge Dictionary named ‘parasocial’ the word of the year for 2025. Are parasocial relationships totally fine, or not that great? What happens when you see that person at the supermarket? Plus how does social media play into it? Sarah Lang talks to the world’s leading authority on parasocial relationships, who also answers some reader questions
What does the term ‘parasocial relationships’ mean to you? I think of them as one-sided connections that people form with celebrities, media personalities or sportspeople, often via TV, films, or social media.
I consider Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords one of the world’s most entertaining men. I was actually introduced to him once and just started giggling like a nutbar.
Also, I follow some former cast members from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette on Instagram (I know, I know). They’re definitely parasocial relationships.
I also love watching cricket, and kinda feel like I know Mitch Santner (strategic and funny), Glenn Phillips (a superhuman fielder) and Rachin Ravindra (affable and humble). Rachin helped my son take a selfie with him at a cricket game, and Theo ran back to me and said “Mum, Rachin touched your phone“.
You can also have a parasocial relationship with a fictional character. The women who host the podcast Real Or Not Real about The Hunger Games definitely have a parasocial relationship with Katniss Everdeen. And I think I do too.
Parasocial History
I spoke over Zoom to Professor Gayle S. Stever, Professor of Psychology at Empire State University of New York. She’s a world-leading expert on this subject. Her book Understanding Parasocial Relationships came out on April 28, outlining the extensive history of parasocial studies and analysing core psychological principles surrounding the subject, including psychological, developmental and attachment theories.
Parasocial relationships aren’t a new phenomenon by any means. The term was coined by psychologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl in 1956.
“Horton and Wall were looking at talk-show hosts,” Gayle says. “They were studying late-night television where you’re in the intimacy of your own home and there’s an illusion of a circle of people talking. So television was creating this illusion of interaction.”
Emotional Connection?
I ask Gayle about a definition that I read in a Psychology Today article: that “parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships where an individual feels a strong emotional connection to a media figure such as a celebrity, fictional character or someone on social media”.
That’s largely correct, Gayle says. “I think the best definition is that a parasocial relationship is non-reciprocal. As in, ‘I know them, and they don’t know me back’.” And that doesn’t have to be emotionally intense. “A parasocial relationship can just be someone you admire.”
“There are some other features of parasocial relationships that aren’t defining but are frequently found. Often the person is of higher status. Often they’re not accessible by ordinary means. So it isn’t just that they don’t know you, but that you wouldn’t know how to reach out to them. And now social media is changing that. It’s started to give us ways to get to know and be known.”
She mentions Cameo. “You pay your favourite celebrity to do a video for you – say, for a birthday or even just to ask a question. Cameo is just another form of social media. It’s just one that people are paying for.”
She says with a chuckle that James Ortiz, who voices the puppet alien Rocky in the film Project Hail Mary, is doing cameos. “I’m kind of laughing at the idea of buying a cameo from a puppet. But it’s fun! You’re engaging in an experience you enjoy. It’s part of the creative, fun part of life. It’s entertainment. Sometimes a parasocial relationship is a form of escapism, and sometimes you feel an affinity for that person. Maybe you identify with them.”
Good or Bad?
Gayle cannot stress enough that by far the majority of parasocial relationships are a positive thing. “I think the people who want to portray parasocial relationships in some sort of negative light are often media pundits looking for a soundbite. I’ll give you an example. Cambridge Dictionary named ‘parasocial’ its word of the year for 2025, and CNN came out with a headline that put the word ‘unhealthy’ in there even though there’s absolutely no research evidence to support what they were saying.”
“Sure, there are times it can spill over into an extreme. For example, people can become overly invested to the point where they’re paying for Cameos they can’t afford.”
I ask her if she agrees with The Atlantic’s description that “parasocial relationships are just imaginary friends for adults”.
“Well, I like the word imaginary. An anthropologist in the 1980s wrote a book called Imaginary Social Worlds. He was talking about parasocial relationships, calling them imaginary social relationships. The notion that something’s happening in your imagination is a key element of a parasocial relationship.”
“People make the mistake of saying, ‘well, it’s in your imagination, it’s not real’. I’d argue back that every single thing that has been invented, that exists, started out as something in someone’s imagination. So imagination is the foundation of reality.”
Speaking of imagination,what about parasocial relationships with fictional characters like Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games? “When your parasocial relationship is with a real-life celebrity, there’s the potential to be known back. It can happen. But obviously with a fictional character, that’s never going to happen because the characters only exist in your imagination.”
Gayle says that can actually be a springboard for creativity – for instance, writing fan fiction, doing fan artwork or making fan videos. “Tumblr is a social-media platform where people put up their creative fan stuff. Whether it’s on Tumblr, or other social media, you can connect with other fans of a fictional character, or of a celebrity.”
“But honestly, parasocial relationships with characters have been gone on as long as there have been books.”
Ah, yes, Mr Darcy.
Only Lonely?
Do parasocial relationships help with or worsen loneliness?
“One of the early theories was that if you were lonely, you were more likely to form a parasocial relationship. Study after study has completely debunked that. People who aren’t lonely are just as likely to form parasocial relationships as people who are. I think there have always been lots of parasocial relationships. What’s new, due to social media, is their accessibility. Social media hasn’t been a catalyst for parasocial relationships – it’s been a catalyst for the potential to interact.”
I’ve interacted on social media with my favourite podcaster and YouTube content creator Dave Neal, and even contacted him about a story I was writing. That’s still a parasocial relationship though, right?
“Well, in 2024 David Giles and I co-authored a book called Parasocial Experiences. When social media came into play, that’s when we started thinking of social to parasocial as a continuum. Pure parasocial is absolutely no interaction. But when you have limited interaction, which social media often affords, it moves closer to the centre of the continuum. I actually have a really close friend that started out as a parasocial relationship I had.”
As for me giggling upon meeting Jemaine Clement, I can testify that that was embarrassing, but is that weird? Nope, Gayle says. “That’s absolutely an authentic, typical reaction.” She became tongue-tied once in front of someone.
Can You Go Too Far?
Are there downsides to parasocial relationships? “Well, one area of psychological research that’s interesting is called celebrity worship.” For between 3% to 5% of people, celebrity interest can be bad.
“There’s an element of the ability to go too far, if people just get in over their heads with their connection to somebody – to the point that maybe they’ve stopped using their rational brain and are only responding emotionally to this person.”
“It can be borderline pathological celebrity worship – for example, if your favourite celebrity asked you to do something illegal for you, you would do it.” (Example, January 6.)
One chapter in her book is about parasocial breakups. “There’s the parasocial breakup when your favourite TV show is cancelled, like with late-night talk-show host Stephen Colbert. Another kind of parasocial breakup is when a celebrity acts out in a negative way and you decide you don’t like them anymore. And when a celebrity passes away, and you experience some parasocial grief, that’s a form of parasocial breakup.” She felt that after Princess Diana and Heath Ledger died. “We haven’t just lost the person. We’ve lost their future work and their presence in the world.”
Q&As
I put some Capsule reader questions to Gayle.
A reader: “I followed this woman who has a podcast. I forget we’re not friends in real life. I saw her in the supermarket once and smiled at her like, ‘oh, that’s my friend’. And then remembered, no, she doesn’t know me.”
Gayle: “That’s a completely normal reaction. There’s a part of your brain that doesn’t differentiate people you know in real life from people you know through media. So there’s a sort of ingrained human instinct to gravitate to the familiar person.”
Another reader: “An influencer came up on my social media. I started following her because she was funny. She posts a lot and I feel like I know her, but we’ve never interacted. One night my partner was looking at my phone and said, ‘who is that?’. And I was too embarrassed to explain.”
Gayle: “Honestly, we all have media figures whose work we gravitate toward. It’s a normal thing.”
Another reader: “It’s tragic that I think I have all these friends, but they’re just influencers I know everything about and they don’t even know I exist.”
Gayle: “I think it’s normal. I mean, a person needs balance in their life. And if they’re consuming too much media, that has nothing to do with that parasocial relationships; it just has to do with the way they’re budgeting their time.”
“The origin of the embarrassment these readers feel might be that many media outlets try to pathologise having parasocial relationships.”
When actually, they are, by far primarily positive.
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About the Author:
Sarah Lang is Capsule’s feature writer. Her Deep Dives cover topics of real importance to NZ women, including the pink tax, pay equity, perimenopause, our ongoing series The Motherhood Penalty, and our What Working Women Really Want series. Her journalistic mantras are ‘make the invisible visible’ and ‘people like to read about people’. She is up for personal assignments like meeting her ‘future self’ via AI, enjoys a good rant, and has several popular-culture obsessions (ask her anything about The Bachelor!).
Sarah began her career 20 years ago at North & South magazine, winning several awards, then going on to freelance for stand-alone and newspaper-insert magazines including Canvas, Listener, Reader’s Digest, Monocle and website The Spinoff. She lives in Wellington with her husband and son.
You can read other stories by Sarah here or email her here.
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