Parasocial Relationships and Story

Some loose facts:

• People are increasingly aggressive about defending and attacking authors, franchises and works.

• A parasocial relationship is where someone can attach feelings and intimacy to someone they have never met through the one-way mirror of media: we know infinitely more about <celebrity> where they've probably never even heard of <me> and yet we can bond with them in a sort of relationship.

• The act of writing, making, producing, curating or otherwise creating is an intimate outward act.

• People in an internet age are increasingly isolated and unsocial, creating deep yearning for intimacy.

Are people defensive over these works not because the entertainment is so strong (it isn't) but that the intimacy of the parasocial bond to those works is so deep?

Are we so hungry for these sorts of connections that the proliferation of widely varied creative works allows for everyone to sort of have their own unique relationships across perhaps multiple parasocial sources? The sources have to be weaker than 'real' ones, but we can supplant that with holding more of them?

We know the filter of nostalgia and personal meaning is deeper than the text at face value: there's no way that many people genuinely like Star Wars: a New Hope for what it actually is as much as they remember it in theaters or on VHS and there's that fuzzy warmth of pining for earlier days and the simplicity of earlier lifestyles and so on and so on. It's just not really that good of a movie by itself.

But I think our relationships to modern media might be similar: the parasocial relationship towards youtubers and twitch streamers borders on personal, you might see your 'friend' every day and start to learn every aspect of their lives as it unfurls in front of you, in front of everyone - each of us feeling uniquely intimate to the thing because we both cannot see the millions of people beside us consuming the same stories AND there's no real way to feel the awkwardness of a one-way relationship because the camera never allows the author to look at us and say 'sorry, I've never seen you before' in a way that face-to-face interactions might lead to disappointment, to the illusion shattering.

Yet, the tribal mechanism for being one of those million who likes <thing> together is powerful: there's lines drawn in the sand and sides taken every day in every comments section. In the same way we defend our genuine friend or family's honour, we rise to the call of defending these works.

And in the end, I wonder if they're still insufficient. We're trying to drink from the stone and what few dew drops we can lap up from these things leaves us ever thirstier. We remain lonely. We remain alone. The youtuber on the screen in front of us, the netflix account, the Criterion Collection blurays, the books and action figures and instagrammers, podcasts and games - we're still just here, by ourselves, feeling the smallest of dopamine hits from these things. Enough to keep coming back, not enough to be sated.

I think we'll see more of these, certainly, and maybe they're learn the wiser meta of how to specifically game these feelings like I think we've already seen some deft forefront media types do. I wonder if there's ever a point where it'll become truly useful? Truly satisfying? Is it inherently less than real and will never compare? Or perhaps there is a point where they start to become genuinely good in themselves, perhaps more useful than 'real' intimacy could be.

It's curious that the sex rate goes down anywhere there's more internet. That people work less now and often simply opt out of the entire game: what's the point if they can get those quick hits from a screen for basically free vs the whole process of the outside? Though, when we interview them and watch those documentaries, none of them seem happy as much as they've just given up and this is the lowest common denominator version of getting something in the direction of that satisfaction. Those dew drops. I'm not sure the media is good enough yet to truly work. It's just good enough to have those effects. Worth noting in ourselves, anyway. It'll be curious to see how it all shakes out in a few decades.