Jaz

Parasocial relationships are a phenomenon that's been studied since about the 1950s. It comes to traditional media like, anchors in TV news and also in radio.

It basically started as a media, as a marketing and communications phenomenon. And so the idea if, well, like we actually do in podcasting, if I'm looking into the camera or if I'm talking to the audience, if I can give them the perception that they're there in mind and I'm speaking to them, that it leads the audience to, to feel engaged, and to start developing what's called parasocial relationship.

So I don't know if you're familiar with, like, the parody anchorman, but he has that phrase at the end of every time he closes the show is like, stay classy, San Diego. Like he's talking directly to the audience and the like. Build this trust with him. So people tune in when there's high, high competition between personalities and presenters.

Then we want to build a little bit of that connection with the audience. And it's, it's started to lead more and more to the marketing teams behind, various productions to say you know, you should just you should give a little bit more information about you personally. You should tell the story, but then you should have a personal remark about it.

So starting to build an audience perception of authenticity and trust. And ultimately it's what it's really leading to. Or in this, kind of regional setting setting in terms of marketing is having purchase intent. The more I know this person, the more I identify with them. I kind of trust them. And so I'll become a loyal, a loyal viewer.

So all these little interactions, these, they're called parasocial interactions. When I say listeners at home or when Ron Burgundy says stay classy, San Diego, those built up over time. The presenter is sending a one to many message to all of the audience, but the intention is for the person at home to start to perceive a 1 to 1 connection.

And a parasocial relationship is when these when these interactions build up and the audience member, starts to have a, a unilateral. So it's one way, but a sense of a dynamic social and psychological connection with the presenter. So we see this in talkback radio, that idea of having people call in, having a limited interaction but feeling connected, connected to the show.

So things like, you know, long time listener, first time caller. But it's yeah, really, really relevant when it comes to social media influencers and the way that they show that in the show is, where we're kind of led to think that Belle and Miller have an established relationship, and we see a lot of their interaction where Belle is commenting on Miller's posts online, liking things like referring to his babes the whole time, setting up this slack connection between the two of them, and then partway through the series, when Bell meets Miller for the first time, face to face audience is kind of surprised.

But that that interesting set up of actually this whole time where Bell has been following and admiring and feeling connected to Miller. But the whole time Miller doesn't really know who Bell is. And social media is kind of really influential in this way in that or different from traditional media, because there is this perceived interaction where I could have a parasocial relationship with someone on social media and they might like my comments, they might repost them.

All of that is going to build up my sense of relationship and connection to them. But ultimately, I have more of a connection to them than they have to me

Erica
I was just thinking about what that means in terms of building trust. So and I guess this is I'm thinking about it in the context of the kind of health decisions that people are making and the trust that they have in these wellness influencers. And, that kind of parasocial relationship is very key to that, that trust and and trust is a very strong driver, one of the strongest drivers in how people make decisions about their health care.

So, it it can be very dangerous if, if it's used in the wrong way.

Jaz
So, of course, what we're seeing with Belle from the way that the show is framed around her mental health and fantasy and all these things in this example is particularly negative, but broadly speaking, is not a negative phenomenon.

51% of people have at least one social parasocial relationship. And in social media, I can connect with people that I really do have real world relationships with and the same platform that I can connect with, people that I don't personally know in the same kind of ways and have access to them.

And we know, through research on parasocial relationships that, influencers use different platforms to kind of drip feed information about themselves. How realistic it is is questionable. But with Bell and a range of other influencers, there's this perception of, this is one of my peers, this is someone who's gone through what I'm going through or what a person I care about is going through, and I think we'll touch on this later.

So I won't go into detail about, you know, where people want to get trusted information. But I will say that the research on parasocial relationships says they don't develop between a person and someone talking on a topic that the person who formed the parasocial relationship wasn't already interested in. They're going out to seek that community they going out to look for.

Where they have been maybe marginalized. There is a bunch of research that shows how important parasocial relationships have been for different, marginalized groups, where you're not seeing in your own community folks who look like you, folks who've had had, experiences that you've had. And so it can be really protective, like there's a lot of research that shows it builds social support in the absence of real world support, which I think we'll probably talk a bit about as well.

Belle wasn't getting the social support from her networks that she, she might have otherwise gotten.

Erica
Yeah. That's a really good point Jaz. And I think, and just like unconscious that I made that comment before about those wellness influencers, it being potentially dangerous, that level of trust that people can have and that really comes from the type of message that the influencers giving, around health. And I guess an example of that is looking at the type of treatment that Mila chose to have and sort of touching on what you talked about, too, Suzie emotion, being involved in a lot of that as well.

And I think, I think, when people enter into these relationships, they're going into it in good faith that the people that they're engaging with are giving them, you know, good advice. And they can trust that person. And, and that's where the danger is. Yeah.

Jaz
A couple of things that are interesting from the parasocial relationship. Let's external to influencers. And one is what well, broadly, the spaces where people start to form parasocial relationships tend to be around beauty and wellness and most often influencers, gamers, actors, singers and athletes. And interestingly, you don't have to be human.

That can be animal influencers or animal profiles on social media that folks really get a sense that they start to know this animal and are connected with this animal, but also fictional characters. So research is pretty consistently shown that folks who develop parasocial relationships with characters that they connect with, that they have a sense of social connection and that, it makes them feel like a scene.

And the kinds of questions in, in, surveys, if we're trying to assess whether someone has developed a parasocial relationship is, you know, true or false or how likely we agree with things like occasionally I wonder if X is similar to me or not. For me, X could be the perfect partner. If I knew X in real life and trust them completely.

So obviously that's really concerning with two things. The group is raised here, right? And if I knew X in real life, I could disclose positive thoughts about myself honestly and fully to them. And so this is a continuum we're talking about here. But I mean, I'm not going to ask you to necessarily disclose, but I know that this fictional characters or folks who I've thought I had a real sense that I know them and I just trust them.

I want to buy that product. I've been a bit of an Apple product fangirl for about 15 years, and I can put that down to Jony Ive, the head of design. Apple led the way in having the designer of the company do ads, where he spoke about what he was passionate about and the technology behind that. And they're all up close.

Shots is very charming, very good looking man talking about product development. And I, I fully bought into that. This is a boutique product. This is something that they really care about. It's artisanal. Of course we know. We know now that's not the case. Or if we know the show Parks and Rec, then who ends up with Leslie?

I would be friends with Ben. I know I have a parasocial relationship. I see this character, and I think Ben would be a great friend. I would have a drink with him. So, of course not all people develop these, but I. Yeah, I found this. I've always found some really interesting topic. And with interesting to see that come out, for better or worse in this show.

So I do want to kind of finish out that part before we move on by saying, if you're interested in this kind of topic, and also thinking about when that relationship breaks down because that's ultimately what's happened to you. Right? Belle had, deceived and broken a relationship in a trust with a lot of people who cared a lot about her and the things that she was talking about.

The light hearted version of that is this book. There's a chapter in here that's called This sandwich is morally problematic, but it's also delicious. Can I still eat it? That's actually by the writer of Parks and Rec and various other TV shows. And what happens when you have a fandom or an interest in someone who ends up morally letting you down?

For a much more serious, deep dive that, I think is pretty important at the moment. Is this one, clear data, monsters. What we do with great art by bad people. There's a whole chapter on fandom and about the commercialization of your fandom to to buy a product. And I picked this book up because I wanted to know how to have conversations and think about artists who I had previously valued, who through the MeToo movement, turned out to be folks that I no longer wanted to to be interested in or enjoy their art anymore.

So thank you.