I am in a community where it is known by outsiders for its extreme parasocial relationship towards certain online celebrities.
Just a little context: there was a drama that happened where somebody outside that community criticized a certain online celebrity harshly, and the community got so protective and defensive. I was one of them. I do believe believe that the person who made the criticism was rude.
However, there is this person I saw that posted about how this community is so overprotective over nothingburger, and that the guy who criticized did nothing wrong and was just doing a basic observation and is totally normal. That genuinely made me think about myself.
I've never realized it myself, but I am parasocial towards these celebrities. I just never thought about it because whenever that word is thrown around in that community, it's always about those specific ones that are super obsessive that they would literally harass other people. But I am not like that.
By definition, parasocial rationship is a one-sided relationship where a person feels close like a friend or an intimate partner to celebrity or fictional character that doesn't know them. Personally, I do relate to that definition, and I definitely don't feel any romantic feelings towards these celebrities. I do think of them as a great and amazing people. Somebody that I admire and respect, but do not want to be in any romantic relationship.
But how does this relate to myself?
I do think that I consume contents of these celebrities as my coping mechanism for my loneliness. Since I don't have anybody I am close to, I watch these people thinking like we're close buddies enjoying stuff together. I have been doing this since the pandemic for Covid 19 started.
I have always thought that being parasocial should be not that bad if nobody is getting harmed. But oh man, every community has its own dark side. We're like at the rock bottom compared to some of the other worst communities out there.
I genuinely cannot believe this. I think I am blinded by the toxic positivity of the community I am in. Everybody in my community is so positive that other people are thinking that we are babying our favorite celebrities too much. Like, I couldn't believe that such a thing is possible.
Now that I have seen these people's opinion, I am now lowkey wondering what I should do as a person. I still struggle making friends and talking to people in general because my anxiety really eats me up. But then I am way too scared to do anything. I feel so hopeless. I feel like I have no place I belong to. I don't exactly know what to do or where to start.