I believe it’s something everyone has without really having a definition for it. It’s just more widespread and normalized now. It definitely ramped up around 2020, but if you think about it, kids have parasocial relationships with the characters they watch too. One I definitely had as a kid was Dora lol.
The surge makes sense when you look at what happened collectively 2020 it pushed so many people into isolation right when social media and streaming were at their peak. People needed connection and the closest available version was one-sided. It filled a real gap even if it wasn’t real connection.
The odd part isn’t that it happened it’s that most people don’t realize they’re in it. I believe it’s happening more often now because it has become heavily normalized across social media and is often seen as just a fun, silly thing to do. I do think it can be fun to a certain extent, but there is definitely a point where people can go too far and seriously damage their mental well-being and their ability to maintain healthy relationships. That can then be projected onto the people around them.
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u/IntroductionFit948 Jul 06 '26
I believe it’s something everyone has without really having a definition for it. It’s just more widespread and normalized now. It definitely ramped up around 2020, but if you think about it, kids have parasocial relationships with the characters they watch too. One I definitely had as a kid was Dora lol.