Feel a Connection to a Celebrity You’ve Never Met? Your Bond May Be 'Parasocial,' Which Is Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2025
Feel a Connection to a Celebrity You’ve Never Met? Your Bond May Be 'Parasocial,' Which Is Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2025
Feel a Connection to a Celebrity You’ve Never Met? Your Bond May Be 'Parasocial,' Which Is Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2025
The term is used to describe "a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know," according to the dictionary
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The concept dates back to 1956, when American sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl came up with the term “para-social” to describe the relationships some viewers formed with TV personalities. Decades later, viewers are still forming parasocial relationships with TV personalities, but they’re also forming them with influencers, content creators, actors, musicians and other individuals in the public eye.
A parasocial relationship involves an “illusion of friendship,” Elizabeth Perse, a former communications scholar at the University of Delaware, told USA Today’s Elise Brisco in 2021. Sometimes, these relationships can become “unhealthy and intense,” says Simone Schnall, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge, in the statement.