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The Benefits of Parasocial Relationships | TIME

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I’ve been juggling parasocial relationships for most of my life. As a newly online kid in the 1990s, I downloaded programs that helped me make fan art featuring my favorite bands: Dashboard Confessional, Something Corporate, and Blink-182. Now, a couple decades later, I refer to these artists by their first names (Chris, Andrew, Mark) to my friends and family and passionately defend them on internet forums. Thanks to TikTok and Instagram, I can tell you with authority what their kitchens look like, what their dogs are named, and what they put in their morning smoothies. Is it any wonder I feel like I know them? Internet arbiters might call me unhinged or tell me to get a (better) hobby. But actually, experts say, parasocial relationships aren’t nearly as toxic as public perception makes them out to be. Decades of research suggest that they’re good for the majority of people who engage in them—and for the celebrities on the other side. “I fell into studying fandom because I became a pas

I’ve been juggling parasocial relationships for most of my life. As a newly online kid in the 1990s, I downloaded programs that helped me make fan art featuring my favorite bands: Dashboard Confessional, Something Corporate, and Blink-182. Now, a couple decades later, I refer to these artists by their first names (Chris, Andrew, Mark) to my friends and family and passionately defend them on internet forums. Thanks to TikTok and Instagram, I can tell you with authority what their kitchens look like, what their dogs are named, and what they put in their morning smoothies. Is it any wonder I feel

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