The Potential Dangers of Parasocial Relationships

In 2020, the world saw many popular content creators get outed for being secretly predatory and manipulative individuals. These content creators were people that millions of young kids around the world looked up to, adored, and likely grew to trust. I’m sure that almost all of us, especially when we were younger, had some sort of celebrity or general influencer that we looked up to. At young ages, we grow to admire and idolize people who we usually have had no direct communication with whatsoever. It becomes dangerously easy to form a fictional ‘connection’ with someone who has absolutely no idea who you are. Now, I’m not saying that any sort of infatuation or admiration you may have for a ‘celebrity’ is wrong or isn’t normal in any way. Studies have even shown that we as humans are wired in some ways to make these types of connections when we encounter different people; however, what we’ve seen recently are influencers abusing the trust their young fans have for them in order to exploit them. It is at this point when these relationships become increasingly dangerous and unhealthy. It is time to educate more young kids around the world on their dangers as a whole. 

The concept of these one-sided relationships is called parasocial relationships. These are relationships or friendships where only one party is technically committing energy or directly involved.  In terms of social media, where this is most prominent, the image or persona of a celebrity is twisted into something that is likeable and relatable, regardless of whether or not that persona is an accurate reflection of the real person. Over the past year or so, these types of ‘relationships’ have become increasingly unsafe when it comes to content creators on different platforms like Youtube, Twitch, and especially Tik Tok. 

The reason that these types of influencers have tended to be more problematic is due to the fact that they typically create many more avenues of direct communication with their younger fans than your average musician or actor through platforms like Discord, Reddit, and Snapchat. This was seen just recently with popular Youtuber CallMeCarson who got exposed for using his platform and influence as a creator to have a predatory relationship with a 17-year-old over Discord. This has also happened on Tik Tok recently. Both Ondreas and Tony Lopez, brothers and creators with millions of followers on the platform, have faced substantial accusations of acting inappropriately with underage fans. Zoe Laverne, another influencer on Tik Tok, blatantly admitted to having a relationship with a 13-year-old boy. Time and time again, these creators, who have been put on a pedestal and idolized by young people for one reason or another, use their standing to do disgusting things, and grossly take advantage of those who cherish them. 

These events are obviously extremely problematic, but perhaps another disturbing part of this is how the fan bases of these influencers consistently react. Whenever someone gets outed within a community, it is far from uncommon to see their young fans often rush to their defense, offering them misplaced words of forgiveness and support. To this day, people like the Lopez brothers and Zoe Larverne are still not banned from Tik Tok, and they actually now get the majority of their support from the very same demographic that they once exploited. Far too much focus and attention is given to the feelings of the predators in these situations as opposed to the victims. The thought of it is stomach-churning, and it enforces that idea that fondness or affection for these celebrities can horribly cloud people’s moral judgement. It presents another potential consequence that an unhealthy devotion to someone who you don’t know can have.

This behavior has also been present in many communities outside of TikTok. In July of 2020, ZeRo, one of the greatest Super Smash Brothers players of all-time, was outed as having had inappropriate conversations with a 14-year old fan when he was 19. Instead of his fans condemning him, many of them went as far as attempting to attack and harass his accuser on Twitter. Even though it may not be entirely their faults, young fans are actually enabling these people to continue on in some forms without grasping the severities of their actions. Whether it be denial or sheer infatuation, kids will go out of their way to defend the character of predators who they simply don’t know as people. These actions can not only stop these predators from being held accountable, but they can also intimidate other victims from coming out with their stories as well, due to fear of excessive harassment on social media. To see so many people quickly excuse or defend literal sex crimes because they idolize the influencer that they’ve never met is terrifying. It reflects an apparent lack of education on the topic, and it does a great disservice to the victims in these situations.

I know how it feels to see one of your favorite creators get exposed as being not the person you thought they were. ZeRo was someone that I watched since I was as young as 12-years-old. Seeing how someone could go from being dirt poor in a country like Chile to being a millionaire in their 20s in America through hard work and dedication was inspiring. I had thought so highly of him for so long, so seeing the accusations slowly come to the surface was nothing short of devastating. However, through reading up on the stories of his victims it became difficult to deny or downplay his actions. While there was a small part of me that wanted to believe what he did was just some mistake from the past, I ultimately knew that even attempting to rationalize those actions would not be morally reprehensible because I had been educated on topics like this by adults in the past. It is because of this education that I knew not to let my admiration for some foreign internet personality cloud my basic, moral judgement when it comes to these situations. I believe if we have the conversations to educate people on the significance of these crimes, and the impacts they can have on others, then more of these predators will be held accountable, and other people be dissuaded from repeating the same atrocities in the future. We can stop putting these polarizing figures on pedestals, and remember that they are no-less susceptible to doing horrible things than ordinary people are. People will hopefully act with more sympathy and focus towards the victims, rather than attempting to rationalize the actions of the abuser that they formed a connection with online. 

 Through many different situations and examples, it has become evident that parasocial relationships, and the idolization of content creators in general can lead to many devastating and varied consequences. While it’d be nice if we could just simply encourage the content creators themselves to establish boundaries and be good, positive influencers, the sad truth is that in doing so, we will likely encourage situations like these to happen again in the future. When so many people have substantial influence over large groups of people, it is inevitable that at least a select few will selfishly abuse that influence to do wrong in some ways. The best step to take moving forward would be to educate children and young teens around the world about the dangers of parasocial relationships, and take the steps necessary so that younger people act with caution, and so that those with a large standing in society are universally held accountable for their actions. It is unfortunate that some of the burden in this situation has to be on the potential victims. However, through this, people can hopefully end up being more cautious in these situations, thus preventing more dangerous interactions from happening in the future. For far too long we have allowed victims to be silenced by the mass influence that their abusers have. We need to be the generation that stops the selfish cycle of tolerating heinous crimes from popular influencers for the sole reason that we enjoy the entertainment that they provide us.

By Kailen Hicks