Hot take: Social media is the means by which all relationships become parasocial. Even if you know a personal IRL, your interaction with them online is asymmetrical, because you only ever interact with a curated version of them: affection directed toward a shadow.
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I'm mostly thinking of the big social media platforms here. For instance, my primary interaction with Facebook or Instagram is a passive, unidirectional "like" -- reducing the social to the parasocial -- whereas Messenger, while limited in its own ways, is a two-way street.
I think Twitter provides a good range of examples: The comments under a celebrity's post are typically parasocial; smaller friend groups are social; but often the division is blurred, as mid-sized accounts effect an appearance of intimacy through maintenance of a personal brand.
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'Blurred' is the crucial term here. I think "all relationships become parasocial" is far too general to include the variety of ways people navigate their digital relationships. The argument seems to fall into a trap of extrapolating universality from particulars.
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Agreed. I'm sweating under the heat of my own hot take here. I guess my main concern is the growing commodification of personhood in general. Social networks prioritise the creation of a personal brands, and exploit the language of authentic relationships to thrive on misery.
End of conversation
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