I have my high school friends, my college friends, and then I have my celebrity friends: Ellen, the Karsashians, Snooki, all the girls on Desperate Housewives, and of course Meredith and Christina from Grey’s Anatomy. I define my relationships with the celebrities as normal, totally rational friendships. However, pop culture labels my friendships as parasocial relationships. Parasocial relationships are defined as one-sided friendships.
Even though I knew Ellen reads my blog posts, and the Kardashians appreciate my feedback on their clothing line, pop culture says that my friendship with the celebrities is one-sided, and that the celebrities do not really acknowledge that I exist. How did I get so attached to all my celebrity girlfriends? Marshall McLuhan coined a famous term, “The Medium is the Message”.
I doubt I would be best friends with the Kardashians and Snooki if their life story was written as an autobiography and placed on one of the many shelves in Barnes and Noble. The fact that their messages and stories were sent through the television (also known as the medium) is the reason I tuned into their stories. In other terms, the television was more important that the actual message that was being portrayed. “The Medium is the Message” is also apart of the media-centered perspective.
My celebrity girlfriends also play a trick on me, which pop culture so kindly pointed out. Commodification occurs when one is easily influenced. Since Snooki’s signature “hair pouf” is so popular at the clubs, I began styling my hair with a poof. Ellen is addicted to cat photos, so I will search google in the hopes of finding the cutest cat picture and posting it on Ellen’s blog. My parasocial relationships were built through a medium, that now influence the way I shape my reality.
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