Photos & Videos Nicholas Hamilton

Para-social. I’m unclear on this term being tossed around so much. Probably because I employ comparatively little of it myself. Isn’t the entire point of social media to engage with it; to foist ourselves on other people and to be up to our necks in other people’s business because that’s how we validate ourselves now? Aren’t you meant to feel you have a relationship with the user you’re e-stalking?
Yes, basically. Some people like throwing the term out accusatorily as if it's negative or disturbing, but it literally is just a term to describe the way social media works. Just like any 'relationship' with a person, there are good, bad, and unstable versions. For example, young people often have unstable parasocial relationships with online personalities because they're unstable pubescent fools (as most of us were) and cannot differenciate properly

Just being a fan and wanting to know normal and public information about a personality isn't unhinged at all, it's just a normal parasocial fan relationship
 
why did he do that :‘)
Because it looks better and it's also summer. Pretty normal for preppy guys like him to shave most of their body hair in the summer. Body hair traps sweat, which in turn traps b.o, it's why guys shave their pits
 
Yes, basically. Some people like throwing the term out accusatorily as if it's negative or disturbing, but it literally is just a term to describe the way social media works. Just like any 'relationship' with a person, there are good, bad, and unstable versions. For example, young people often have unstable parasocial relationships with online personalities because they're unstable pubescent fools (as most of us were) and cannot differenciate properly

Just being a fan and wanting to know normal and public information about a personality isn't unhinged at all, it's just a normal parasocial fan relationship
You don't have to be young to act like an unstable pubescent fool online.
 
parasocial is NEVER normal. That's the point.
Actually:

In 2006, researchers David Giles and John Maltby categorized parasocial relationships into three subcategories: entertainment-social, intense-personal, and borderline-pathological. The main factor that distinguishes these different types of relationships is how much control the person has over their feelings. While parasocial relationships are sometimes portrayed as toxic, some researchers say they can be overwhelmingly positive for fans.

It is literally, as I said, just providing a definition for normal fan/personality relationships with the added benefit of subcategories, one of which is toxic.

For example, my relationship to Nic is 'entertainment social' because I really enjoy his content and his social personality, but I don't know him, never will, and am fine with that.