Parasocial Relationship

Parasocial relationships refer to one-sided relationships in which a person develops a strong sense of connection, intimacy, or familiarity with someone they don’t know, most often celebrities or media personalities.

The term was coined by psychologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl in 1956 when televisions became widely available, they noted that TV viewers began to develop the “illusion of intimacy” with the characters on the screen.

They are cultivated intentionally as a part of a marketing strategy used by social media influencers to create brand loyalty to their personality as opposed to a consumer good.