parasocial isn't a bad thing

So, as I was saying, I was swimming by the cliffs. Every day, walking up and down the coast I found new places to dive in. I got interested in high diving—something I had been too much of a coward to do as a kid. I felt a childish excitement for water. The kids on the beach would look at me, whisper, and laugh. That is one of the pleasures of... See more

but whether parasocial content is desirable or not, it points to a growing crisis on the internet: So much of what we encounter online just doesn’t matter , and even worse, offers no mechanism for us to start caring about it. The average human living today sees more things they don’t care about in one week than a medieval peasant did in their... See more

And while it’s tempting to dismiss it as a shallow trick to boost engagement, I’ve come to view it slightly more charitably. Cultivating the parasocial by attaching one’s face or voice to the content itself is a powerful way to make people care more about something—effective marketing if not a source of underlying quality. As AI normalizes the idea... See more