as kpop stans, we gotta stop using the word “parasocial” for everything.

I’m going to get the meaning of the word straight since I’m pretty sure y’all started using this word ever since Tiktok picked it up and it has went into K-pop spaces. A parasocial relationship is a word typically used upon therapists to describe someone with an emotional connection with a celebrity, a sports team, or even a fictional character. In other words, it just a fancy word for ”a fan” if I gotta be real with you. That means, yes. YOU are in a parasocial relationship! If you’re someone who has found K-pop via a song you were recommended and thought: “Hmm… I really like this genre, I should really get into it more… and maybe support them and recommend it to my friends” then my friend, you have entered parasocialism. And not just you, so many other people are in a parasocial relationship in some way shape or form. You like reading books and you have a favourite character? You’re in a parasocial relationship with that character! You watched a film where you felt represented because you saw a character with vitiligo for the first time? That’s the parasocial connection. Heck, your favourite football team is Liverpool? Congratulations on winning the premier league last year… but you’re also parasocial! As you can see, parasocial relationships can come in many forms — and majority of the time, it can be positive and doesn’t affect your life in any way shape or form! However, it can turn negative if it’s impacting your mental health, you start to detach yourself from reality, or you’re at risk of hurting yourself or others. This is called extreme parasocial relationships, and if it gets to that point, this is when you may need to seek a therapist before it goes out of hand and someone pays the price… including yourself. Unfortunately, Tiktok has found this therapy word (like it did with many others) and generalised it to mean something negative that they can say to people that they don’t like. What I mean is that, they narrowed it down to mean the serious cases of parasocial relationships (stalking, sasaengs, etc) and used it to insult anyone they deem as “cringe” just because they didn’t agree with the way they want to be a fan. 9/10, this involves K-pop fans who openly have a crush on a K-pop idol, which is something that is frowned upon nowadays despite not all cases being the severe cases but rather someone who just wanted to make a silly video for fun, then it blows out of proportion and the wrong viewers sent hate towards them like it was an insult to their eyes. The first thing I thought about was the fact that, this feels like Tiktok’s version of calling someone “obsessed” when it comes to boy groups. This isn’t a new phenomenon, as the idea of teenage girls and young women having crushes on celebrities has always been frowned upon. Based on patterns of behaviours I’ve seen all my life, sexism and misogyny has always been on my mind. Due to how women are always seen as the emotional ones, people like to make it seem like girls who are crushing on celebrities are not intellectually capable enough to know the difference between a celebrity and a normal person they can obtain. The thing is, they do? Also, a lot of women’s insults are always based on mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bpd, etc, where they’re seen as crazy for speaking up, standing up for herself, etc. This is what I feel like this is happening whenever people call other K-pop fans, “parasocial” since all they are referring to is the mental illness part of it, basically calling them dumb for crushing on a guy that doesn’t know they exist. The topic of parasocial relationships only ever occur in female-based celebrity interests, and in extreme cases, particularly when it involves a boy group. We rarely even see male-based celebrity interests get called out for their part in a parasocial relationship, unless they have already done a horrible crime and their parasocial relationship has lead them to do that said act, or was just involved in the story to make him look insane. Regardless, sports fans (particularly football fans), rap fans, youtuber fans, streamer fans, politician supporters, etc, never get called out for their extreme parasocial behaviour, and most of the time they caused harm to way more people than K-pop fans ever did. Yes, this is a double standard. Yes, people call them out for their bizarre behaviour but never used the word parasocial, especially since it would be used only by those perceived as “crazy, mentally ill freaks.” K-pop fans are always seen as those “crazy freaks” regardless of how “normal” they are. If you’re a K-pop fan with some sort of passion, you’ll be seen as a freak. It doesn’t matter if you never wanted to have your Y/N moment, never read fanfiction, never had a crush on a K-pop idol, etc. They see a K-pop fan, and they’re ready to mock you for it. Another thing I see as well are K-pop fans using the word “parasocial” to other K-pop fans, particularly those that they see as “cringe.” I made another post regarding the Generation 4th and 5th K-pop K-pop fans are the first ones to be directly affected by the growing surveillance culture, and partially the reason why this is happening in the first place was because of the word “parasocial” being used constantly that it would be used as an insult. One of the many examples I could quote would be: ”I like K-pop, but not the parasocial part of it” which doesn’t really exist unless you’re talking about being a complete casual listener that listens to K-pop once in a while. I don’t even want to hate on them for saying that since people would use “parasocial” for anything deemed as “cringe” or “too much”, which leads to people avoiding taking risks, enjoying K-pop in their own accord just to not get slapped with this label that doesn’t represent them. Well, do you remember what I said at the beginning of this text? If you have the urge to get into a genre of music with the mindset to “support them”, you are in a parasocial relationship! So regardless of what you do beyond that, it is still a parasocial relationship! You are a fan of them! While I do feel a bit of sympathy for anyone that called someone parasocial for being cringe, a part of me feels like there is a bit internalised misogyny going on that made someone feel like they have to prove to people that they’re not a “crazy K-pop stan.” I find it quite upsetting to see that the same people who would call others parasocial for making a video about their K-pop crushes, they themselves would have a K-pop profile picture, a K-pop themed social media page, talking about K-pop nonstop, and encouraged any Twitter threads made by others to put other women and girls down, especially to those who clearly haven’t done anything wrong other than being by their reach via a video just for them to stalk their profile and an expose post on them for simply existing as a K-pop fan that is either very outspoken, or they are just fans that just wanted to have fun. They didn’t do anything wrong, they didn’t provoke anyone. It was just wrong video, wrong timing, wrong person. And with that fear in mind, I don’t blame K-pop fans for wanting to fit in with everyone else and just learn how to do choreographies since it’s seen as a “normal K-pop fan” thing to do. Unfortunately for the people who don’t know how to dance or don’t like dancing at all, their only resort is to spend money on albums, photocards, concerts and aesthetically pleasing clothes to show off to everyone. All while hiding behind an aesthetic of their choice. I used to be the over-consumer. While it was fun to seek the thrill of buying albums and collecting photocards, I knew I was doing it to fit in with other people. I went into K-pop when the cringe culture was dying out and it was becoming this “aesthetic piece” of bunch of K-pop clips and wonyoungism photos. It was even hard as someone who identified as male to fit into the space with other boy group fans. I was always arguing with people, but I wasn’t the person who provoked it. I was called a fetishiser for having a crush on Felix from Stray Kids. I was constantly told I was never gonna have x idol even though I already knew that, and they were only doing that to make me feel like crap for what I was interested in. I tried to learn how to edit, draw, choreo dance, etc, but I couldn’t do any of that. Eventually, I started collecting albums for the first time and it was the only time I felt happiness. So much so that every week whenever my dad pays for food and travel for college, I would try to save up by snacking on a piece of bread and water while also walking to and from college, just to get another album on Fridays. It was when I got into SHINee was when I experienced extreme parasocialism for the first time due to how I was treated by K-pop fans and non fans alike. I stopped attending college, slipped into depression and felt like life wasn’t worth living since I was in this alone. Plus, being a Jonghyun stan was the worst mistake I could do to myself since not only I was a target for harassment, but I was unable to do the things that other fans were able to do such as collecting albums with him, his photocards or even see him at concerts. It would always hurt whenever I bring him up and it caused someone to be distressed, so I literally went through it deciding not to tell anyone about my bias since I didn’t want to feel different or weird. It didn’t help that I was still on social media, hoping to find people I could talk to and befriend with, only for most of them to switch on me within a month. I ended up getting introduced to cupsleeve events, which was a way to enjoy my interest for K-pop offline as well as meeting different people there. Eventually, I climbed out of my depression, tried to get my life back even though everything was crashing down and then BOOM, I was introduced to ATEEZ and I was no longer that “ew-i-hate-4th-gen-kpop-groups” kind of guy. I also started coming out of my shell, going to concerts, dressing how I want to be and finding some of the amazing people that I’m still talking to today, even though they are pretty far, or just busy. Either way, getting into ATEEZ made me realise that what I went through as a Shawol was not normal and I eventually gotten off them, having to sell all of my albums and magazines so I don’t fall back into them again. Right now, I am into ATEEZ, TXT and P1Harmony. I am doing much better now, despite me wishing I never went through my SHINee era so I could experience the carefreeness of fandoms before it got dark. I’m hoping some people can connect with my story and maybe this time round, we can try to be a lot nicer to each other. I hate the word parasocial being used in that sort of way that demeans women and girls have to feel ashamed of their interests, and it’s even worse that K-pop fans are doing it to their own people. Now I’m not trying to say you can’t say parasocial when it makes sense (such as talking about stalkers, sasaengs, anyone that is planning to do something harmful to themselves and others, etc), but if you don’t have a degree in psychology then you don’t have the rights to be throwing this phase around. In fact, nobody should be using parasocial as an insult, period. I feel like it would make the K-pop space a lot cleaner, and hopefully heal our community that we can be free again. Thank you for reading my monthly rant about how much I hate K-pop with a sophisticated accent. I’m signing out now. submitted by /u/asahilovesjjong [link] [comments]