The Age of the Parasocial Relationship
1st January 2024
The term “parasocial” was coined in a 1956 paper by the sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, who argued that television offered the potential for a new kind of relationship. “Often [the TV star] faces the spectator,” they observed, “uses the mode of direct address, talks as if he were conversing personally and privately.” In other words, the viewer could easily get the impression that this collection of pixels was talking directly to them and a one-sided relationship could thus develop.
The television of the 1950s had nothing on the podcast for parasocial effect, not least because headphones exaggerate the impression of intimacy due to a phenomenon called “in-head localization” — that is, they make it seem as if the voices are coming from inside your head. The point of the podcast is not to convey information, since text is a far more efficient medium for that purpose. Chris Williamson, host of the wildly successful podcast Modern Wisdom, describes his job as that of a “vibe architect,” a phrase I often think of, both while recording my own podcast and while consuming other people’s. Like most listeners, I turn to my favorite podcasts when I long for a specific vibe: that is, when I want to experience the pleasure of spending time with friends without any of the effort of brushing my hair, leaving my house or being nice.