parasocial
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.35 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
One-sided (especially of a relationship, as for example that between a celebrity and their audience or fans, whom they do not know).
Example Sentences
- "a parasocial relationship"
- "Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl coined the term parasocial interaction in 1956 to describe the imaginary interactions between the audience and TV variety show hosts, noting the “seeming face-to-face relationship” that viewers developed […]"
- "In the past, parasocial relationships occurred predominantly with television or film celebrities, but now these […] celebrities openly share their opinions and activities through various social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook."
- "And yet for every creator for whom parasocial relationships are an unintended byproduct of their work, there are many more – influencers, YouTubers, vloggers – who actively cultivate that faux-intimacy with their followers, softening them up so that they might more easily ply their wares, be that waist trainers or make-up brushes."
- "With the advent of AI chatbots, the ethics of parasocial relationships just keep getting murkier. Introducing: CarynAI, a voice-based chatbot that was trained to mimic a human influencer to become your artificial girlfriend."
Etymology
From para- + social, coined by American sociologist Richard Wohl, together with American anthropologist, sociologist, and communication researcher Donald Horton in 1956.