Parasocial Relationships

One of the aspects of Sellnow's chapters one and nine that I enjoyed reading and contemplating was the "parasocial relationship" concept. In my opinion, this notion, more than anything, reflects people's pop culture addictions. These parasocial relationships, demonstrated by the way that people often talk about celebrities, has a comedic effect considering that everyday in-takers of media discuss the lives of celebrities as if they personally know them. Sometimes, it's not even the lives of the celebrities, who are actual people; instead, avid fans discuss the lives of the fictional characters. The example used in chapter nine was about Monica, Joey, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, and Phoebe from Friends. This particularly caught my attention because recently my sister has been watching all of the episodes of Friends on DVD, so when she excitedly tells me about the lives of the characters, I can't help but laugh because we've seen all the episodes before. My other reaction is to remind my sister that these characters aren't real people and that I worry about her getting too wrapped up in their lives. At this point in time, I'm just joking with her about it, but I'm still keeping an eye on her.

The concept of parasocial relationships is one of the reasons that I want to write screenplays for movies...and I didn't even realize that until just recently. I've always wanted to see how I could affect people with my own creations, and I also marvel in the fact that I can create characters and mold them and change them and watch them grow. But I hadn't truly put together how amazing it would be to create these characters that would mean so much to me, and then I'd have the opportunity of witnessing other people get just as attached to them. I can't even imagine the feeling of knowing that I could be the source of a character like Rachel Green or Katniss Everdeen! Learning about parasocial relationships has propelled me even further toward wanting to meet my career goals even though sometimes parasocial relationships are a little creepy. And by creepy, I mean completely normal.