Parasocial Relationships vs. Relationship with God:
The Exploration of Potential Inverse Correlation
Kevin Bowie
ENGL1301-ONL1 English Composition
February 27th, 2024
Professor Emeritus Mitch Land, Ph.D.
Introduction
Starting from the principle asserted by Blaise Pascal that “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”, we can assume that it will be human nature to try filling this void with worldly things. The proposal is that this creates a spectrum that accommodates all people. On one side of the spectrum, there is the example of the only perfect human ever to walk this earth, Jesus Christ. He fully, wholeheartedly, and exclusively worshipped God the Father, not giving in to the temptation of allowing anything else into the space that could or should be used for that purpose. The opposite side of this spectrum would be people who hate God and worship the devil.
Larger than that group, though, is the part of the population that believes they don’t worship anything. They don’t believe in the existence of God as reality, and therefore also assume there is no devil. They are content living their lives completely in the world, leaving this area of vacuum working to fill itself and find equilibrium. For this paper, we will compare this middle group of people to those who strive to live as much like Jesus as possible.
The idea is that the God-shaped hole which is the colloquial reference to Pascal’s principle, leads people into false idolatry. The innate human nature is to worship the Creator, so those who don’t believe in creation will find other things to worship, even subconsciously. In modern society this may be showing itself, in part, in people’s obsession with celebrities. This hyper-fixation on celebrities lends itself to parasocial relationships.
The Origins and Development of Parasocial Relationships
There has been an explosion of new celebrities in recent years. In this era, common people can manifest their celebrity status with a viral video and some effort to maintain an audience. Historically, we didn’t have the mass media outlets to create the numbers of famous people we see today. The celebrities of past centuries were few and far between, compared to what we see now. Evolutionary biologists suspect that in prehistoric times, the average person may have looked up to people who were elders or good hunters. The reasoning is that people look up to others who have garnered success in certain ways that they may want to emulate. By today’s standards, even those who may not be interested in fame would have a hard time convincing others they are not intrigued by the fortune that is frequently associated with stardom.
Additional studies suggest that it is no longer just what people believe they can gain by emulating celebrities, but that many people follow the personal lives of famous people simply for entertainment value.
The Negative Effects of Parasocial Relationships
To use as an illustration, here’s an excerpt from a Psychology Today article written by Joe Kort:
At the end of the first episode of “And Just Like That,” the HBO Max revival of the popular “Sex and the City,” the character known as “Mr. Big” died of a heart attack after his 1,000th workout on a Peloton exercise machine.
Immediately afterward, Peleton’s stock fell like a rock, and fans of the program were shocked and angry as if this were a real event.
This gives us remarkable insight into fictional events leading to the irrational behavior of people. People are shocked and angry over the events from a scripted TV series. Tumbling stock values in the real world because of an event that happened in a fabricated reality. Even if someone actually had a heart attack and died on an exercise bike, is it the bike manufacturer’s fault? This is an enlightening depiction of how frighteningly easy it is to influence massive groups of people.
In a LinkedIn article, Ray Williams dissects a piece published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease from a research team led by John Maltby:
Maltby’s team’s research also seems to indicate that the most celebrity-obsessed individuals often suffer high levels of dissociation and fantasy-proneness, were more depressed, more anxious, more solitary, more impulsive, more anti-social and more troublesome.
These findings coincide with other studies that suggest parasocial relationships can interfere with our 2-way relationships with the people around us. Parasocial relationships offer a fantastical escapism that can be sought out in favor of dealing with problems in our personal relationships. What seems like an easy way to avoid pain, though, often ends up adding to the problem in the end.
This can turn into a self-feeding cycle of poor personal relationships leading to increased value placed on parasocial relationships, which leads to further isolation and disassociation with reality, continued degradation of personal relationships, and so on. People lose awareness of this happening because, for a while, they can sustain some sense of normalcy in their minds through parasocial relationships.
How the Proposed Benefits of Parasocial Relationships be Found Elsewhere
In a time.com article from Angela Haupt, it’s noted that research shows that people can benefit from a parasocial relationship with famous personas who demonstrate desirable characteristics. While this is true, it could be argued that the best possible person to model yourself after would be the living embodiment of God in Jesus Christ. The life shown to us through Jesus is the absolute pinnacle of what human life can be. So the question must be posed, why seek to pursue the good characteristics in flawed people, when you can see what a perfect life looks like and strive for that?
Haupt goes on to quote Lynn Zubernis, a clinical psychologist, as saying a “secure base or safe haven” is what people have when they attach themselves to a celebrity or fictional character. Indeed, the Bible shows us that this is exactly what we have in God.
Psalms 46:10 This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him.
Psalms 61:1 He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken.
And there are plenty more verses to show the strength of this recurring theme throughout the Bible.
The article continues, expressing how people can unite over their common bond of parasocial relationships with a shared celebrity. Zubernis is again quoted, sharing that “There’s a sense of belongingness that comes from being part of a community.” This is true, and God intentionally designed us to be in community with each other. Not to worship other people, but to worship Him, and to help each other. The Christian community is known as the body of
Christ and it fulfills these needs better than any fan group or secular convention could.
1 Corinthians 12:27 All of you together is Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.
1 Corinthians 12:12 The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.
Conclusion
More research seems to uncover more of the same findings. Parasocial relationships appear to be a natural adaptation for people to fulfill the intentionally designed desire for humans to worship their Creator. Many people have bought into the lies of the enemy and allowed themselves to be misdirected into thinking that God doesn’t exist. This leaves Pascal’s vacuum pulling anything and everything in to fill that God-shaped hole. People who don’t know God, are not aware of this hole or how the vacuum it creates leaves them susceptible to the pressures that influence them from the outside world. People worship what they shouldn’t and find community in that because they are being led down a dark and destructive path by the prince of lies in an attempt to prevent them from doing what God designed them to do.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Travers, Mark Ph.D. “Two Reasons to Tone Down Your Obsession With Celebrities”. Psychology Today. Published April 28th, 2023. Accessed February 15th, 2024. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202304/2-reasons-to-tone-down-your-obsession-with-celebrities
Travers focuses on the effects of parasocial relationships, otherwise known as
one-sided relationships, with celebrities. He covers 2 main points: how parasocial
relationships may skew our expectations for real-life relationships, and how
investing too much time in a parasocial relationship can hurt your real
relationship. He references case studies for each point before coming to his
conclusion.
Williams, Ray. “Why are Americans Obsessed With Celebrities?”. LinkedIn. Published April 23rd, 2022. Accessed February 15th, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-americans-obsessed-celebrities-ray-williams-1c
Using his background in psychology, Williams leads with his observation of the
Relationship between the American public and their celebrity counterparts.
Then he follows that up with an overview of “The Scientific Explanation for
Celebrity Obsession” viewed through the lens of the findings of various
psychologists as he draws from what they’ve published in different scientific
journals. He also touches on the thoughts of evolutionary biologists and their
hypotheses on the historical context of how we arrived where we are with
celebrity worship in society today.
Haupt, Angela. “In Defense of Parasocial Relationships”. Time Magazine (online article). Published July 13th, 2023. Accessed March 1st, 2024. https://time.com/6294226/parasocial-relationships-benefits/
Haupt has spent most of her career in journalism focused on the health sector. In this article, she blends her personal stories and history with relevant research to emphasize her opinion. There is a noticeable level of advocacy in favor of parasocial relationships, which she is straightforward about.
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