Final Paper
Intro
In the world of social media, making comments on other people’s live is basically the whole point. Whether that is directly commenting or internalizing what you see and applying it to your life, interaction is the end goal. Fast forward to 2022, where making comments on other people’s lives is not enough, we have turned to making assumptions and creating a false narrative of what other people go through just to make ourselves feel better or to connect with one another. Now mix in celebrities, getting to see a glimpse of their reality, relationships, and hardships we develop a parasocial relationship. “It’s called a “parasocial relationship,” which is an emotional relationship with a media figure. The term was coined in the 1950s by two sociologists who observed that dominant mass media — at the time, TV and radio — created the illusion of a friendship between spectator and performer, and “the most remote and illustrious men are met as if they were in the circle of one’s peers…Social media has added another dimension to this dynamic, because occasionally the performers will interact with you, which perpetuates the illusion that you have involvement in their lives” (Daniels, 2021). I will be analyzing two celebrity couples’comments on Twitter. Twitter was created in 2006, it is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets" (Wikimedia Foundation). So, the question I propose is do celebrities take advantage of this knowledge of parasocial relationships to keep their audience talking about them and is it all connected to the blogging style social media plays a role in.
Method
To begin my research, I have picked 2 popular celebrity couples, one that is more favored and the other that isn’t, nonetheless, they both get tons of engagement on their social media. The first celebrity couple is Tom Holland and Zendaya, Tom has 7.3 million twitter followers and Zendaya has 20.7 million. The second couple is Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian. Pete does not have a twitter whereas Kim has 72.3 million followers. To gather comments to analyze, I went on twitter and looked up the couples’ names together in the search bar. Twitter can collect all the tweets people have tweeted that mention both together. Twitter divides it up based on Top, latest, people, photos, and videos. I first went through the Top section which brings up all the posts that got the most engagement. I then went through the tweets and stopped on the posts that had a lot of comments or quoted retweets. I collected the comments that had more content in them and avoided quoted retweets that just have an emoji or one-word affirmations. I collected comments that started a conversation with other followers based on the content.
Lit review
Social media have become a platform of unparalleled value to celebrities and consumers; they provide a safe and convenient way for celebrities to interact with many fans. Many celebrities use various social media platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) to engage in constant conversation with their fans” (Chung, S., & Cho, H. 2017). “In recent years, scholarly interest in the impact celebrities have on society has grown, as celebrities capture news headlines, endorse causes and sell products. Researchers have devoted some attention to modeling why celebrities have an impact on the attitudes and behaviors of large segments of the general population” ( Schuh, J. 2008). This lit review examines the parasocial relationship between celebrities and their followers and how social media is a way for celebrities to show that they can be relational with their audience.
Parasocial Relationship
“Social media interactions can create a sense of intimacy, a feeling of connectedness, perceived friendship and understanding, and identification with celebrities”. “In a parasocial context, friendship can be defined as a mutual relationship that is characterized by intimacy and liking (Tukachinsky, 2010). Friendship formation is facilitated by the frequency of contact (Fehr, 1996). Therefore, repeated exposure to a celebrity—especially one who uses direct modes of address and a personal and intimate conversational style—leads consumers to feel a high level of intimacy with the celebrity, resulting in “ritualistic viewing” of episodes of television shows, which, in turn, further develops their loyalty to the celebrity (Ballentine & Martin, 2004), and causes them to perceive celebrities as their surrogate friends” (Chung, S., & Cho, H. 2017). “Discussing how audiences relate to television characters, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker (1961) defined identification as “the experience of being able to put oneself so deeply into a television character – feel oneself to be so like the character – that one can feel the same emotions and experience the same events as the character is supposed to be feeling and experiencing” (p.161). Broadly, identification involves sharing media figures’ experiences and vicariously participating in their experiences (Hoffner, 1996)” (Schuh, J. 2008). Overall, having a sense of connection is a leading factor in why people obsess over celebrities.
Modeling
“Source credibility in this context refers to the positive characteristics of an endorser that lead to consumers’ accepting the veracity or honesty of their messages (Ohanian, 1990). Studies on source credibility report that information from credible sources is perceived to be more valid and is more persuasive than other information, thus positively influencing beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and/or behaviors through a process called “internalization” (Chung, S., & Cho, H. 2017). “At the heart of this theory is the notion that people are active in making meaning for themselves: people select models for observation, retain information gained from observing these models, incorporate this information, and, when it is believed to be in their best interest, display the modeled learning (Bandura, 2002)”. “Humans have a natural ability to model what they observe whether in their immediate environment or in the media because of their advanced sociocognitive capacities, especially their capacity for vicarious or observational learning”. “Modeling includes not only actions and behaviors, but also attitudes and learning (Bandura, 1986, 2002; Hoffner et al., 2006)”. “Thus, according to social cognitive theory, symbolic models – the models available in the mass media – are influential in shaping human thought and action (Bandura, 1986, 2002)” (Schuh, J. 2008). These articles suggest that followers engage with likeminded views, personalities etc. to learn the behaviors of someone they want to be like.
Conclusion
To wrap up what these articles have discussed, social media is another tool that humans can use to mimic behaviors they want. It is another way of people finding connection and intimacy to fulfill. Because of today’s age in how we use social media, celebrities can appear to connect with their audience in a more personable way.
Data Analysis
While analyzing the comments from the tweets I choose I tried looking for similar themes. The first theme being wanting to be like the celebrity they are commenting on and applying those ideas to their own life. On a tweet that was about Tom and Zendaya’s relationship, a user commented “I may not need this level of vocalized validation, but I want it. Like, my fiancé just has no clue lol. He could get all he wants and more with just words and gestures. We need to talk”. Another user said, “this makes me smile, I’m only extremely jealous instead of fatally”. Another user said, “where…where can I find this kinda love…plz tell me”. Th next theme I explored is the community in which adoring a celebrity can create. On a tweet about Pete and Kim’s relationship, multiple users said comments like “I love them so much and I don’t know why”, “obsessed”, “These 2 are love goals”. The last theme I gathered was followers making comments to these celebrities like they know what is actually going on in their lives. These were some comments under another post about Pete and Kim. “People in Hollywood move on so unbelievably fast”. This next comment was one that started a thread of discussion, “Kanye west genuinely loves Kim Kardashian. Sad how he did this for Kim then invited Kanye to snl: just to kiss Pete Davidson in front of him”, another user added on “I think you missed the part where nobody told Ye the skit was going to happen before it happened. Fine, you’re divorced you can kiss whoever you want, but in front of your ex-husband that just did you a huge favor hours earlier?”. Another user ended the thread by saying, “They were divorced, Kanye doesn’t own Kim. She wasn’t happy with him anymore. You boys do the same or worse sh*t to women too. Kanye isn’t a saint, he messed up and paid with his marriage. That’s life, move on”.
Conclusion
All things considered, the usage of social media between followers and celebrities is one-sided. Celebrities use their platform to share parts of their life to be received as more personable but really it is just a tactic to make users feel close and connected to them for their own gain. Even if these celebrities truly mean the things, they say to their followers the divide between being connected is too far of a stretch. By sharing into their lives, it gives their audience room to feel important. By creating this parasocial relationship, it gives the user a way in to feel connected whether that’s through a community that was built or directly through the celebrity. Furthermore, being “connected” to these celebrities is also a way for people to base their own wants, needs, accomplishments or failures. Commenting on celebrities’ lives is just a reflection of the things people want to change to fit the mold of the ‘successful’.
Work cited
Chung, S., & Cho, H. (2017). Fostering Parasocial Relationships with Celebrities on Social Media: Implications for Celebrity Endorsement. Psychology & Marketing, 34(4), 481–495. https://doi-org.ezproxytlu.idm.oclc.org/10.1002/mar.21001
Daniels, N. (2021, May 13). Do you feel you're friends with celebrities or influencers you follow online? The New York Times. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/learning/do-you-feel-youre-friends-with-celebrities-or-influencers-you-follow-online.html
Schuh, J. (2008). Involvement with Celebrities: Examining the Relationships between Similarity Identification, Wishful Identification, and Parasocial Interaction. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1–30.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, May 3). Twitter. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 3, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
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