parasocial

adjective

para·​so·​cial ˌper-ə-ˈsō-shəl 

ˌpa-rə-

: relating to or involving a one-sided emotional connection with someone (especially a celebrity or fictional character) whom one does not know personally

… parasocial …—a term coined in 1956 to describe the connection between television viewers and a new class of entertainment personalities, including announcers, game-show hosts and anyone else who spoke in direct address to the camera.

—Jamie Lauren Keiles

"Most of these relationships originate when someone is admired at a distance," says Gayle Stever, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Empire State College/State University of New York who researches parasocial attachment. "Lack of reciprocity is a defining feature." Most occur through media, but they may also form in other settings, like with a professor, pastor, or someone you see around campus, she notes.

—Jake Smith

… we all partake in parasocial interactions. We mentally interact with characters we watch on TV, or the characters in books we're reading, or podcasts we listen to.

—Shayla Love

Platforms like Twitter have transformed the nature of parasocial relationships, both intensifying them and making them harder to define, as more celebrities actively interact with fans and share personal information.

—Lauren Young

Examples of parasocial in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The shift could also be seen in the generation growing tired of influencers and swearing off smartphones for a life less chronically online and bonds that are less parasocial. — Taijuan Moorman, USA Today, 9 June 2026

Other experts worry about young people developing parasocial relationships with chatbots. — Aria Bendix, NBC news, 1 June 2026

In fact, a Sondheim revival is precisely the kind of work that doesn’t feed the parasocial, fandom-as-identity machine that powers contemporary pop. — Jeff Benjamin, Forbes.com, 1 June 2026

Just a funny parasocial back-and-forth between some of the most passionate fans in sports and one of the best provocateurs the SEC has seen since Steve Spurrier. — Austin Perry Outkick, FOXNews.com, 1 May 2026

But The Pitt’s woes are part of a larger wave sweeping fandoms across many mediums and genres, in which relationships that used to be pleasantly parasocial have become borderline disturbing. — Chris Murphy, Vanity Fair, 20 Apr. 2026

There’s gonna be people that are extremely excited and supportive of it — some of it in maybe a parasocial way, which isn’t at all based on reality. — Natalie Oganesyan, Deadline, 19 Apr. 2026

But falling into parasocial awards-season bonds with the Sinners cast and crew takes away from more fruitful conversations about the film as an artistic text or a fuller understanding of how Black film like this fits into Black life. — Angelica Jade Bastién, Vulture, 12 Mar. 2026

Word History

Etymology

para- entry 1 + social entry 1

Note: The word was introduced by the American sociologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl (1921-57) in "Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance," Psychiatry, vol. 19 (1956), issue 3, pp. 215-29.

First Known Use

1956, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for parasocial

• antisocial
• biosocial
• homosocial
• psychosocial
• asocial
• prosocial
• unsocial
• biopsychosocial
• social