[HN Gopher] Proactively Parasocial
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       Proactively Parasocial
        
       Author : jxmorris12
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2026-03-26 04:53 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nicklandolfi.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nicklandolfi.com)
        
       | tolerance wrote:
       | What the author is describing sounds a lot like idolatry.
        
         | readthenotes1 wrote:
         | That's a really good point.
         | 
         | We pray to gods and make sacrifices to them but generally do
         | not interact with them directly. It seems to fit squarely in
         | the definition of parasocial.
        
         | dasyatidprime wrote:
         | I'm not sure I agree in general, but one of the roles most
         | associated with intense parasociality is _literally_ called
         | "idol", so there 's that.
        
       | xg15 wrote:
       | I think it's interesting that at least one end of a parasocial
       | relationship seems to involve relating not to a person (not even
       | in a pretend way) but to a _collective_ of persons where you don
       | 't even know the individuals. This is what the relationship looks
       | like on the side of artists, youtubers, but also comments who
       | address their posts as "hey r/something" or "hey HN" (or threads
       | like this) - or bloggers.
       | 
       | Feels to me, that is a different kind of parasocial relationship
       | than the pretend interpersonal relationship of relating to a
       | specific celebrity.
        
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       (page generated 2026-03-30 23:01 UTC)