Taylor Swift, K-Pop, and the Rise of Parasocial Relationships
Image Courtesy of X
By Mariam Baldwin
This is an independently submitted op-ed and does not reflect the views of The Tower.
This past weekend, a friend mockingly sent me a poem that was celebrating Taylor Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce. Typical of Instagram poetry, it was a single sentence broken up by spaces: “The day Taylor Swift got engaged, little girls screamed, grown women cried, and the awkward child we all carry inside finally felt chosen.” My friend—admittedly not a Swiftie—couldn’t understand why anyone would be waxing poetic about a stranger’s engagement. I found strangest was how the poem tries to relate the author’s experience to Taylor Swift, going as far as to suggest that her engagement means she herself is finally “chosen.” Swift is a wealthy, beautiful singer – in what world is she considered to be unchosen? This seems to be a symptom of a greater disease in our culture: parasocial relationships.
Before I explain what this means, I need to make a disclaimer: I’m a huge Swiftie. I’ve loved her ever since I heard her song “Love Story” back in 2010. My first concert was the DC stop of her Reputation Tour in 2018 and I saved up my work money to see the Eras Tour in Munich a year ago. The difference between me and so many other fans is that I don’t confuse my love of her artistry with knowing her as a person. I relate to some of her song lyrics, but that’s the role of any good artist: to reach out and relate to people from all walks of life. Too many fans forget this important boundary and think that knowing Swift through song means knowing her as a person.
According to Psychology Today, parasocial relationships are “one-sided relationships in which a person develops a strong sense of connection, intimacy, or familiarity with someone they don’t know, most often celebrities or media personalities.” It’s a term coined by psychologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl in 1956, shortly after the advent of television. As TVs became a staple in American living rooms, people developed an “illusion of intimacy” with the various TV show characters. I’d posit that this issue has been complicated tenfold by the arrival of social media platforms. Almost everyone has some form of social media, providing a portal to look into their everyday lives. This just exacerbates the illusion of intimacy that so many people have with performers and gives rise to vicious stan accounts.
The term ‘stan,’ coined by Eminem in 2000, is a combination of the words ‘stalker’ and ‘fan.’ Stan accounts are pages devoted to posting content about their favorite celebrities. These pages can be a fun way to connect with other fans and start a micro-community. More often than not, though, they are merely used to put a hit on people who don’t share the same affinities for various celebrities. For example, former One Direction member Niall Horan was cancelled by ARMY—BTS’s loyal fan legion—for not listening to BTS’s hit single, “Dynamite.” This isn’t the worst instance of bullying by ARMY: journalist Juwon Park was targeted by them for calling out BTS’s decision to collaborate with an accused sex offender. She suffered an onslaught of cruel and misogynistic abuse, all for doing her job as a reporter. This kind of behavior has become apropos of K-Pop fans and needs to stop. It shines a light on the worst side of stan culture.
As much as some of us would like for it to disappear, stan culture is here to stay. There’s hope for its implications to become lighter, though. If celebrities are better at setting boundaries with their fans, then maybe bullying won’t be as prevalent an issue. I know Taylor Swift has kept her fans in check a few times, and I believe that this message needs to be reinforced more strongly. Listening to someone’s experiences through song doesn’t give you the right to get outraged by proxy. Fans do deserve some thanks for filling up stadiums and streaming new albums, but that’s where it ends. Fans need to realize that they’re not entitled to any part of a celebrity’s personal life. Intense preoccupation with the lives of celebrities is both parasocial and toxic. At the risk of sounding old, I’ll give some advice to all of stan Twitter: go outside, touch some grass, and appreciate the world around you for a change.
