Parasocialize.
Keeping you comfortably connected to the worldwide one-sided web.
The top 8
1. The letter from the NESTRugrats, 1991
2. Tommy finds the gun and it worksRugrats, 1995
3. The grouch on the telethonThe grouch, Sesame Street, 1990s
4. Hey Arnold, said to a room where nobody is ArnoldHey Arnold!, 1996DRAGON5. The dragon that waitedDragon Tales, 1999
6. Mighty Morphin, you are the rangerPower Rangers, 1993DOUG7. Doug's dad watching the TV in the darkDoug, 1991
8. The rabbit in the hatAnimaniacs, 1990Ten ways it shows up · one story from each
An economics think tank argues parasocial relationships are just imaginary friends for adults
I am going to defend this one against its own author.
6 more → A CREATORA streamer said his best friend of 25 years took $100,000. Fans said loyalty is dead
Twenty-five years of friendship does not survive being a public commodity, and everybody involved is surprised.
6 more → A CHARACTERA clown got a prequel and four million households signed up without signing anything
A clown gets a prequel.
2 more → T COMPANIONThe EU is about to rewrite what a companion app is allowed to do to a child
Read the specific wording, because it matters: not ban the app, ban the attachment.
9 more → Y WORLDYouTube is turning Shorts into episodic television
Shorts were supposed to be the snack.
3 more → Y BRANDYouTube just put your spending on the scoreboard
Here is what nobody said out loud at Made on YouTube: the relationship is now a fixture with a sponsorship category.
5 more → A CROSSOVERAOC and the parasocial nature of politics
This is the one nobody in this field covers, because it is unfashionable to admit that a politician occupies the same place in a person's head as a character they love.
2 more → H CONTESTHouse of the Dragon ended and the fans are furious at the show, not the characters
This is a fight about a story and it is being fought with the vocabulary of a parasocial grievance, which is why it is so ugly.
2 more → T GRIEFThree grief experts on mourning someone you never met
I keep coming back to the one line in here that is diagnosis rather than reassurance.
12 more → A DANGERA fan was convicted of stalking Jungkook. Twenty-two visits. One hundred and thirty-three doorbell rings
I am not going to do the thing where I explain this away, and I notice that every parasocial site quietly routes around this section, which is the single biggest reason those sites are still not taken seriously.
1 more →Go deeper · the definitive bits
THE OPEN LEDGER
Two states, kept apart: openable — a reader can click the record and find the work — and read — somebody here actually opened it. Most of the web keeps only the first and calls it a citation.
459 of 567 records are openable. 108 have no locator yet and say so. 61 of 248 entries are marked verified.
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