March 20, 2019 • 40 mins
Where do celebrity crushes, affections for fictional characters and hero worship come from? Learn about the fascinating spectrum of parasocial relationships we develop with people in books, television and tabloids in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Stephane never
told you. Okay, listeners, I've had my fair share of
fictional crushes. I'll admit it. I'm going through one right now.
(00:28):
I'm too ambars to say it is. I will take
any and all guesses. If anyone gets it, I will
be shocked, shock shock shocked. Um, and I usually do
crush on fictional characters as opposed to celebrities like Luke Skywalker,
who was my very first crush, UM, Harry Potter, who
was my longest lasting crush, and as I've mentioned before,
(00:48):
young Hercules as played by Ryan Gosling. Um. If anyone
else has seen that show, please write it. And I
feel like I'm literally the only one since I am
in the throes of a fixed don't crush right now.
I want to look back at this classic episode for
some answers about Paris social relationships, which I hear folks
get for podcasters. The first time someone told me they
(01:11):
shipped me in a co host and sent fan fiction,
that was like the best day ever. So please enjoy
this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You
from how stupp Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
(01:32):
the podcast I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen today is a
listener request. Um, we got a letter, uh, you know,
suggesting that we look into shipping and one true pairing,
and of course I immediately was like, I don't I
don't know what that like, shipping like transporting things I
don't understand. Oh my goodness. In looking into this topic,
(01:56):
did we uncover a ton of research? Yeah, it's fascinating
and I have a feeling they're probably some listeners saying
I know it. Shipping is one prepairing. Of course, like you, Caroline,
I was unfamiliar with this term, but once I started
reading about it, I started out over at know your
Meme dot com. It's like the first Google result that
(02:18):
you'll get when it comes up, and it gives you
a pretty good um rundown of what it is. And
shipping is essentially short for relationshipping. You will also hear
about relationshippers, which would be shortened to shippers. And it
started out with fans of the X Files who were
(02:39):
split between relationshippers who really wanted to see Molder and
Scully get together versus the no romos who felt that
any kind of romance between Molder and Scully would totally
ruin the show. And the term has also pinned on
Pokemon fans who rooted for Jesse and James of Team
Rocket to get together and decided to call themselves Rocket shippers.
(03:00):
So all of that is shortened to ship or shipping,
and this whole thing is just people feeling so attached
to these characters that they start rooting for or against
certain things to happen in the show. Yeah, and we
intentionally did this episode during the week of Valentine's because
(03:22):
it's a different angle of attraction and emotional investment that
we don't hear much about. And obviously that the shipping
side of it gets really deep into the world of
fandom and fan fiction. But as we kind of jump
into this rabbit hole of shipping, it emerges into a
(03:43):
lot of areas that we probably all have some experience with.
But first, you mentioned one true pairing. That's something that
comes up a lot in shipping, and essentially it's a
couple that a fan or a group of fans prefers
over all the other ships or relationships, right, and they're
(04:03):
not necessarily the main characters. Sometimes people focus fan fiction on,
you know, side characters. Who they want to get together
and maybe if they think the main guy should really
be in love with some other girl over here. But
you know, you could think of one true pairing as
like Buffy and Angel or Ross and Rachel, who are
cited an insane amount in some of these studies. Yeah,
(04:25):
and this all segues into this thing called a para
social relationship. And it's an actual psychological term which was
coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wall in nineteen fifties
six to describe sort of an illusion of a relationship
that a viewer or a listener will have with a
(04:47):
performer or some kind of character. Right. And it's, you know,
by definition, a one sided relationship where the feelings extend
past the viewing and into real life. You find yourself
thinking of out this person or character in real life,
and just the act of watching or listening to uh
this performance will just reinforce those feelings. It's kind of
(05:10):
like if you develop a crush on someone, the more
you see them, the more you like them. It's just
that this happens to be with someone that you'll probably
never meet. Yeah, and the manifestations of these kinds of
para social relationships via shipping, fan fiction, and with our
celebrity crushes that we get aren't new at all with
with fandom specifically, know your meme talks about how in
(05:34):
nineteen thirteen a book called Old Friends, New Fancies was
published and it was a remix, an old school fan fix,
remixing characters from three Jane Austen novels. And there's even
Mr Darcy fan art side note that goes back to
the early nineteen hundreds. Um, and with celebrity culture, obviously
(05:56):
it's you know, it's been around for quite a while,
but it goes all the way back to really the
eighteenth century, which is when you have the emergence of
the celebrity while all these other new ideas are kind
of boiling at the time in terms of selfhood, individuality,
in the pursuit of passions. Yeah, that's not something that
(06:17):
I ever realized that celebrity quote unquote started so early,
I mean relatively. You know, it comes along with new consumerism,
and this is when we also get gossip column no idea. Well,
and then you can tie into that not just with
our cult of celebrity, but also digging into shipping and
one true pairing and fan fiction. The evolution of all
(06:39):
of this stuff has really gone alongside the development of
different types of communication technologies. Whether you have, for instance,
in the late nineteenth century the rise of photography, which
helped stoke the popularity of stage star Sarah Bernhardt, and
then in the nineteen and these with mass journalism starting
(07:02):
to rise, you have something called jazz journalism, which I
guess were like the early celebrity tabloids. Yeah, really focusing
on entertainment over news, glorifying celebrities, you know, people like
Charles Lindberg, you know, who is a huge celebrity for
his beats of aviation. Um, so why why the long
held focus? What are we what are we so obsessed
(07:23):
with celebrities for? Yeah, I mean, and this is looking
more moving away a little bit from the fan fiction
element and into actual living people living in Hollywood A
lot of times that we want to see photos of
while they're getting their groceries, Like why why do we
care when celebrities do everything? And guess what, folks, there
(07:44):
are so many theories about its. Scholars think about this
stuff too. Yeah, a lot of it. Theories include just
the facts, simple fact that we enjoy living vicariously through
really beautiful, rich people. That doesn't seem that hard to
figure out. There's also, of course schadenfreud, where we take
pleasure and the misfortune of others. So if Lindsay Lohan
(08:06):
gets arrested again, or you know, somebody there's a picture
of somebody tripping and falling, we tend to get a
kick out of it. When you move into the more
kind of literary look at things, linguists George Lakeoff, who
in his book The Political Mind, posited that certain frame
based scenarios like rags to richest stories really appeal to
(08:28):
us because they trigger an emotional response. They're imprinted in
our brains. Rags to Richest story like Anaticle Smith, or
bad boys stories like Charlie Sheen. They're very familiar to us,
and so they gain traction pretty easily. And because we
are all sort of exposed in different levels to these celebrities,
it makes sense that Fred English, who authored a Short
(08:51):
History of Celebrity, describes celebrity as a type of quote
unquote social adhesive because, I mean, big can help us
find common ground. It gives us something to talk about
when you don't know someone very well. If you can
find a celebrity or a television show or a book
that you have in common Boom conversation. I mean, I
(09:14):
know every party I go to, I talk about Ryan Gosling.
Hear that. I mean, I really don't talk about anything else. Starr, Well,
Ryan Gosling and Corgies pretty much all I talk about.
But Daniel Boorsten back in nineteen six two had a
different theory. He said that, um, we are subbing in
celebrities for gods and heroes of your Basically, we're losing
(09:38):
our religion, we're losing our traditions, and so we are
looking to these beautiful, rich people to fill holes left. Well,
but you still have room for real life heroes too,
of say, maybe a Hillary Clinton or a insert famous
athlete whose name isn't readily coming to mind. But no
matter whether that person is a movie star or a
(09:59):
politics shan or an athlete whomember they are. Evolutionary psychology
maintains that it's really ingrained in our humanity to want to,
you know, pay attention to higher status people, right exactly. Yeah,
Like Slate columnist Robert Wright, who wrote that keeping up
(10:22):
with all of the gossip about people, whether it's people
at work, you know, celebrities in the news. It can
quote inform social maneuvering for sex and other vital resources.
And that sort of information about who's up, who's down,
who's doing what, who's doing whom uh is the sort
of information that's conducive to fitness. Yeah, and also it's
(10:44):
Slate columnist Jack Schaefer even ties it to reproduction, saying that, well,
we're paying attention to these people and who they're having
babies with. I mean thinking about how, oh my god,
pregnancy pictures of movie stars these days. It's kind of crazy.
And in a very simplicit kind of way, Schaefer describes how,
(11:04):
way way back in you know, our our human ancestors time,
we didn't need an US weekly to tell us what
the higher status individuals were doing, who they were having
babies with. You look around, you see your group, and
you know what's up. But today we almost need the
celebrity culture to keep us clued in to what the
(11:26):
higher status folk are up to and wearing and buying
and where they're vacationing. Right, and he opines that women
make up the bulk of the readers of tabloids and
the subjects of tabloids because we are supposedly checking out
the alpha competition. Well, I wonder if that's you could
make that same kind of statement to about Like, Yeah,
(11:46):
women might pay attention more attention to Hollywood, but plenty
of guys are watching ESPN for a lot of hours
of the day too. So in all of this kind
of constant checking on our favorite celebrities or lee favorite celebrities, depending,
you know, we're kind of seeing that they've succeeded in society.
Maybe we want to attain some of what they have.
(12:08):
But when you start focusing too much on some things,
you might start to become obsessive and actually developed celebrity
worship syndrome. Yeah, this is an actual obsessive, addictive disorder
in which, as you might guess, a person becomes overly
involved with the details of UH celebrities life. And this
(12:31):
really came to light UH in two thousand two when
a team of psychologists developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale to
rank people along the spectrum of how deeply embedded celebrity
culture is in their lives right, and they found three
dimensions to celebrity worship, basically three tiers of how freaking
(12:53):
obsessed you are and how much of a role it
plays in your life. You've got the bottom tier, which
is entertainment social. It basically has added who It's like
I just like to chat with a friend about how
hot this celebrity is. UM. It just reflects the social
aspects of celebrity worship, getting around the water cooler, talking
about the hot guy on the show last night. There's
the next here, which is intense personal and it reflects
(13:17):
individuals intensive and compulsive feelings around the celebrity. So you're
not just talking about what a good character the kid
is or whatever. You're going into fandom. Then the next
here is borderline pathological, which is basically like, if X
y Z celebrity told me to steal, I would do it. Yeah.
(13:38):
It's that level of obsession where you get into scarier
issues of stalking UM and Speaking to the BBC, Dr
John Malty, who is a CYC instructor at the University
of Lester who has studied the celebrity worship syndrome, says
that around one person of people that he's studied at
least show more of those obsession and old tendencies, but
(14:01):
a majority of us are on that first here of
the entertainment. So shall we pay attention. We might, you know,
go to I don't know, delisted every now and then,
but it doesn't consume our lives, sure exactly, Um, but
you know, I mean this this does move out of
the realm of real, live people and back to what
(14:23):
we started talking about at the top of the podcast,
which is fan fiction developing relationships with characters not necessarily
real people. Yeah, you can develop very real in a way,
para social relationships, not just with celebrities on the street,
but also with either characters that celebrities might be portraying
(14:44):
in shows or you know, in literature, with your favorite
characters in books. And NPR commentator Jake halpern I had
a great piece about this, talking about his paras social
relationship with a cast of cheers. I loved it, I know,
or he just really wanted to go and hang out
with him. He felt like he could, yeah, go and
get a beer and make conversation, right, And it goes
(15:07):
back to that continuing relationship that that Horton and Wall
talked about when they coined the term para social relationship.
Just that you know, Helper and watches the show. Every
week he knows what Cliff and Norm are talking about
at the bar and he wants to join them, and
that relationship feels all the stronger for the fact that
he checks in with them every week and they are
(15:27):
exactly the same. That's another big part of these para
social relationships with characters is that they're kind of always
the same. Yeah, And I kind of experienced this earlier
this year with breaking bad in and in a not
so positive sense, like I did not want to go
hang out with Walt, don't get me wrong, but I
in order to catch up for the final season. And
(15:49):
don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone
who hasn't seen all of it, um, but in order
to catch up, I binge watched it because a lot
of it was on Netflix, and I found myself Caroline,
thinking about Jessie and Walt and you know, like in
reactions to like things would happen in my day, and
I think, oh, Skyler would totally not be down with that,
(16:13):
you know, like it was starting to get weird end
the beginning of the show, when I had very low investment.
That wasn't something that I ever thought would happen, but
I developed a very real, kind of strange and unwanted
attachment to these characters. But when it comes to the
thought of making emotional psychological connections with fictional characters or
(16:34):
with celebrities, you might think, well, that might be a
sign that something is not so well adjusted, either in
your social life or your brain. But research bears out
different and kind of counterintuitive results, which we will get into.
And we come right back from a quick break and
(16:55):
now back to the podcast. So we were just talking
about connection two characters on TV, characters and movies, uh,
fake people who you develop these connections with after repeated
viewings of a show, And Kristen had been saying that,
you know, a lot of the research is counterintuitive that
you would think like the loneliest, saddest people would be
(17:17):
the ones to develop all these relationships, and that's not
necessarily true, although some studies have connected some degree of
loneliness with these para social relationships. Yeah, there was a
study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology that it
came out in two thousand nine, and it essentially found
(17:38):
that absolutely these familiar television shows are sort of loneliness
bridges for us we turn it on to kind of
keep his company. Maybe if we're at home alone or
if we are going through sort of a downer period,
we might be more likely to watch our favorite television shows. Right,
And they just said that it's basically a lot less
(17:59):
work to turn on the TV than too struggle to
maintain connections with real people, if especially if you are
feeling down, And they tested the social surrogacy hypothesis, theorizing
that loneliness actually motivates people to seek out relationships even
if those relationships aren't real. Which not to make me
(18:20):
sound like I'm off the charts on the para social
relationship skill, Caroline. This also reminds me of when I
a while ago went through a pretty awful breakup and
I just started compulsively out of nowhere watching How I
Met Your Mother and I had to have it on
like in like a couple of weeks, Like I just
had to have it on in the background just to
(18:40):
have something on. And even though I don't love the show,
but I couldn't stop watching the show, you know, And
it's about like, and it totally makes sense reading this
research because it's about a group of friends like who
are dealing with relationships, yeah, exactly. And when I lived
by myself in Augusta, you know, I be cooking dinner
at night and would find myself turning the TV on
(19:03):
to feel less kind of lonely during dinner time, you know,
like having those voices they're having people on TV, either
reading the news or a sitcom or something made it
feel like the house was full. And if we move
from things like television programs back into the realm of
fan fiction and getting more online with shipping and one
(19:26):
true pairing, I think it serves a similar kind of
not just as a creative outlet, but also I think
it does serve a social function as well, because with
one true pairing in particular, people are so heavily invested
in these couples. And it's funny though, like side note
how Ross and Rachel from Friends are examples of almost
(19:50):
every trope yeah in in fan fiction, because like you
could look at them as the one true pairing, you
can also look at them as going through the quote
unquote official couple or deal syndrome, where you know, people
are identifying with these characters, but these characters are being
put through hell there the show creators are toying with
your emotions. But then what's interesting to see with one
(20:11):
prepairing is that it's so more active than us just
passively watching television or even just having it on in
the background, because they really become the architects of these
fictional characters live. So the point that you get into
slash fiction where characters are having sex with other characters,
(20:31):
and they're all sorts of different pairings, whether it's a
ho ya ship which is homo erotic positive shipping, or
sister ship which yep, gets incestuous. Uh, and on and
on and on, and this this is such a deeper
level of investment. Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's
(20:55):
worth looking at how you even get that involved, because
I don't think I mean, there have been a few
characters I just don't watch a lot of TV disclaimer,
but there have been characters historically where I have been
like super invested in them. You know, I am obsessed
with them almost, But I have no idea what's behind
that and what even got me there. And one example
(21:17):
that I can think of is during high school, when
I'm going to bring it up, Christen, when I watched
La fem Nikita. Okay, my favorite show. How many times
have I mentioned this? But so I'm a teen, been
high school and I'm watching this really incredibly powerful kick
butt woman every week, and you know, it was toying
with my emotions because they were going to cancel that
show like three thousand different times, but that she stayed
(21:41):
on the air, and I just I really did feel
like I developed this relationship with her, like, well, if
only she knew me, But she's fake, so she doesn't.
But it's interesting you say, though, that you were in
high school, because one factor that psychologists have identified as
sort of predisposing you to form a paras social relationships
(22:01):
is being in periods of transition. I was going through
a breakup when I went through my how I met
your mother just almost dark spell. I wouldn't leave my apartment. Um,
and you were going through high school. Is there a
more transitional time than that, right? And so yeah, people
who end up with this over the top, either celebrity
(22:21):
worship for real life people or paras social relationships with characters,
they tend to be going through life transitions. And the
same goes for elderly folks. That's another big period of
transition with limited mobility and One study was looking specifically
at the paras social relationships that elderly people form with
(22:42):
like TV shopping hosts. Because they are in that period
of transition where maybe they don't see their family as much,
they have fewer sources of information. They are more susceptible
to these paras social relationships because they can't get out
and so they are lonely. We have said already that
loneliness is a motivating factor for pursuing connections, and so
(23:04):
they end up being more likely to overuse TV shopping
channels because those hosts are like friends to them because
they're probably talking directly to them. Right, It's not like
a sitcom necessarily where I mean, obviously you can develop
para social relationships, etcetera, etcetera. But you know, sitcom stars
are talking to each other. The TV host on the
shopping network is looking right at you. Ah, that makes
(23:24):
so much sense in the saddest way possible. I know,
go hug a grandmother someone. But I mean, research has
shown that these para social relationships can influence I mean
so much. They can influence our views of social issues
like gay rights. If there are gay characters on TV,
then and you feel like you know them, then you're
more likely to change your view of gay rights. It
(23:46):
can even influence teens views of how to achieve goals
that are related to the development of their identities. Yeah,
it's one thing that can also make p says more effective,
as if that's why you have celebrities who are saying, Hey,
don't flush tampons, that's not a p s A anyone's
ever done, probably, or or learn to read things like that, right,
(24:09):
don't drink and drive, that's a p s A. Thank
you learned to read tampon labels. I would make a
horrible p s A writer. Um, But speaking of tampons,
let's talk a little bit about gender, because my assumption
going into this was that this is something that probably
is more appealing to women and younger women. And it's
(24:31):
not that it doesn't occur with a lot of women.
It's just that men and women both experience it, and
we kind of experience it for different reasons. We have
different motivations for turning the TV on, and we have
different motivations for leaving it on and coming back week
after week. Yeah, there was one interesting study that came out.
It's a little dated, but it was looking at the
(24:53):
intersection of dating, gender, and paras social relationships, and it
found that men tended to form stronger PSRs with TV
characters when they were anxious in their dating situation, whereas
women were the opposite. We tended to form those para
social relationships when we were more secure. So it was
(25:16):
in a way we were we as in women were
using these characters and TV shows as a way of
sort of more firmly securing our dating situation. Yeah. They
they found that women tend to see TV as a
friend or companion, whereas men are turning to TV to
solve problems, which is pretty interesting. Well, it's also interesting
(25:37):
is that Twilighting the whole team Edward, team Jake. I mean,
Twilight is just rife with para social relationships, fan fiction,
one true pairing, and go on and on and on.
I mean to the point that, uh, fifty Shades of
Gray was born out of the fan fiction. You could
call it some kind what kind of ship would that be?
(26:00):
Or you take a Bella character and you pair her
up with a guy who's really into bedious and I
don't know, I'm sure it exists. Um, But Twilighting, though,
is a double form of para social relationship where you
have fans of Twilight who transpose their para social relationships
with characters in the book onto actors, right right, And
(26:24):
so that led Robert Pattinson at one point to say, like,
they know that I'm playing a character, right, I'm I'm
just some brit from you know, over across the pond.
I'm not a guy. But those kinds of para social
relationships they do have, really, they do have really real results.
They are a more eloquent way to say that it's
really real, but they do have results on us, not
(26:45):
just in terms of making PSA is more effective, etcetera, etcetera,
or alleviating loneliness for the time being, but also when
those characters like Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart, Bella and
Edward break up, we also feel that too. Oh, the horror,
(27:05):
the heartbreak. No, I mean yeah, And these these breakup
feelings can be felt for characters in a movie or
on TV, or for real life people who you don't
know but you sure are sad about their divorce. Yeah,
I had. Really it made me feel awkward to myself
having a an emotional reaction to the announcement of Amy
(27:26):
Poehler and well our nets divorce, two people I would
love to meet, probably never will. And who I thought was, Oh,
I love both of the things that they do in
television and movies. Why did I care? It was the
strangest thing, Caroline. Yeah, I I mean I I've felt
that too, you know, just like extreme sadness over like
(27:49):
you guys can't work it out, there's not anything. What happened,
What happened, happened, what happened. And so Kristen, not to
make this completely about La fem Nikita, like I do everything,
but there have been studies that look at people's feelings
about the end of a show and so the end
of a relationship, a para social relationship that they have
(28:12):
with the character. And like I said, you know, USA
was going to cancel a Femniki to like fifteen thousand times,
and the fan base, I mean I was only in
high school, but like the active online fan base went
crazy and actually got the show back because people were
so intensely invested in the story. Yeah. Jonathan Cohen is
a researcher who has done a couple of studies actually
(28:33):
on these para social breakups, and he's found in a
nutshell that yes, we do feel them too, but the
level that we feel them is very much tied to
our psychological attachment style. You hear this a lot with
a relationship psychology, where you are usually fall into one
or three categories of being securely attached, avoidantly attached. Was
(28:56):
just like who don't call me, I'll call you yeah,
or you have anxious attachment. And people who are more
anxiously attached, people who might be in real life little
more nervous about the status of their relationships, tend to
feel these kinds of para social breakups a little more
strongly than avoidantly or securely attached people, right, and Cohen
(29:21):
was saying that because it's not necessarily the people we
would think having these para social relationships, that we should
probably view PSRs as an extension of people's social relationships,
not necessarily compensation for a lack of them, because, like
we said, you know, men are if they're anxious about
(29:42):
their relationships, they'll turn to TV. If women are feeling
great about theirs, they'll turn to TV. It's not necessarily
that you completely avoid human contact, because he argues, if
you were an avoidant personality. You wouldn't want to create
relationships with characters on TV either, right, right, Well, and
it's also good to point out too, that there have
been a number of studies, you know, confirming and reconfirming
(30:06):
that para social relationships are not red flags that you
are a shut in and don't know how to make friends.
It's actually more tied to characteristics of extraversion and sociability.
It's like you said, it's an extension of these relationships. Um,
there's one other study which found that we tend to
rate these characters as closer than acquaintances, but not as
(30:27):
close as close friends. That's good, Yeah, yeah, that is
that's good. I'm I'm glad that we do rate our
friends higher than fictional characters. And to bring up yet
another gendered aspect of this research, Cohen points out in
his study of basically anticipating the end of a series
(30:49):
that women who generally report stronger PSRs did not report
expecting higher levels of distress as the show was ending
in their relationships with these characters are ending, and he
says that that probably has something to do with the
fact that we're better able to cope with the end
of real life relationships slightly better than men anyway, well
and regardless of gender. The one thing that with all
(31:13):
of this information on para social breakups. Great part about
shipping and once you're pairing in fandom and online fan
fiction and all these communities that exist, is that you
never have to break up. Now you can simply dive
into these new worlds and create these new worlds and
new relationships. And and we also now have more accessibility
(31:34):
to real life celebrities than ever before. And you also
have I bet there's some listeners who might be familiar
with the YouTube series The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, where they
did an incredible job of having social media updates in
real time as the show is going on. So you
felt like you knew these characters as people because they're
(31:57):
in your Twitter feeds making comments and people got, you know,
so into it. I think because of that closer relationship
they were able to form. Mhm, this is interesting. It
is interesting. I mean, it definitely made me think about
my media consumption differently. Yeah, it made me extra thankful
(32:21):
that I don't do much TV watching. Although you know
what I will say this, Sally, my mother, Sally like
goes she would be so embarrassed if she knew I
was saying this. She goes to the store every Friday
to pick up the new tabloid round Um, and when
I go home for dinner or whatever, like, she'll hand
them off to me. And so that's the only time
I ever read tabloids is when Sally hands them to me.
(32:44):
And it's easy to get caught up in that, Like
as you're reading it, I'm like, oh, my god, she's
pregnant again, or like, oh, she looks so beautiful in
that designer gown, you know, like it's I can see
how it is very easy to get caught up in
in the celebrity worship. Yeah, I mean, and since this
is a podcast, I feel like I need to admit
my own paras social podcast relationships that I have with
(33:06):
the ones that I listened to on a regular basis,
Like Professor blast Off fans listen Tegnataro is like a
friend to me in my head. I wish I wish
in my in my living room too. Well, it's easy
because you know, especially it's not like with a lot
of things like podcast or whatever. It's not like people
(33:27):
are very formally talking about very formal things, you know.
It's it's like we're having a conversation right now, and
I'm sure people out there also feel included in the
conversation as we want you to. Yeah, I would love
for people to form paras social relationships with us, Yeah,
for sure. But I hope that this was entertaining. I
know that we covered a lot of territory, from the
(33:50):
fictional to the more celebrity focus stuff, but it all
ties together, and I don't know, to me, it was
it was nice to see how the world of fandom,
which we might think of as as sort of a
niche thing that we might not be that engaged with,
we all engage in some form of it. Yeah, we
(34:10):
all do. It's just the fact that I have ever
felt disappointed that a celebrity couple has broken up, Like
when I when I saw that Carrie Russell who okay
here here multi layered. I was obsessed with Felicity when
it was on TV, and I started rewatching it on
Netflix not too long ago. So I'm just like Carrie Russell,
I just freaking love you. I think she's adorable, and
(34:34):
then she gets married in real life and I think
her husband's all handsome and she's so pretty and they've
got this pretty kid, and then I hear that they're
getting a divorce and I'm like, no, Felicity, No, And
so well, because that probably ties back into the theory
of how, you know, we sort of live through them
a little bit. Yeah, and if they're at the top
(34:56):
of the social hierarchy and and we see them, you know,
not being able to quote unquote make it work, right,
then sure it can give us pause, like, well, that
can't If they can't be perfect, how could I be perfect?
But I don't think people should feel too bad about it,
you know, because it's kind of like just if you're
a freshman in high school looking at the seniors in
(35:17):
high school and their cool cars and their cool clothes,
and they get to do things, you know, they have
you know, cell phones or whatever whatever the kids have
these days. They got their snapchats, their snapchats, and there
roulettes and whatnot. Um, it's kind of the same thing.
It's just like, what are the cool kids doing? Yeah? Yeah, well,
(35:38):
I definitely want to hear from listeners on this does
this ring bells for you? Who do you have a
par of social relationship with? Let us know you can
write to us mom Stuff at Discovery dot com or
just tweet us at mom Stuff Podcast. You can always
send us a message over on Facebook. And we've got
(35:59):
a cup will of messages to share with you now
about our episode on gender reveal parties. So I've got
one here from Megan, and she writes, I have attended
a small party, but I haven't hosted one, but when
I went to had no gifts involved in just an
(36:20):
hour or so, a fun chit chat and a delicious cake.
If people want to continue to have parties like this
in all caps, she says, go for it. I don't
have to bring a gift, but I do get cake
and get to talk to people I mostly like. So sure,
but I have heard of these parties going a little overboard,
and I just can't stand behind that. I agree, if
you're going to have a shower, then that should be
(36:41):
the only time I should have to buy a gift
for your baby. And too many parties seems like too
much work. But I am a mom, so I have
a different point of view than you guys. Might I
like the idea of this type of thing. It seems
super fun, and I plan to do something similar with
my husband and I have another child. It wasn't something
I knew of when I had my daughter. And for me,
and like the party I went to, I will likely
only invite close family and friends, provide cake, and keep
(37:03):
it short. But I think sharing that moment when you
find out whether you're having a boy or a girl
is kind of sweet. Whether we have some kind of
dyed cake or icing or stuff balloons in a box,
I don't know, but most of these I've seen here
pretty cute and make for an adorable picture. To me,
it just seems like one of those things that if
someone wants to take the effort to do it, let
them have it, as long as they don't expect too
much of other people. So thanks Megan. You know, right
(37:26):
after we recorded that episode, I got on Facebook and
a friend of mine from college had posted pictures of
her gender revealed party. Really and I looked at the
picture and I was like, is this what I think
it is? Because it was a picture of a small
white cake and on it were two football helmet and
one was pink and one was blue, and it said
pink versus Blue. And then the next picture was the
(37:47):
cut cake that had pink cake inside of it. I
was like, man, Kristen and I are on the ball.
We got our fingers on the pulse. That's right, of something,
of something. The cake trends um well. This letter is
from Jennifer. She said, in November, I found out that
(38:08):
not only was I pregnant, but that I was twenty
six weeks pregnant. Three negative pregnancy tests, no weight gain,
and very mild symptoms, all of which could be put
down to other things, led me to believe I was
going through early menopause. I found out at a regular
doctor's appointment. My husband got off work early that day
and we got an ultrasound that afternoon. We had already
had too many surprises that day and decided not to
(38:30):
find out the gender at the time, so we were
given a sealed envelope. We wanted to keep the surprise
for a while, and we wanted to make sure not
to get too many gender specific clothes, toys, or decor
for our child. However, both of our mothers were really
keen to know where they whether they were getting a
granddaughter or a grandson. Also, answering the question got to
be kind of an annoyance with the agreement of the
(38:51):
friends who were throwing our shower for us in January twelve,
we gave the envelope to our cake maker, another friend
and had her do a gender reveal cake for our
baby shower. That way, a lot of the gifts we
would get would be gender neutral, we wouldn't be having
a second party that people might think they were required
to bring gifts for, and we could answer the question
and share our reaction with an awful lot of people
(39:12):
at once. Because our mothers and extended families live more
than a thousand miles away from us in opposite directions,
they couldn't be there, but we were able to have
friends set up webcams for live streaming so that everyone
could share the info. One cutting into that cake and
pulling out the pink slice was a wonderful moment for
us to share with our families and our extended chosen families.
A k A friend, I will say that I am
(39:33):
a bit unsure about making it a whole separate party
and very much of the belief that it is crasped
beyond acceptability to make it a second expected gift giving event.
So thank you, Jennifer. I think your story is great
and I'm glad you got to share your special moment
with people via webcam, and thanks to everybody who's written
in to us, Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is
(39:55):
our email address and the only other address you need
to know. To find all things stuff mom and A
told you, including every single podcast, blog, video, and social
media link, head on over to stuff Mom Never told
You dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Stephane never
told you. Okay, listeners, I've had my fair share of
fictional crushes. I'll admit it. I'm going through one right now.
(00:28):
I'm too ambars to say it is. I will take
any and all guesses. If anyone gets it, I will
be shocked, shock shock shocked. Um, and I usually do
crush on fictional characters as opposed to celebrities like Luke Skywalker,
who was my very first crush, UM, Harry Potter, who
was my longest lasting crush, and as I've mentioned before,
(00:48):
young Hercules as played by Ryan Gosling. Um. If anyone
else has seen that show, please write it. And I
feel like I'm literally the only one since I am
in the throes of a fixed don't crush right now.
I want to look back at this classic episode for
some answers about Paris social relationships, which I hear folks
get for podcasters. The first time someone told me they
(01:11):
shipped me in a co host and sent fan fiction,
that was like the best day ever. So please enjoy
this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You
from how stupp Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
(01:32):
the podcast I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen today is a
listener request. Um, we got a letter, uh, you know,
suggesting that we look into shipping and one true pairing,
and of course I immediately was like, I don't I
don't know what that like, shipping like transporting things I
don't understand. Oh my goodness. In looking into this topic,
(01:56):
did we uncover a ton of research? Yeah, it's fascinating
and I have a feeling they're probably some listeners saying
I know it. Shipping is one prepairing. Of course, like you, Caroline,
I was unfamiliar with this term, but once I started
reading about it, I started out over at know your
Meme dot com. It's like the first Google result that
(02:18):
you'll get when it comes up, and it gives you
a pretty good um rundown of what it is. And
shipping is essentially short for relationshipping. You will also hear
about relationshippers, which would be shortened to shippers. And it
started out with fans of the X Files who were
(02:39):
split between relationshippers who really wanted to see Molder and
Scully get together versus the no romos who felt that
any kind of romance between Molder and Scully would totally
ruin the show. And the term has also pinned on
Pokemon fans who rooted for Jesse and James of Team
Rocket to get together and decided to call themselves Rocket shippers.
(03:00):
So all of that is shortened to ship or shipping,
and this whole thing is just people feeling so attached
to these characters that they start rooting for or against
certain things to happen in the show. Yeah, and we
intentionally did this episode during the week of Valentine's because
(03:22):
it's a different angle of attraction and emotional investment that
we don't hear much about. And obviously that the shipping
side of it gets really deep into the world of
fandom and fan fiction. But as we kind of jump
into this rabbit hole of shipping, it emerges into a
(03:43):
lot of areas that we probably all have some experience with.
But first, you mentioned one true pairing. That's something that
comes up a lot in shipping, and essentially it's a
couple that a fan or a group of fans prefers
over all the other ships or relationships, right, and they're
(04:03):
not necessarily the main characters. Sometimes people focus fan fiction on,
you know, side characters. Who they want to get together
and maybe if they think the main guy should really
be in love with some other girl over here. But
you know, you could think of one true pairing as
like Buffy and Angel or Ross and Rachel, who are
cited an insane amount in some of these studies. Yeah,
(04:25):
and this all segues into this thing called a para
social relationship. And it's an actual psychological term which was
coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wall in nineteen fifties
six to describe sort of an illusion of a relationship
that a viewer or a listener will have with a
(04:47):
performer or some kind of character. Right. And it's, you know,
by definition, a one sided relationship where the feelings extend
past the viewing and into real life. You find yourself
thinking of out this person or character in real life,
and just the act of watching or listening to uh
this performance will just reinforce those feelings. It's kind of
(05:10):
like if you develop a crush on someone, the more
you see them, the more you like them. It's just
that this happens to be with someone that you'll probably
never meet. Yeah, and the manifestations of these kinds of
para social relationships via shipping, fan fiction, and with our
celebrity crushes that we get aren't new at all with
with fandom specifically, know your meme talks about how in
(05:34):
nineteen thirteen a book called Old Friends, New Fancies was
published and it was a remix, an old school fan fix,
remixing characters from three Jane Austen novels. And there's even
Mr Darcy fan art side note that goes back to
the early nineteen hundreds. Um, and with celebrity culture, obviously
(05:56):
it's you know, it's been around for quite a while,
but it goes all the way back to really the
eighteenth century, which is when you have the emergence of
the celebrity while all these other new ideas are kind
of boiling at the time in terms of selfhood, individuality,
in the pursuit of passions. Yeah, that's not something that
(06:17):
I ever realized that celebrity quote unquote started so early,
I mean relatively. You know, it comes along with new consumerism,
and this is when we also get gossip column no idea. Well,
and then you can tie into that not just with
our cult of celebrity, but also digging into shipping and
one true pairing and fan fiction. The evolution of all
(06:39):
of this stuff has really gone alongside the development of
different types of communication technologies. Whether you have, for instance,
in the late nineteenth century the rise of photography, which
helped stoke the popularity of stage star Sarah Bernhardt, and
then in the nineteen and these with mass journalism starting
(07:02):
to rise, you have something called jazz journalism, which I
guess were like the early celebrity tabloids. Yeah, really focusing
on entertainment over news, glorifying celebrities, you know, people like
Charles Lindberg, you know, who is a huge celebrity for
his beats of aviation. Um, so why why the long
held focus? What are we what are we so obsessed
(07:23):
with celebrities for? Yeah, I mean, and this is looking
more moving away a little bit from the fan fiction
element and into actual living people living in Hollywood A
lot of times that we want to see photos of
while they're getting their groceries, Like why why do we
care when celebrities do everything? And guess what, folks, there
(07:44):
are so many theories about its. Scholars think about this
stuff too. Yeah, a lot of it. Theories include just
the facts, simple fact that we enjoy living vicariously through
really beautiful, rich people. That doesn't seem that hard to
figure out. There's also, of course schadenfreud, where we take
pleasure and the misfortune of others. So if Lindsay Lohan
(08:06):
gets arrested again, or you know, somebody there's a picture
of somebody tripping and falling, we tend to get a
kick out of it. When you move into the more
kind of literary look at things, linguists George Lakeoff, who
in his book The Political Mind, posited that certain frame
based scenarios like rags to richest stories really appeal to
(08:28):
us because they trigger an emotional response. They're imprinted in
our brains. Rags to Richest story like Anaticle Smith, or
bad boys stories like Charlie Sheen. They're very familiar to us,
and so they gain traction pretty easily. And because we
are all sort of exposed in different levels to these celebrities,
it makes sense that Fred English, who authored a Short
(08:51):
History of Celebrity, describes celebrity as a type of quote
unquote social adhesive because, I mean, big can help us
find common ground. It gives us something to talk about
when you don't know someone very well. If you can
find a celebrity or a television show or a book
that you have in common Boom conversation. I mean, I
(09:14):
know every party I go to, I talk about Ryan Gosling.
Hear that. I mean, I really don't talk about anything else. Starr, Well,
Ryan Gosling and Corgies pretty much all I talk about.
But Daniel Boorsten back in nineteen six two had a
different theory. He said that, um, we are subbing in
celebrities for gods and heroes of your Basically, we're losing
(09:38):
our religion, we're losing our traditions, and so we are
looking to these beautiful, rich people to fill holes left. Well,
but you still have room for real life heroes too,
of say, maybe a Hillary Clinton or a insert famous
athlete whose name isn't readily coming to mind. But no
matter whether that person is a movie star or a
(09:59):
politics shan or an athlete whomember they are. Evolutionary psychology
maintains that it's really ingrained in our humanity to want to,
you know, pay attention to higher status people, right exactly. Yeah,
Like Slate columnist Robert Wright, who wrote that keeping up
(10:22):
with all of the gossip about people, whether it's people
at work, you know, celebrities in the news. It can
quote inform social maneuvering for sex and other vital resources.
And that sort of information about who's up, who's down,
who's doing what, who's doing whom uh is the sort
of information that's conducive to fitness. Yeah, and also it's
(10:44):
Slate columnist Jack Schaefer even ties it to reproduction, saying that, well,
we're paying attention to these people and who they're having
babies with. I mean thinking about how, oh my god,
pregnancy pictures of movie stars these days. It's kind of crazy.
And in a very simplicit kind of way, Schaefer describes how,
(11:04):
way way back in you know, our our human ancestors time,
we didn't need an US weekly to tell us what
the higher status individuals were doing, who they were having
babies with. You look around, you see your group, and
you know what's up. But today we almost need the
celebrity culture to keep us clued in to what the
(11:26):
higher status folk are up to and wearing and buying
and where they're vacationing. Right, and he opines that women
make up the bulk of the readers of tabloids and
the subjects of tabloids because we are supposedly checking out
the alpha competition. Well, I wonder if that's you could
make that same kind of statement to about Like, Yeah,
(11:46):
women might pay attention more attention to Hollywood, but plenty
of guys are watching ESPN for a lot of hours
of the day too. So in all of this kind
of constant checking on our favorite celebrities or lee favorite celebrities, depending,
you know, we're kind of seeing that they've succeeded in society.
Maybe we want to attain some of what they have.
(12:08):
But when you start focusing too much on some things,
you might start to become obsessive and actually developed celebrity
worship syndrome. Yeah, this is an actual obsessive, addictive disorder
in which, as you might guess, a person becomes overly
involved with the details of UH celebrities life. And this
(12:31):
really came to light UH in two thousand two when
a team of psychologists developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale to
rank people along the spectrum of how deeply embedded celebrity
culture is in their lives right, and they found three
dimensions to celebrity worship, basically three tiers of how freaking
(12:53):
obsessed you are and how much of a role it
plays in your life. You've got the bottom tier, which
is entertainment social. It basically has added who It's like
I just like to chat with a friend about how
hot this celebrity is. UM. It just reflects the social
aspects of celebrity worship, getting around the water cooler, talking
about the hot guy on the show last night. There's
the next here, which is intense personal and it reflects
(13:17):
individuals intensive and compulsive feelings around the celebrity. So you're
not just talking about what a good character the kid
is or whatever. You're going into fandom. Then the next
here is borderline pathological, which is basically like, if X
y Z celebrity told me to steal, I would do it. Yeah.
(13:38):
It's that level of obsession where you get into scarier
issues of stalking UM and Speaking to the BBC, Dr
John Malty, who is a CYC instructor at the University
of Lester who has studied the celebrity worship syndrome, says
that around one person of people that he's studied at
least show more of those obsession and old tendencies, but
(14:01):
a majority of us are on that first here of
the entertainment. So shall we pay attention. We might, you know,
go to I don't know, delisted every now and then,
but it doesn't consume our lives, sure exactly, Um, but
you know, I mean this this does move out of
the realm of real, live people and back to what
(14:23):
we started talking about at the top of the podcast,
which is fan fiction developing relationships with characters not necessarily
real people. Yeah, you can develop very real in a way,
para social relationships, not just with celebrities on the street,
but also with either characters that celebrities might be portraying
(14:44):
in shows or you know, in literature, with your favorite
characters in books. And NPR commentator Jake halpern I had
a great piece about this, talking about his paras social
relationship with a cast of cheers. I loved it, I know,
or he just really wanted to go and hang out
with him. He felt like he could, yeah, go and
get a beer and make conversation, right, And it goes
(15:07):
back to that continuing relationship that that Horton and Wall
talked about when they coined the term para social relationship.
Just that you know, Helper and watches the show. Every
week he knows what Cliff and Norm are talking about
at the bar and he wants to join them, and
that relationship feels all the stronger for the fact that
he checks in with them every week and they are
(15:27):
exactly the same. That's another big part of these para
social relationships with characters is that they're kind of always
the same. Yeah, And I kind of experienced this earlier
this year with breaking bad in and in a not
so positive sense, like I did not want to go
hang out with Walt, don't get me wrong, but I
in order to catch up for the final season. And
(15:49):
don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone
who hasn't seen all of it, um, but in order
to catch up, I binge watched it because a lot
of it was on Netflix, and I found myself Caroline,
thinking about Jessie and Walt and you know, like in
reactions to like things would happen in my day, and
I think, oh, Skyler would totally not be down with that,
(16:13):
you know, like it was starting to get weird end
the beginning of the show, when I had very low investment.
That wasn't something that I ever thought would happen, but
I developed a very real, kind of strange and unwanted
attachment to these characters. But when it comes to the
thought of making emotional psychological connections with fictional characters or
(16:34):
with celebrities, you might think, well, that might be a
sign that something is not so well adjusted, either in
your social life or your brain. But research bears out
different and kind of counterintuitive results, which we will get into.
And we come right back from a quick break and
(16:55):
now back to the podcast. So we were just talking
about connection two characters on TV, characters and movies, uh,
fake people who you develop these connections with after repeated
viewings of a show, And Kristen had been saying that,
you know, a lot of the research is counterintuitive that
you would think like the loneliest, saddest people would be
(17:17):
the ones to develop all these relationships, and that's not
necessarily true, although some studies have connected some degree of
loneliness with these para social relationships. Yeah, there was a
study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology that it
came out in two thousand nine, and it essentially found
(17:38):
that absolutely these familiar television shows are sort of loneliness
bridges for us we turn it on to kind of
keep his company. Maybe if we're at home alone or
if we are going through sort of a downer period,
we might be more likely to watch our favorite television shows. Right,
And they just said that it's basically a lot less
(17:59):
work to turn on the TV than too struggle to
maintain connections with real people, if especially if you are
feeling down, And they tested the social surrogacy hypothesis, theorizing
that loneliness actually motivates people to seek out relationships even
if those relationships aren't real. Which not to make me
(18:20):
sound like I'm off the charts on the para social
relationship skill, Caroline. This also reminds me of when I
a while ago went through a pretty awful breakup and
I just started compulsively out of nowhere watching How I
Met Your Mother and I had to have it on
like in like a couple of weeks, Like I just
had to have it on in the background just to
(18:40):
have something on. And even though I don't love the show,
but I couldn't stop watching the show, you know, And
it's about like, and it totally makes sense reading this
research because it's about a group of friends like who
are dealing with relationships, yeah, exactly. And when I lived
by myself in Augusta, you know, I be cooking dinner
at night and would find myself turning the TV on
(19:03):
to feel less kind of lonely during dinner time, you know,
like having those voices they're having people on TV, either
reading the news or a sitcom or something made it
feel like the house was full. And if we move
from things like television programs back into the realm of
fan fiction and getting more online with shipping and one
(19:26):
true pairing, I think it serves a similar kind of
not just as a creative outlet, but also I think
it does serve a social function as well, because with
one true pairing in particular, people are so heavily invested
in these couples. And it's funny though, like side note
how Ross and Rachel from Friends are examples of almost
(19:50):
every trope yeah in in fan fiction, because like you
could look at them as the one true pairing, you
can also look at them as going through the quote
unquote official couple or deal syndrome, where you know, people
are identifying with these characters, but these characters are being
put through hell there the show creators are toying with
your emotions. But then what's interesting to see with one
(20:11):
prepairing is that it's so more active than us just
passively watching television or even just having it on in
the background, because they really become the architects of these
fictional characters live. So the point that you get into
slash fiction where characters are having sex with other characters,
(20:31):
and they're all sorts of different pairings, whether it's a
ho ya ship which is homo erotic positive shipping, or
sister ship which yep, gets incestuous. Uh, and on and
on and on, and this this is such a deeper
level of investment. Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's
(20:55):
worth looking at how you even get that involved, because
I don't think I mean, there have been a few
characters I just don't watch a lot of TV disclaimer,
but there have been characters historically where I have been
like super invested in them. You know, I am obsessed
with them almost, But I have no idea what's behind
that and what even got me there. And one example
(21:17):
that I can think of is during high school, when
I'm going to bring it up, Christen, when I watched
La fem Nikita. Okay, my favorite show. How many times
have I mentioned this? But so I'm a teen, been
high school and I'm watching this really incredibly powerful kick
butt woman every week, and you know, it was toying
with my emotions because they were going to cancel that
show like three thousand different times, but that she stayed
(21:41):
on the air, and I just I really did feel
like I developed this relationship with her, like, well, if
only she knew me, But she's fake, so she doesn't.
But it's interesting you say, though, that you were in
high school, because one factor that psychologists have identified as
sort of predisposing you to form a paras social relationships
(22:01):
is being in periods of transition. I was going through
a breakup when I went through my how I met
your mother just almost dark spell. I wouldn't leave my apartment. Um,
and you were going through high school. Is there a
more transitional time than that, right? And so yeah, people
who end up with this over the top, either celebrity
(22:21):
worship for real life people or paras social relationships with characters,
they tend to be going through life transitions. And the
same goes for elderly folks. That's another big period of
transition with limited mobility and One study was looking specifically
at the paras social relationships that elderly people form with
(22:42):
like TV shopping hosts. Because they are in that period
of transition where maybe they don't see their family as much,
they have fewer sources of information. They are more susceptible
to these paras social relationships because they can't get out
and so they are lonely. We have said already that
loneliness is a motivating factor for pursuing connections, and so
(23:04):
they end up being more likely to overuse TV shopping
channels because those hosts are like friends to them because
they're probably talking directly to them. Right, It's not like
a sitcom necessarily where I mean, obviously you can develop
para social relationships, etcetera, etcetera. But you know, sitcom stars
are talking to each other. The TV host on the
shopping network is looking right at you. Ah, that makes
(23:24):
so much sense in the saddest way possible. I know,
go hug a grandmother someone. But I mean, research has
shown that these para social relationships can influence I mean
so much. They can influence our views of social issues
like gay rights. If there are gay characters on TV,
then and you feel like you know them, then you're
more likely to change your view of gay rights. It
(23:46):
can even influence teens views of how to achieve goals
that are related to the development of their identities. Yeah,
it's one thing that can also make p says more effective,
as if that's why you have celebrities who are saying, Hey,
don't flush tampons, that's not a p s A anyone's
ever done, probably, or or learn to read things like that, right,
(24:09):
don't drink and drive, that's a p s A. Thank
you learned to read tampon labels. I would make a
horrible p s A writer. Um, But speaking of tampons,
let's talk a little bit about gender, because my assumption
going into this was that this is something that probably
is more appealing to women and younger women. And it's
(24:31):
not that it doesn't occur with a lot of women.
It's just that men and women both experience it, and
we kind of experience it for different reasons. We have
different motivations for turning the TV on, and we have
different motivations for leaving it on and coming back week
after week. Yeah, there was one interesting study that came out.
It's a little dated, but it was looking at the
(24:53):
intersection of dating, gender, and paras social relationships, and it
found that men tended to form stronger PSRs with TV
characters when they were anxious in their dating situation, whereas
women were the opposite. We tended to form those para
social relationships when we were more secure. So it was
(25:16):
in a way we were we as in women were
using these characters and TV shows as a way of
sort of more firmly securing our dating situation. Yeah. They
they found that women tend to see TV as a
friend or companion, whereas men are turning to TV to
solve problems, which is pretty interesting. Well, it's also interesting
(25:37):
is that Twilighting the whole team Edward, team Jake. I mean,
Twilight is just rife with para social relationships, fan fiction,
one true pairing, and go on and on and on.
I mean to the point that, uh, fifty Shades of
Gray was born out of the fan fiction. You could
call it some kind what kind of ship would that be?
(26:00):
Or you take a Bella character and you pair her
up with a guy who's really into bedious and I
don't know, I'm sure it exists. Um, But Twilighting, though,
is a double form of para social relationship where you
have fans of Twilight who transpose their para social relationships
with characters in the book onto actors, right right, And
(26:24):
so that led Robert Pattinson at one point to say, like,
they know that I'm playing a character, right, I'm I'm
just some brit from you know, over across the pond.
I'm not a guy. But those kinds of para social
relationships they do have, really, they do have really real results.
They are a more eloquent way to say that it's
really real, but they do have results on us, not
(26:45):
just in terms of making PSA is more effective, etcetera, etcetera,
or alleviating loneliness for the time being, but also when
those characters like Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart, Bella and
Edward break up, we also feel that too. Oh, the horror,
(27:05):
the heartbreak. No, I mean yeah, And these these breakup
feelings can be felt for characters in a movie or
on TV, or for real life people who you don't
know but you sure are sad about their divorce. Yeah,
I had. Really it made me feel awkward to myself
having a an emotional reaction to the announcement of Amy
(27:26):
Poehler and well our nets divorce, two people I would
love to meet, probably never will. And who I thought was, Oh,
I love both of the things that they do in
television and movies. Why did I care? It was the
strangest thing, Caroline. Yeah, I I mean I I've felt
that too, you know, just like extreme sadness over like
(27:49):
you guys can't work it out, there's not anything. What happened,
What happened, happened, what happened. And so Kristen, not to
make this completely about La fem Nikita, like I do everything,
but there have been studies that look at people's feelings
about the end of a show and so the end
of a relationship, a para social relationship that they have
(28:12):
with the character. And like I said, you know, USA
was going to cancel a Femniki to like fifteen thousand times,
and the fan base, I mean I was only in
high school, but like the active online fan base went
crazy and actually got the show back because people were
so intensely invested in the story. Yeah. Jonathan Cohen is
a researcher who has done a couple of studies actually
(28:33):
on these para social breakups, and he's found in a
nutshell that yes, we do feel them too, but the
level that we feel them is very much tied to
our psychological attachment style. You hear this a lot with
a relationship psychology, where you are usually fall into one
or three categories of being securely attached, avoidantly attached. Was
(28:56):
just like who don't call me, I'll call you yeah,
or you have anxious attachment. And people who are more
anxiously attached, people who might be in real life little
more nervous about the status of their relationships, tend to
feel these kinds of para social breakups a little more
strongly than avoidantly or securely attached people, right, and Cohen
(29:21):
was saying that because it's not necessarily the people we
would think having these para social relationships, that we should
probably view PSRs as an extension of people's social relationships,
not necessarily compensation for a lack of them, because, like
we said, you know, men are if they're anxious about
(29:42):
their relationships, they'll turn to TV. If women are feeling
great about theirs, they'll turn to TV. It's not necessarily
that you completely avoid human contact, because he argues, if
you were an avoidant personality. You wouldn't want to create
relationships with characters on TV either, right, right, Well, and
it's also good to point out too, that there have
been a number of studies, you know, confirming and reconfirming
(30:06):
that para social relationships are not red flags that you
are a shut in and don't know how to make friends.
It's actually more tied to characteristics of extraversion and sociability.
It's like you said, it's an extension of these relationships. Um,
there's one other study which found that we tend to
rate these characters as closer than acquaintances, but not as
(30:27):
close as close friends. That's good, Yeah, yeah, that is
that's good. I'm I'm glad that we do rate our
friends higher than fictional characters. And to bring up yet
another gendered aspect of this research, Cohen points out in
his study of basically anticipating the end of a series
(30:49):
that women who generally report stronger PSRs did not report
expecting higher levels of distress as the show was ending
in their relationships with these characters are ending, and he
says that that probably has something to do with the
fact that we're better able to cope with the end
of real life relationships slightly better than men anyway, well
and regardless of gender. The one thing that with all
(31:13):
of this information on para social breakups. Great part about
shipping and once you're pairing in fandom and online fan
fiction and all these communities that exist, is that you
never have to break up. Now you can simply dive
into these new worlds and create these new worlds and
new relationships. And and we also now have more accessibility
(31:34):
to real life celebrities than ever before. And you also
have I bet there's some listeners who might be familiar
with the YouTube series The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, where they
did an incredible job of having social media updates in
real time as the show is going on. So you
felt like you knew these characters as people because they're
(31:57):
in your Twitter feeds making comments and people got, you know,
so into it. I think because of that closer relationship
they were able to form. Mhm, this is interesting. It
is interesting. I mean, it definitely made me think about
my media consumption differently. Yeah, it made me extra thankful
(32:21):
that I don't do much TV watching. Although you know
what I will say this, Sally, my mother, Sally like
goes she would be so embarrassed if she knew I
was saying this. She goes to the store every Friday
to pick up the new tabloid round Um, and when
I go home for dinner or whatever, like, she'll hand
them off to me. And so that's the only time
I ever read tabloids is when Sally hands them to me.
(32:44):
And it's easy to get caught up in that, Like
as you're reading it, I'm like, oh, my god, she's
pregnant again, or like, oh, she looks so beautiful in
that designer gown, you know, like it's I can see
how it is very easy to get caught up in
in the celebrity worship. Yeah, I mean, and since this
is a podcast, I feel like I need to admit
my own paras social podcast relationships that I have with
(33:06):
the ones that I listened to on a regular basis,
Like Professor blast Off fans listen Tegnataro is like a
friend to me in my head. I wish I wish
in my in my living room too. Well, it's easy
because you know, especially it's not like with a lot
of things like podcast or whatever. It's not like people
(33:27):
are very formally talking about very formal things, you know.
It's it's like we're having a conversation right now, and
I'm sure people out there also feel included in the
conversation as we want you to. Yeah, I would love
for people to form paras social relationships with us, Yeah,
for sure. But I hope that this was entertaining. I
know that we covered a lot of territory, from the
(33:50):
fictional to the more celebrity focus stuff, but it all
ties together, and I don't know, to me, it was
it was nice to see how the world of fandom,
which we might think of as as sort of a
niche thing that we might not be that engaged with,
we all engage in some form of it. Yeah, we
(34:10):
all do. It's just the fact that I have ever
felt disappointed that a celebrity couple has broken up, Like
when I when I saw that Carrie Russell who okay
here here multi layered. I was obsessed with Felicity when
it was on TV, and I started rewatching it on
Netflix not too long ago. So I'm just like Carrie Russell,
I just freaking love you. I think she's adorable, and
(34:34):
then she gets married in real life and I think
her husband's all handsome and she's so pretty and they've
got this pretty kid, and then I hear that they're
getting a divorce and I'm like, no, Felicity, No, And
so well, because that probably ties back into the theory
of how, you know, we sort of live through them
a little bit. Yeah, and if they're at the top
(34:56):
of the social hierarchy and and we see them, you know,
not being able to quote unquote make it work, right,
then sure it can give us pause, like, well, that
can't If they can't be perfect, how could I be perfect?
But I don't think people should feel too bad about it,
you know, because it's kind of like just if you're
a freshman in high school looking at the seniors in
(35:17):
high school and their cool cars and their cool clothes,
and they get to do things, you know, they have
you know, cell phones or whatever whatever the kids have
these days. They got their snapchats, their snapchats, and there
roulettes and whatnot. Um, it's kind of the same thing.
It's just like, what are the cool kids doing? Yeah? Yeah, well,
(35:38):
I definitely want to hear from listeners on this does
this ring bells for you? Who do you have a
par of social relationship with? Let us know you can
write to us mom Stuff at Discovery dot com or
just tweet us at mom Stuff Podcast. You can always
send us a message over on Facebook. And we've got
(35:59):
a cup will of messages to share with you now
about our episode on gender reveal parties. So I've got
one here from Megan, and she writes, I have attended
a small party, but I haven't hosted one, but when
I went to had no gifts involved in just an
(36:20):
hour or so, a fun chit chat and a delicious cake.
If people want to continue to have parties like this
in all caps, she says, go for it. I don't
have to bring a gift, but I do get cake
and get to talk to people I mostly like. So sure,
but I have heard of these parties going a little overboard,
and I just can't stand behind that. I agree, if
you're going to have a shower, then that should be
(36:41):
the only time I should have to buy a gift
for your baby. And too many parties seems like too
much work. But I am a mom, so I have
a different point of view than you guys. Might I
like the idea of this type of thing. It seems
super fun, and I plan to do something similar with
my husband and I have another child. It wasn't something
I knew of when I had my daughter. And for me,
and like the party I went to, I will likely
only invite close family and friends, provide cake, and keep
(37:03):
it short. But I think sharing that moment when you
find out whether you're having a boy or a girl
is kind of sweet. Whether we have some kind of
dyed cake or icing or stuff balloons in a box,
I don't know, but most of these I've seen here
pretty cute and make for an adorable picture. To me,
it just seems like one of those things that if
someone wants to take the effort to do it, let
them have it, as long as they don't expect too
much of other people. So thanks Megan. You know, right
(37:26):
after we recorded that episode, I got on Facebook and
a friend of mine from college had posted pictures of
her gender revealed party. Really and I looked at the
picture and I was like, is this what I think
it is? Because it was a picture of a small
white cake and on it were two football helmet and
one was pink and one was blue, and it said
pink versus Blue. And then the next picture was the
(37:47):
cut cake that had pink cake inside of it. I
was like, man, Kristen and I are on the ball.
We got our fingers on the pulse. That's right, of something,
of something. The cake trends um well. This letter is
from Jennifer. She said, in November, I found out that
(38:08):
not only was I pregnant, but that I was twenty
six weeks pregnant. Three negative pregnancy tests, no weight gain,
and very mild symptoms, all of which could be put
down to other things, led me to believe I was
going through early menopause. I found out at a regular
doctor's appointment. My husband got off work early that day
and we got an ultrasound that afternoon. We had already
had too many surprises that day and decided not to
(38:30):
find out the gender at the time, so we were
given a sealed envelope. We wanted to keep the surprise
for a while, and we wanted to make sure not
to get too many gender specific clothes, toys, or decor
for our child. However, both of our mothers were really
keen to know where they whether they were getting a
granddaughter or a grandson. Also, answering the question got to
be kind of an annoyance with the agreement of the
(38:51):
friends who were throwing our shower for us in January twelve,
we gave the envelope to our cake maker, another friend
and had her do a gender reveal cake for our
baby shower. That way, a lot of the gifts we
would get would be gender neutral, we wouldn't be having
a second party that people might think they were required
to bring gifts for, and we could answer the question
and share our reaction with an awful lot of people
(39:12):
at once. Because our mothers and extended families live more
than a thousand miles away from us in opposite directions,
they couldn't be there, but we were able to have
friends set up webcams for live streaming so that everyone
could share the info. One cutting into that cake and
pulling out the pink slice was a wonderful moment for
us to share with our families and our extended chosen families.
A k A friend, I will say that I am
(39:33):
a bit unsure about making it a whole separate party
and very much of the belief that it is crasped
beyond acceptability to make it a second expected gift giving event.
So thank you, Jennifer. I think your story is great
and I'm glad you got to share your special moment
with people via webcam, and thanks to everybody who's written
in to us, Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is
(39:55):
our email address and the only other address you need
to know. To find all things stuff mom and A
told you, including every single podcast, blog, video, and social
media link, head on over to stuff Mom Never told
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