NOTE-186: Ethics of Parasocial Relationships

Contribution

Philosophers had discussed celebrity ethics mostly as role-model duties, epistemic power, admiring immoral artists and the public–private divide (p. 1). The chapter is the first sustained argument that the fan–celebrity parasocial relationship is itself a kind of personal relationship with a determinate asymmetric structure. It uses that structure to derive a specific wrong fans can do to celebrities: refusing uptake of an identity change.

Key insight

In ordinary friendship, both parties direct and interpret each other’s identities. Parasociality splits the two. The celebrity broadcasts and so directs, while a mass of fans collectively interprets. A mass audience that will not revise its interpretation can therefore hold one person’s identity fixed. That is a failure of recognition respect for the self they are entitled to present.

Assumptions

• LaFollette’s criterion (1996: 4): a relationship is personal “inasmuch as each person relates to the other as a unique individual”. Partiality (Betzler 2014; Keller 2013) is a further mark (pp. 2–3).
• Personal relationships need neither full reciprocity nor accurate information about the other. Unrequited love is the model (Millar & Lopez-Cantero 2022; p. 4). Public personae are curated but not wholly detached from the private person (pp. 5–6).
• Darwall’s (1977) two kinds of respect. Recognition respect is owed to the self a person is “entitled to perform” (p. 10).
• Lindemann’s narrative, social-practice account of personal identity (2014; Lindemann Nelson 2001): identity is co-constituted by one’s own stories and others’ uptake of them (p. 10).
• Valentini’s (2022) “Transparency Public-identity Power”, the power to reveal who one is effectively to others (p. 11).
• A fallback is offered. Readers unwilling to call parasocial relationships “personal” need accept only that they share distinctive forms of the paradigmatic features of personal relationships, and the ethics section still goes through (p. 6).

Key results

• §1 (pp. 2–6). Parasocial relationships are personal relationships. Fans relate to celebrities as unique individuals (Britney Spears’s fans; fans’ kinship terms, from Caughey 1984; Click et al. 2013; Stevenson 2009), and grieve them. Two objections are answered. Non-reciprocity: interaction is not wholly one-way (social media; Lady Gaga, Swift, Hilton), and personal relationships may be one-way anyway. Illusory intimacy: personae are partly real, and personal bonds do not need full knowledge. The burden of proof falls on those who deny it is a “relationship” (p. 6).
• §2 (pp. 6–8). There are three structural asymmetries. Attention (pp. 6–7): the fan attends to the individual celebrity, the celebrity to a fanbase. Communication (p. 7): the celebrity broadcasts. Kehrberg’s (2015) Twitter sample found no replies from celebrities. Epistemic (p. 7): fans know much about the celebrity, the celebrity nothing about the individual fan. Together these produce the identity asymmetry: celebrities direct, fans interpret (pp. 7–8). Parasociality may be an “amplified version” of asymmetries found in other personal relationships (p. 8).
• §3 (pp. 8–12). Ethical implications. The case is Taylor Swift’s 2018 break with the “nice girl” persona and the backlash from right-wing fans (Miss Americana). Refusing uptake of a legitimate presented self is a failure of recognition respect (pp. 9–10). It harms by restricting agency, on Lindemann’s account, and is a form of Valentini’s public-identity disempowerment (pp. 10–11). The mass scale of fandom aggravates it, and so does the asymmetry of exit: fans can leave, celebrities cannot (the Olsen twins, p. 11). The resulting duties are listed in corrections. They are mitigated when the celebrity’s self-presentation is misleading or ambiguous. Paris Hilton’s “ditsy blond” performance means fans are not blameworthy for having believed it, but they must respect a clearly presented change (p. 12).
• §4 (pp. 12–13). The same asymmetries recur between political leaders and citizens, managers and workers, religious leaders and followers, and teachers and students. Any relationship with this identity asymmetry risks “recognition disrespect”.

Claims

id	claim	strength	support
C1	Most, if not all, fan–celebrity parasocial relationships are personal relationships (pp. 3, 13)	informal argument	LaFollette’s criterion plus fan-studies evidence; two objections answered
C2	Parasocial relationships are constituted by attention, communication and epistemic asymmetries (pp. 6–7)	informal argument	conceptual analysis, illustrated by secondary empirical literature (Schickel 1985; Kehrberg 2015)
C3	These give rise to an identity asymmetry: celebrities mainly direct, fans mainly interpret (pp. 7–8)	informal argument	analogy with Cocking & Kennett’s account of friendship; Marcus 2019 on fans co-constructing personae
C4	Fans’ refusal to accept a celebrity’s legitimately presented new persona is a failure of recognition respect (pp. 9–10)	informal argument	Darwall 1977; one case (Swift)
C5	This wrong restricts the celebrity’s agency and can shape their private identity (pp. 10–11)	informal argument	Lindemann 2014, Valentini 2022; Swift’s own testimony in a documentary
C6	Fans have responsibilities to be open to persona change and not to press a fixed persona; these are mitigated by the celebrity’s misleading or ambiguous self-presentation (pp. 11–12)	informal argument	follows from C4–C5; Hilton case
C7	”Ethical responsibilities for both fans and celebrities” (abstract)	assertion	the body argues only for fans’ responsibilities; celebrities’ duties are cited from others’ work (see corrections)
C8	The same asymmetries and risks appear in relationships of power (political, managerial, religious, teaching) (p. 13)	assertion	stated in the conclusion without analysis

Concepts

• Parasocial relationship: Horton & Wohl (1956), a media user relating to a performer “as if” a friend, with the attachment largely unreciprocated.
• Directive vs interpretive influence: from Cocking & Kennett (1998). The first shapes the other’s interests and character. The second shapes their self-understanding through one’s reading of them.
• Identity asymmetry: the parasocial split of these two influences between celebrity and fans.
• Recognition respect / appraisal respect: Darwall (1977).
• Public-identity disempowerment, transparency public-identity power: Valentini (2022).
• “Embalming above ground”: Braudy (1986), a celebrity frozen in a past persona by fans.

Connections

• LIT-137 is the Bloomsbury volume on fame and celebrity that the same two authors co-edited with Dennis. It is unread here, and this chapter does not cite it. LIT-174 (Bunton, on celebrities speaking out) addresses the Swift-type case from the speaker’s side: when celebrity speech is justifiable. This chapter addresses the audience’s duties when the celebrity changes.
• LIT-130 (Dufner, personal identity and ethics) covers the numerical persistence questions and their ethical consequences. This chapter works in the other, practical and narrative, sense of identity. The two meet on the question of why a person’s identity over time matters morally.
• Account of identity held: narrative and social. Following Lindemann, who someone is is co-constituted by the stories they tell and others’ uptake of them. Identity can change over time, and others can wrongfully hold it fixed.

Bearing on the record

It carries nothing for ML practice directly. The conceptual transfer to users and AI companions is worth recording, but carefully. The three structural asymmetries plainly describe a user and a chatbot persona, and the directive asymmetry (the persona shaping the user’s interests and self-understanding) is a real concern there. The chapter’s ethical result is a different matter. It is a wrong done by fans to the celebrity, and it depends on the far party being a person with an identity and agency to restrict. So it does not carry over without an argument about AI moral status (compare LIT-126). The chapter makes neither transfer itself. On society-and-governance: the chapter’s only link is the unargued closing extension to political, managerial and religious power (C8). As a third tag it is defensible, but weak.

Limitations

• The abstract promises responsibilities for celebrities, and the body does not deliver them (C7).
• The empirical support comes from celebrity-studies literature and a few documentaries and news cases (Swift, Hilton, Spears, the Olsens). There is no systematic evidence that the identity asymmetry has the effects claimed.
• The argument that parasocial relationships are personal leans on how people talk (“the burden of proof … is on those who think that these interactions do not amount to a relationship”, p. 6). That shifts the burden rather than meeting it. The fallback weaker claim does most of the work.
• Recognition respect is owed only to self-presentations one is “entitled to perform” (p. 10). What grounds that entitlement is left open, which matters for contested personae.
• It is a penultimate draft, with residue: uncited bibliography entries and date and spelling mismatches (see corrections).

Open questions

• Does the analysis extend to parasocial relationships whose far party is not a person (AI companions, fictional characters)? And if the far party cannot be wronged, which of the fans’ responsibilities survive?
• What do celebrities owe fans, given their directive influence? The chapter sets this aside.
• Is the identity asymmetry really an “amplified version” of asymmetries in ordinary relationships (p. 8), or a difference in kind created by mass scale? The chapter asserts the first.

Corrections to the seeded skim

• The dossier’s summary, following the abstract, says the chapter “creates duties on both sides”. The body develops only the fans’ responsibilities. §3 says its “focus here is on the ethical responsibilities for fans” (p. 9). Celebrities’ duties (role-modelling, epistemic power) are only cited from earlier work (Howe 2021; Spurgin 2012; Archer et al. 2020, 2022). The celebrity’s conduct enters only as something that “mitigate[s]” fans’ blame (pp. 12–13). The headline is broader than the argument.
• The dossier asks whether the definition requires the other party to be a person. The definition does not: parasocial relationships “may be formed with fictional characters …, influencers …, as well as bots, avatars and other digital creations” (p. 1, citing Stein, Breves & Anders 2022), and the conclusion repeats this (p. 13). But the analysis is restricted to fans and celebrities. Its two load-bearing steps presuppose a person on the far side. The relationship is “personal” because the fan relates to “a unique individual” (LaFollette 1996, pp. 2–3). The wrong is a failure of recognition respect that restricts the celebrity’s agency and identity (pp. 9–11). For a human–chatbot relationship, the asymmetries transfer. The ethical conclusion, a wrong to the celebrity, does not transfer without a separate argument. The chapter says nothing about AI.
• The dossier asked what “directive” and “interpretive” influence amount to. Both are taken from Cocking & Kennett (1998) on friendship. Directive influence is shaping the other’s interests and character through receptivity. Interpretive influence is shaping how the other sees themselves by consistently reading their conduct a certain way (pp. 7–8). Celebrities “do most of the directing”, fans “most of the interpreting” (p. 8).
• The dossier asked what the concrete duties are. Fans should “be open to changes in the public persona of their idols”, should “refrain from pressuring celebrities to adopt or maintain a particular form of public presentation”, and should not “confuse a celebrity’s private life and public image” (pp. 11–12). There is expressly no duty to remain a fan (p. 11).
• The penultimate text shows draft residue. The bibliography lists works never cited in the text (Driessen 2022, Fallon 2015, Goffard 2017, Manne 2020, Marwick 2017), which suggests material on privacy and leaks was cut. Footnote 1 cites “Archer and Sie (2023)”, but the bibliography dates it 2022. It also cites “Millar & Lopez-Cantero (2022)” in the text as “Miller”.
• identity tag: justified, as a secondary tag, in the practical or narrative sense of personal identity rather than the numerical one. The chapter’s central mechanism is an “identity asymmetry” (§2). Its wrong is the freezing of a person’s identity over time, fans forcing “embalming above ground” (Braudy, p. 9). It grounds this in Lindemann’s (2014) account of personal identities as held and let go through the stories others tell (pp. 10–11), and in Valentini’s (2022) “public-identity” power. That is persistence of who someone is under change, as others track it, and a reader browsing personal identity would be right to expect it. It says nothing about numerical sameness, and the tag’s blurb (“the same thing over time or across descriptions”) leans numerical. If the record means identity to exclude practical identity, the tag should go. It should not be kept silently.
• primary topic: ethics (keep).