Those aren't new; what's new is opening up of a whole dimension, on which celebrities are clustered on one edge. "Traditional" celebrities are widely-known, but low on "parasocial value"[0]. Influencers are less well-known, but higher on parasocial value. There's been talk of nanoinfluencing, which are very low on being well-known, very high on parasocial; I guess this just got implemented by TikTok.
And it's worth highlighting what parasocial marketing means: it means exploiting natural desire of people to form bonds, in order to peddle wares. It's another kind of abusing people for profit.
And yes, technically marketing on the other edge of known/parasocial spectrum isn't new either - it's occupied by people joining MLMs, who are duped into burning friendships and family ties in order to make money in a totally-not-pyramid scheme. The new thing is all the points between celebrities and MLM zombies being occupied by different kinds of influencers.
> And it's worth highlighting what parasocial marketing means: it means exploiting natural desire of people to form bonds, in order to peddle wares. It's another kind of abusing people for profit.
I get why that sounds bad, but is it always bad? Is there something inherently bad about the movie podcasts I’ve listened to for 10 years having brief Squarespace sponsor breaks?
Does the badness go away when I subscribe on Patreon and get ad-free episodes? I mean either way they are “exploiting my natural desire to form bonds and using that for financial benefit.” And yet, it doesn’t feel that bad to me. It feels like I’m just paying for original creative content, even though it’s true that a big part of why I like the content is the parasocial relationship I have with the hosts.
There's a degree of self-awareness to it. You know what's going on in your relationship with the podcaster, so you're much less affected (or perhaps not at all). But imagine a more naive version of yourself - one that doesn't understand how parasocial relationship works, and instead implicitly trusts the podcaster because they deluded themselves into thinking they're their friend.
It's like, remember when everyone and their dog started peddling shady VPNs on YouTube? Or how they're all peddling NFTs now? You and me understand what those products are, and we can just roll our eyes and continue to consume content. But others in the audience? Suffice to say, I now regularly have to dissuade my family members and people in their circles from buying into bullshit that's eagerly promoted by their favorite YouTube stars.
