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You know the name of their dog. You know how they take their coffee, which song they hum when they are nervous, and the exact face they make right before they say something they shouldn’t.
You have spent more hours with this person than with some of your cousins. When they had a hard year, you felt it. When they announced good news, you smiled at your phone like a friend had texted you.
And they have no idea you exist.
If that sounds familiar, you are not strange. You are in what researchers call a parasocial relationship, and so is nearly everyone who owns a screen. But there is one small detail in the original research, and one small slip in a very old letter, that together explain why these bonds can feel so warm and still leave something missing.
What Is a Parasocial Relationship?
A parasocial relationship is a one-way bond. You feel close to someone (a streamer, a podcast host, an actor, a singer, even a character in a show) who does not know you and cannot feel close back.
The idea is older than the internet. Two sociologists, Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl, named it in a 1956 paper about television, with a subtitle that still says it best: “Observations on Intimacy at a Distance.” They noticed that TV hosts talked straight into the camera as if chatting with one friend, and viewers answered by feeling like that friend.
Almost seventy years later, the word went mainstream. Cambridge Dictionary named “parasocial” its Word of the Year for 2025, and its definition now reaches past celebrities and fictional characters to include artificial intelligence. The one-way bond has a new partner: the chatbot that remembers your name.
Here is the part worth hearing first: this is normal. Horton and Wohl did not treat it as a disorder. In their own words, “For the great majority of the audience, the para-social is complementary to normal social life.” Liking a creator is not a problem to fix. It only becomes a problem, they wrote, when it becomes “a substitute” for real life with real people.
The Line in the 1956 Paper Almost Nobody Quotes
Most summaries stop at “one-sided.” But Horton and Wohl said something sharper, and it is the key to the whole thing.
They described how a fan, over time, comes to believe they know the person “more intimately and profoundly than others do.” Then they named what that really is: “a kind of growth without development.”
Read that again. Your knowledge grows. Every video, every episode, every post adds another piece. But the relationship itself can’t go anywhere, because, as they put it, the bond is “one-sided, nondialectical, controlled by the performer, and not susceptible of mutual development.”
In plain words: you can learn a thousand things about them, and they will still learn nothing about you. You can’t surprise them. You can’t be missed by them. You can’t be forgiven by them, because they never knew you did anything.
That explains something newer research found. In a 2022 experiment (Stein, Liebers and Faiss, in Mass Communication and Society), 151 people were asked to spend a few minutes thinking about either a real friend, a favourite media figure, or something neutral. Thinking about the media figure lifted people’s mood about as much as thinking about a real friend did. But it did not ease their loneliness. The real friend did something the favourite creator could not.
So the warmth is real. What’s missing is the other direction. Loneliness is not really a shortage of people you know about. It’s a shortage of people who know you. We explored that gap in why you can feel disconnected from everyone even with a full feed, and it’s the same reason the end of a long show can hit so hard, as in post-series depression. If you’re not sure how much of this is touching you, the free How Lonely Am I? check takes about two minutes.
Paul Caught Himself Mid-Sentence
Nearly two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul was writing a worried letter to churches in a region called Galatia. They had come to faith, and now they were drifting back to their old ways. In the middle of making his point, Paul does something unusual. He corrects himself, right there on the page:
“But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?”
Galatians 4:9 (KJV)
Ye have known God. Then a pause you can almost hear. Or rather are known of God.
He starts to say the normal thing: you got to know God. Then he stops, because that sentence puts the wrong person in charge of the relationship. It makes knowing God sound like something you collected, like facts about a favourite creator. So he flips it. The deeper truth is not that you found out about God. It’s that God knew you.
Look at the verse just before it, too. Paul reminds them what their life used to be: “when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods” (Galatians 4:8). They had served, honoured, and given their devotion to gods that, in Paul’s words, were not gods at all. Whatever else that meant, it was devotion that could not be returned. Paul’s correction lands exactly there: what they have now is not another one-way bond. This time, the one on the other side knows them.
He Did It More Than Once
Here’s the detail that’s easy to miss: this was not a one-time slip. Paul keeps turning “knowing” around in his letters.
Writing to the church in Corinth, he says: “But if any man love God, the same is known of him” (1 Corinthians 8:3). The proof that your love for God is real is not how much you know. It’s that you are known.
And in the famous chapter about love, he says it again, looking forward: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Notice the order. Even as also I am known. Paul’s own knowing is partial and blurry. God’s knowing of Paul is already complete. One day, he says, it will finally run both ways, face to face.
Jesus put it in the same order. “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine” (John 10:14). He knows first. We know back.
The One Relationship That Runs the Other Way
Put Horton and Wohl next to Paul and something clicks.
A parasocial relationship is the far-off, famous one being known by the small, unseen one, and never knowing back. That’s why it grows without developing.
What Paul describes is the exact reverse. The greatest Being there is, the one we might expect to be the most distant of all, is the one who already knows you. Not the version you post. Not the highlight reel. The real one.
That changes how you can look at the pull you feel toward a favourite creator. It is not silly and it is not shameful. It’s a real hunger for closeness that happens to be pointed at someone who cannot answer it. The hunger itself is good. It was made to be met. And there is a relationship where the famous one knows you first, where it can actually grow and develop, because both sides are really in it.
You don’t have to unfollow anyone. Enjoy the show. Laugh at the stream. Just don’t ask a screen to do what only being known can do.
Actions to Take
- Make two short lists (2 minutes). On one side, write three people you know a lot about but who don’t know you. On the other, write three people who know how you are really doing. Just notice which list was easier to fill.
- Send one honest message (3 minutes). Pick one name from the second list, or one person you’d like to put there, and send a message that says something true about your week. Not a highlight. Something real, like “Honestly, this week has been heavy.”
- Before you press play tonight (5 minutes). Sit for a moment and tell God one thing about your day that nobody online knows. You aren’t giving God new information. Galatians 4:9 says you’re already known. You’re just stepping into the side of the relationship that talks back.
Journaling Prompts
- Which person on a screen do you feel closest to right now, and what is it about them that you wish someone in your real life offered you?
- When was the last time you felt truly known by someone, not admired or liked, but known? What made that moment possible?
- What would change in how you pray if you started from “God already knows me” instead of “I need to get God’s attention”?
A Prayer for When You Feel Unseen
God, I know so much about people who will never know my name, and sometimes I feel more seen by a screen than by anyone in my life. Thank you that you are not like that. You knew me before I ever tried to know you, and you know the parts I don’t post. Help me stop reaching only for closeness that can’t reach back, and give me the courage to let a few real people know me too. Today, I just want to rest in being known by you.
Discussion Question
Do you think parasocial relationships with creators and AI chatbots are mostly harmless company, or are they quietly taking the place of real friendships? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
Share This
“Growth without development.” That’s how the 1956 researchers who named parasocial relationships described knowing a creator who doesn’t know you. Your knowledge grows. The relationship can’t.
Paul started to write “you have known God,” then corrected himself: “or rather are known of God.” I never noticed he stopped mid-sentence. Knowing about someone and being known by them are two very different things.
I know my favourite streamer’s dog’s name. They’ll never know mine. Turns out that’s normal, and it also explains why a feed full of familiar faces can still feel lonely.
Parasocial Relationship Q&A
What is a parasocial relationship in simple terms?
A parasocial relationship is a one-sided emotional bond a person feels with someone who does not know them, such as a celebrity, streamer, podcast host, fictional character, or AI chatbot. The person feels real closeness and familiarity, but the other side cannot feel close back. Sociologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl first named the idea in a 1956 paper about television audiences.
Are parasocial relationships unhealthy?
Parasocial relationships are usually not unhealthy. Horton and Wohl, who coined the term in 1956, wrote that for most people these bonds are “complementary to normal social life.” They become a concern when they replace real relationships instead of sitting alongside them. A 2022 experiment by Stein, Liebers and Faiss found that thinking about a favourite media figure improved mood about as much as thinking about a real friend, but did not reduce loneliness the way a real friendship did.
Why do parasocial relationships feel so real?
Parasocial relationships feel real because people come to know a media figure the same way they know friends: by watching their face, hearing their voice, and following their life over time. Creators and hosts often speak directly to the camera as if talking to one person, which strengthens the sense of closeness. What is missing is reciprocity, meaning the other person never gets to know the viewer back.
Why was “parasocial” the Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year?
Cambridge Dictionary chose “parasocial” as its Word of the Year for 2025 because of widespread interest in one-sided relationships people form with celebrities, influencers, and AI chatbots. The word began in academic research in 1956 and was added to the Cambridge Dictionary in 2023 before becoming mainstream.
What does the Bible say about being known by God?
The Bible repeatedly describes God as knowing people first. In Galatians 4:9 (KJV), the apostle Paul writes “after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God,” correcting himself mid-sentence to put God’s knowing first. In 1 Corinthians 8:3 he writes “if any man love God, the same is known of him,” and in 1 Corinthians 13:12 he looks forward to the day when “then shall I know even as also I am known.” In John 10:14, Jesus says “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”
