IN FOCUS: We’re all fans of something or someone, but how much is too much?

After Daniel Radcliffe ended his run as the titular character in the Harry Potter mega-movie franchise, the English actor made a name for himself taking on indie films and theatre productions – decidedly unconventional projects for a child star linked to a global cultural phenomenon.
But Radcliffe’s career moves post-Harry Potter cemented his apparent “normal” personality among fans, which Singapore Management University (SMU) PhD student Davelle Lee describes as “weird and humble”. This impression was enough for her to fall into a parasocial relationship with a man who doesn’t know she exists.
The unrequited love doesn’t bother her though. In fact, this “one-sided” connection that people form with media personas is the essence of parasocial relationships. These relationships can create illusions of intimacy, friendship and identification.
“I love Daniel Radcliffe with all my heart and soul. Like, oh my gosh, I just love his personality. Love him okay? I really do,” said Ms Lee, whose PhD in psychology focuses on self and identity in multicultural environments.
Still, she didn’t realise she’d unwittingly entered a parasocial relationship with the former child star, especially since she “did not like him from Harry Potter”. Then she chanced upon a checklist called the “celebrity-persona parasocial interaction scale” developed by US academics.
The celebrity-persona parasocial interaction scale was developed by American researchers Mihai C Bocarnea and William J Brown in 2007.
Based on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 indicates “strongly disagree” and 5 indicates “strongly agree”, individuals are asked for their position on these statements:
1. [Celebrity or persona] makes me feel as if I am with someone I know well.
2. If [celebrity or persona] appeared on a TV programme, I would watch that programme.
3. I see [celebrity or persona] as a natural down-to-earth person.
4. If I saw a newspaper or magazine story about [celebrity or persona], I would read it.
5. I would like to meet [celebrity or persona] in person.
6. I feel that I understand the emotions [celebrity or persona] experiences.
7. I find myself thinking about [celebrity or persona] on a regular basis.
8. I do not have any feelings about [celebrity or persona].
9. I like to watch [celebrity or persona] on television.
10. Whenever I am unable to get news about [celebrity or persona], I really miss it.
11. Learning about [celebrity or persona] is important to me.
12. I have been seeking out information in the media to learn more [celebrity or persona].
13. I sometimes go to the internet to obtain more information about [celebrity or persona].
14. Sometimes I feel like calling or writing [celebrity or persona].
15. [Celebrity or persona] understands the kinds of things I want to know.
16. I sometimes make remarks to [celebrity or persona] while watching television.
17. I am very much aware of the details of [celebrity or persona]’s life.
18. I feel like I have very little understanding of [celebrity or persona] as a person.
19. I look forward to seeing [celebrity or persona] on television or in the print media.
20. I am not really interested in [celebrity or persona].
“I was asking myself all these questions, and I was like: Oh my god, I am in a parasocial relationship with Daniel Radcliffe! I’m always learning more about him. Whenever I don’t get the news about him, I’m very sad. I watch everything he’s in,” Ms Lee chuckled.
“This is not that uncommon. I think it’s relatively normal nowadays.”
In my experience, Ms Lee is right. When Taylor Swift dropped her latest release The Tortured Poets Department as a surprise double album with 15 extra songs, more than one Swiftie told me they’d considered taking “urgent leave” from work to “process” the news.  
Any Swiftie worth their salt knows that whenever the global megastar releases a new album, setting aside a day – well, let’s be honest, days – to savour each track multiple times, scrutinising the myriad possible meanings behind every single lyric including what’s not said, is a canon event in Swiftdom. It doesn’t matter that there is little way for fans to confirm their theories, because Swift only ever alludes to the people and experiences she sings about.
Many fans form a connection to the singer because they believe her feelings, articulated with apparent authenticity, mirror theirs. Even as a fair-weather Swiftie, I realise Taylor Swift’s allure lies in making fans believe they know her intimately despite not knowing her personally. 
Self-professed Swiftie, Dr Natasha Riard, cited a podcast where the speaker said he’d accompanied his wife – a Taylor Swift fan – to a concert. He wasn’t a fan, but the concert helped him finally understand why others were.
“(He realised) they were not there to listen to Taylor Swift songs. They were there to listen to her sing their songs back to them,” recalled Dr Riard, a clinical psychologist who has presented a paper on the art and science of training mental health practitioners using Taylor Swift’s lyrics at an academic symposium on Taylor Swift. 
“And I was mind-blown, because that would be my relationship (with Swift). Like, I’m there to listen to this song that you’ve somehow written about my life, my reality.” 
Although parasocial relationships might appear to be a social media phenomenon, the term was first coined in 1956 to describe the psychological attachment formed from viewing TV personalities. Even back then, such relationships were enhanced due to trust and self-disclosure provided by the media personas, researchers Donald Horton and R Richard Wohl had found. 
The difference today is the increasing variety of social media platform features enabling easier two-way interaction, or a perception of it. 
For example, anyone with a social media presence can “like” a follower’s comment without actually replying to them. A follower can join an influencer’s Instagram broadcast channel, often seen as a more “exclusive” and “intimate” space, to glean their life updates that don’t make it to the feed.
The interactive elements of social media today – such as “likes”, comments, and direct messaging between two parties – “further blur the lines between the private and public, giving users the illusion of accessibility or reciprocity”, acknowledged Associate Professor Cho Hichang from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Communications and New Media department.
Still, even when celebrities address fans on social media these days, it’s “very much generalised” even though fans might feel “a sense of affirmation (and) reciprocity”, said Professor Lim Sun Sun, whose research covers the social impact of technology.
“So to be precise, parasocial relationships (these days) are one-sided relationships with no personalised reciprocity from the person on the other side.”
But platforms like TikTok and Twitch that provide users the ability to tip or send gifts to content creators can “deepen and maybe even complicate the parasocial relationship”, Prof Lim, a Lee Kong Chian Professor of Communication and Technology at SMU, said.
“If you’ve sent money to a personality or influencer, you feel more literally invested in their personal success. Now you don’t just feel like you admire them. Some fans may actually feel that sense of ownership (over the other person), because of their financial support.”
While parasocial relationships are perhaps most evident in mega fandoms that are cultural phenomena in their own right, the ubiquity of social media means people can also now develop these one-sided connections with other “public figures” – including athletes, politicians, livestreamers and even your average popular kid in school with over 10,000 followers online.
With media more “democratised” than in the days of solely print and broadcast media, “any ordinary person can have a following”, added Prof Lim. “So it is entirely conceivable that someone could have a parasocial relationship with a schoolmate or another teenager in another part of Singapore or the world.”  
Interestingly, such relationships with “regular people” may offer a “stronger sense of connection, identification and resonance”. These people “seem so ordinary and seem to have rather accessible lives that are not drastically different from yours”, she noted. 
For politicians, boundaries in parasocial relationships can be even less clear, Prof Lim added.
“Unlike a parasocial relationship with a celebrity, where a fan would’ve had very little role to play in raising the celebrity to their level of influence, we as the electorate actually play a part in putting politicians where they are. In that sense, the parasocial relationship with a politician may seem to be even more tangible.”
Some politicians may use their social media presence and persona to humanise themselves. Adopting Gen Z lingo in their campaign, for example, could make a politician appear down-to-earth, inadvertently resulting in fandoms or parasocial relationships similar to celebrities’.
“Kamala Harris is doing that right now,” said Associate Professor Patrick Williams from Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) School of Social Sciences, whose research covers youth cultures and subcultures.
Harris’ presidential campaign had leaned into a tweet by British pop sensation Charli XCX that called the US vice president “brat”, a reference to the singer’s latest album. The term has been reimagined as slang for “playful defiance” or “confident rebellion” and the strategy seemed to resonate among Harris’ target audience, going viral overnight.
“She’s developing a political base rooted in fandom, and it’s because the previous candidates were so old and male, she stands out as unique and she’s working to connect to young people,” he added, noting that it’s not necessarily ill-advised to be a “fan” of politicians.
“It depends on what kinds of meanings you attach to the word ‘fan’. The way some people use the word makes it sound like, at least implicitly, fans are kind of useless people or that (they) don’t have brains.
“But becoming a fan of something good can be a good thing, just like becoming a fan of something bad can become a bad thing. Good and bad aren’t objectively real, however. They’re defined by social groups.” 
Depending on the persona someone interacts with or the media platform used, the parasocial relationship would thus differ in “quality, intimacy and accessibility”, Assoc Prof Cho added.
But the “core dynamics” remain the same. That is, “one person kind of projecting their emotions and connections onto other people, who are largely unaware of their existence”.
People think that they have to be “that kind of Taylor Swift fan” to be in a parasocial relationship, added Dr Riard. But if you’re already following someone you don’t know personally, looking at what they share about their daily lives and forming an impression of who they are, “you’re engaging in intimacy disclosure; you’re already in a parasocial relationship”, she said.
The tricky part is spotting the signs of over-attachment.
In a recent Instagram post, rising American synth-pop singer-songwriter Chappell Roan, called out “predatory” behaviour by “superfans”. She wrote, in no unclear terms: “Please do not assume you know a lot about someone’s life, personality, and boundaries because you are familiar with them or their work online.” 
Yet, several responses elsewhere online called her out for being ungrateful for her fans, without whom she would not have achieved growing global recognition. 
Dr Riard, who teaches clinical psychology at James Cook University (Singapore), suggests being aware when one’s envy or jealousy towards an idol becomes “dysfunctional”. It could show up in body image issues, burnout, and feelings of dissatisfaction that stem from comparing one’s life, for example. 
Having a poor sense of self might also result in turning parasocial relationships into one’s “whole life”, she said. Just like in a regular relationship, an idol’s beliefs would be wholly adopted as an individual’s – and any criticism about the idol would hence be taken as “a judgement on you”. 
So when an idol gets into a scandal or demonstrates beliefs and behaviour that completely go against a fan’s, some fans may “experience distress and anger towards the media figure for not meeting their expectations”, said NUS’ Assoc Prof Cho. 
To reconcile the inner conflict they may feel, some fans alter their personal beliefs. They have to make a choice between “what I would call ‘conventional culture’ and a fan’s cultural lens – or what we call a subcultural lens”, explained NTU’s Assoc Prof Williams. He has co-authored a paper on how fans on social media manage their identities when faced with moral dilemmas where their self-images and parasocial relations with idols are jeopardised.
Say an idol is charged for sexual assault. Conventional culture would implore a fan to condemn the person, but the intensity of their parasocial relationship also comes into play. 
“A person may commit a crime … but did they do that in their role as an idol or as an individual? Some fans have the ability to separate those identities and say, yeah, they’re a creep, but they’re still a really good singer, so I’m going to love the singer and simply ignore the fact that they’re a creep, because it doesn’t impact me directly,” he added.
In other instances, tight fandoms can turn “toxic” – a generalisation often used for extreme and obsessive fan behaviour, from stalking to in-fighting when a fan expresses a view that’s misaligned with the majority. 
In the case of the latter, rather than control their idol, Ms Lee sees such conflict as “more of a desire to control the identities of others within the group”. When people try to conflate one strong social identity with another, “factions” can form within a fandom.  
“For example, if you are not a Democrat and you listen to Taylor Swift, (people might say) you’re not a real fan … There’s this very high overlap between different social identities that causes people to say only those who fall within the dead centre of the Venn diagram are true fans.”
Pop culture content creator Zachary Hourihane, based in Singapore, saw the ugly side of fandom, receiving homophobic abuse and death threats. It resulted in him having to delete his X (formerly Twitter) account and making a police report. 
Mr Hourihane’s “crime”? He’d made a video saying Taylor Swift’s Midnights album did not deserve to win Album of the Year at the 2024 Grammy Awards. The 27-year-old Swiftie, who posts “thoughtful weekly videos about pop culture” on his YouTube channel called Swiftologist with over 111,000 subscribers, had argued that Swift already had three such awards and Midnights “just wasn’t up to scratch”.
The blowback was swift.
But Assoc Prof Williams also cautions strongly against implying that all fandoms are cults or that they exhibit cult-like behaviour. In his published papers on sasaeng fans (the South Korean term for an obsessive fan who acts in ways – most notably stalking – that invade the privacy of Korean idols), he outlined how the media can often “take a single case and make it seem like there’s an entire class of people engaged in exactly the same behaviour”, shaping public opinion.  
What a particular fandom is like in one city at one time may also be different than how they are in another country, because these groups are “not homogenous”, he added. 
Besides, parasocial relationships can be intensified when a marketing and public relations strategy engages and supports such fan behaviour too, said Assoc Prof Williams. And this can also be seen in parasocial relationships with brands. For example, Apple fans are known to camp outside an Apple store a few days before a new iPhone release. 
Daniel Radcliffe diehard, Ms Lee, also pointed out that fans are “linked to the values, the kind of music or entertainment value” that their idol represents, which would in turn say something about who they are. 
“I think when young people especially are trying to figure out who they are, you see that they gravitate to identify with certain musicians or celebrities, or get into some indie bands to give themselves the sense that ‘I belong to this specific community that likes this style of music or this type of persona’,” she said.
“At the same time that they’re trying to develop a sense of belonging with this group, they’re also making sure that this group is special … So it’s helping them get that balance between being part of something bigger than themselves and also having that uniqueness and differentiation from other people.”  
The one thing that fandom provides is a “shared focus of adoration, attention, interest or engagement”, added Assoc Prof Williams.
Any fandom operates like a culture. So there is a “set of meanings” that circulates among fans, including what’s appropriate behaviour, how you should act, what you should love about a person and what you shouldn’t, he explained.
Moreover, when celebrities use their platform to talk about their personal struggles, it destigmatises “something so serious that has a lot of stigma and concern”, like chronic suicidal ideation or self-harm, Dr Riard said. 
She pointed to videos of American singer-actress Lady Gaga – who has openly spoken about her history of self-harm – giving advice to youths that a mental health practitioner might share in a client session.
“Sometimes it can be really powerful (to hear it) from (the celebrity’s) perspective because of the social connection (fans) already have with that person,” she noted. 
So parasocial relationships can confer the benefits of a “real relationship”, Ms Lee, the PhD student, argued. “Of course, assuming that you are interacting with a group and not having this isolated experience.”
Despite the death threats he’s received, Mr Hourihane, the pop culture content creator, still sees the positive effect of parasocial relationships. After all, such relationships he’s formed with various popstars have allowed him to forge his own career path – and create a community he didn’t have growing up.
His videos on his fast-growing YouTube channel adopt a critical lens to discuss “things that people might consider lowbrow”, including content not about Taylor Swift, because he “wasn’t taken seriously for liking those things”, he said.
With his specific area of interest being female musicians, he’s even more mindful to flesh out thoughtful angles “to give them the analytical approach they deserve”. Much criticism against fans “dovetails with misogyny”, he has observed.
“A lot of times, people disregard what teenage girls are interested in. (You may think) Oh, you’re so above this, you think that it has nothing to do with you. But what we don’t realise is that what teenage girls are interested in – news, popular culture – informs everything about the channels of music we are exposed to,” he added.
“There’s a trickle-down effect. In fact, every gym playlist that you create, every pregame that you organise, is completely informed by fan culture and people rallying behind specific musicians and advocating for them.”
As someone able to empathise from both sides of a parasocial relationship, Mr Hourihane also approaches such interactions “in a more grown-up” way now. His take on such relationships is partly due to being lucky enough to attend a Taylor Swift Secret Session when he was 21, he believes. Secret Sessions are exclusive events where fans are handpicked by Swift herself to listen to an upcoming album with her in person.
“(Seeing her in real life) made me very appreciative of the fact that she’s a human being, and I think a lot of my content now revolves around viewing her from that perspective. She’s not just a machine that creates things for my entertainment; and because she’s a person, she can handle a little bit of constructive criticism,” he recalled.
“I think idolising her to an extent where she’s completely immune from any sort of comment or suggestion is detrimental to her work. It’s very dehumanising to put her in a position where she can do no wrong.”