On Parasocial Relationships

Throughout my entire life I have struggled with the concept that there are parasocially people who connect with my art as a creation and extension of who I am as a human. And throughout my previous career, I definitely struggled with anything adjacent to a “fan,” because mostly it was leering men off the internet and that just made no sense to me on a series of levels—I wasn’t making art for them, no matter how cultural, and no matter what sexytime baggage they brought to the situation. I’ve always had the attitude of “not my problem,” because people do have their own life baggage. So subsequently, parasocial relationships now are still hard, too, because it’s just weird for me when I haven’t built a connection with a person in meatspace. I can accept that maybe my creative work resonated with them, but it’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that they’d want to connect with me as a person because of my creative work; and it’s not because I think my creative work sucks. Just connecting the dots from there doesn’t make a full amount of sense to me. Like NIN’s music changed my life and kept me going at a lot of times, but I wouldn’t immediately assume that any of the bandmates would want to chat as a fellow human & art-maker. That’s weird, I guess. (Even though supposedly Meathead did give me a laugh react, probably wasn’t actually him.)

Parasocial-ness when you’re not creative coworkers/colleagues on any level is just weird to me. But, I’ve always been described as standoffish. I guess. And a lot of hoped-for parasocial connection is from people are fellow creative people, because like, obv. Who pays to go to shows and consume and enjoy art, music etc, right? And before you ask, it’s not it’s not it’s not. I’ve worked hard to make my art worthy and high-quality in a town where people actively move here to be the best of the best at their stuff, to the point where it’s devalued.