My parasocial relationship with Chris Hardwick

As we went through our section on geek culture, I kept thinking back to Chris Hardwick. For those of you who live under a rock and still aren't familiar with him, he's basically geek culture's counterpart to celebrity culture's Ryan Seacrest. But he's way, way cooler than that Seacrest guy.

Chris Hardwick has been all over the place. Among other shows, he's hosted MTV's Singled Out, G4's Web Soup, AMC's Talking Dead,  The Nerdist on BBC America and The Nerdist podcast. What area of TV has this man not ventured into, seriously? He's also a hilarious stand-up comedian. 

If you haven't noticed by now, I'm a big fan of his. Although I rarely refer to him by just his first name on first reference. Besides watching his shows almost religiously, I follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Getting a glimpse into his life also gives me a glimpse of his personality and how he is "in real life." He'll post random thoughts on Twitter and photos of him and his girlfriend on Instagram. These are the types of things my friends post all the time on social media.

On "Talking Dead" this past Sunday, Chris Hardwick spoke of his father's sudden death the day before. Following that announcement he advised viewers to appreciate their families, especially with the holidays coming up. The very personal announcement and advice was very touching and felt as if he were talking to each viewer individually. Because I regularly receive his updates on social media and it feels like I almost know him, it really did feel as if he were speaking directly to me.

I think that was when I realized that I have a parasocial relationship with Chris Hardwick. Really, you could have a parasocial relationship with any celebrity or public figure you follow on social media. So while I follow him on Twitter and Instagram, I still hadn't really recognized before then that it was a parasocial relationship -  or at least I didn't recognize it's extent.