COMM 322 Final Project: Social Media's Effect on Parasocial Relationships

I'm Best Friends With Miley

Parasocial relationships are becoming more and more alive in today’s society as each day goes by, and I am one to own up to it. A parasocial relationship is a relationship that you have with someone you do not even personally know, such as a celebrity, and it usually ends up developing into a sort of obsession. I have personally caught myself obsessing over celebrities, and they don’t even have any idea who I am. For example, my twitter is full of tweets to Miley Cyrus. I am absolutely obsessed with her, and I constantly talk at her like we are the best of friends. At least five or six times a week, I tweet at her telling her how much I love her, and it has even resorted to me replying to her “I’m bored” tweet with, “Yeah me too, want to hang out?” It’s like I think she is magically going to notice me out of her millions of fans. And even worse, my love for Brody Jenner. If you were to view my Twitter or Instagram page, you would think that I am talking about my real life boyfriend. Nope, I am simply being one of those annoying fan girls, hoping that my celebrity boyfriend will notice me one day. So why do people do this? We are so caught up with what is going on in the media, involving celebrities, that we have allowed ourselves to be completely drowned in these so called obsessions.  

Ellen

Ellen is all kinds of awesome. She is a TV show host, a comedian, and just an overall great human being. I grew up watching her show with my mom, and until about 5 or so years ago, I never knew or even thought she was a lesbian. However, even after finding out about that, I did not see her any different. Her show is just as great as it was before I found out, so why would I change my views on her just because she’s gay? I think this is exactly how everyone else views her too. She entertains and will continue to entertain for many, many years. One of the most important aspects of her entertaining is that she is such a role model to many. She is very funny and a great TV show host, and I’m sure every celebrity that has ever been on her show would say that. And just because of what she believes in and how she decides to live her life, that does not make anyone not want to go on her show and support her. Another example of this would be Anderson Cooper. Anderson has had a talk show for a while now and is another positive example of how these gay celebrities can still be treated equally and be successful regardless of their sexual orientation. Now if only we can get the rest of America to treat everyone equally and not just the rich and famous…  

Women and Athletics

Watching the movie in class yesterday about sports and men and women's role in them, many things went through my mind. Throughout my entire sports-playing life, I have definitely been through being treated unequally because I am a girl. I played many different sports throughout my life, from soccer, to softball, and even volleyball and tennis, and in every single sport I always noticed some sort of unfairness in the way we were being treated. When I was younger, it wasn’t necessarily as noticeable, because growing up I played on coed soccer teams, and people are not going to be treated one better than the other when they are dealing with 5 year olds, but I noticed it especially in high school. I played both volleyball and tennis all four years, and both teams were very good. However, our football team was pretty good, but we always made it farther in sectionals than they ever did, but somehow they always got more attention than we did. We would have huge pep sessions and assemblies for them when they had a big win, or before sectionals would begin, but would the volleyball team or tennis team get any of this special attention? No. Is it because the football team consists of 80 guys, and no girls are involved, and the volleyball and tennis teams are all girls? Who knows. No one will actually ever know why people of all ages are being treated differently while playing sports, but I do know that it will be an issue for many years to come.

Video Games Are Taking Over?

Growing up, I was constantly surrounded by videos, because I have 2 brothers, and that is all they do. Some say that video games are starting to take over and consume people’s lives, and I honestly think that is true. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Video games are a form of entertainment for most people. How can people say it is bad? Just like I really enjoy messing around on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all day, boys are more into getting on their games as soon as they get home from class, or essentially anywhere that they are. Why would anyone say that something people love to do, or their hobby even, is wrong? That would almost be like me coming out and saying, “The use of Pinterest is completely useless and girls all over the world need to stop using it!” But no one would ever do that, because it is something that most girls love to do, and is considered one of their hobbies, just as video games are for most guys all over the world. I understand completely why one would say that video games are starting to take over the lives of many people, because in a way they are, but it is not always in a bad way. Watching my brothers grow up playing video games, it’s not like something is wrong with them now because they play games. They play them just as much as other guys do, and so far, after having them play games for ten or more years, there have not been any long term negative effects on their lives, so why would you discourage these guys to stop doing what they love?

Why Do We Really Hate Hipsters?

While sitting here studying about hipsters, and what they are all about, I'm starting to wondering why so many people have this sort of vendetta against them. I mean, hipsters are just simply people who do not follow what is mainstream in the media and the fashion world. So why would we literally hate someone for just doing what they want to do? Who knows, these people you call hipsters just might not like what everyone else is doing, and they're doing their own thing, so isn't that what we should be looking after? I hear so many people say all the time about how weird and annoying hipsters are, but aren't you just worse for not accepting them?
I feel like the whole hipster verse the mainstream world feud is just a bunch of people who cannot agree on anything. But you simply can't just hate someone for doing what they like and want to do. For example, my best friend of over ten years, I would consider her a hipster, because of the music she listens to, the clothes she wears, and the way she acts. There are many instances where I could be talking about the newest Drake CD, but she had no idea and absolutely no interest in talking about that particular CD because she just doesn't pay attention to what is going on in current popular culture. BUT just because that is the way she is, it does not mean I'm going to sit here and bash on hipsters and talk about how insane and weird they are, because in reality, I think that we are all just weird in our own way.