These days, you cannot scroll through Instagram or TikTok without someone mentioning Taylor Swift.
Look! She’s sitting in the box during a Chiefs game. Here! She’s walking out of a restaurant in New York City. Watch this TikTok of a woman breaking down the details of Swift flying from Brazil to Kansas City for the latest game, with comments saying things like, “I want them to be left alone but yet I want to know 7000% of what happens.”
Find a Psychologist defines parasocial relationships as“One-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence.” In other words, it has to do with regular, everyday people learning about the intricacies of the life of a person that they have never met or known.
Comments and videos like the one above just about sum up the way that people deal with their parasocial relationships. When you feel like you know a celebrity, perhaps better than anyone else, you want to keep up with every single thing that happens with them.
Swift is not the only celebrity this is happening with. For years, people have formed relationships with celebrities through social media and their own imaginations. Think back to the days when Hailey Bieber, then Hailey Baldwin, and other fans would tweet about Justin Bieber and wait outside hotels for him. Before ‘Bieber Fever,’ there were countless years of superstar obsessions and history repeats itself with Swift.
This time, it’s on a much larger scale, due to internet access into Swift’s life being much more available than before. This is largely due to TikTok, where fans are able to dissect a singular image of Taylor and know who she’s with and where at all times.
Swift has been victim of an obscene amount of online discourse about Taylor Swift in the past few months, specifically with her private jet usage. The Washington Post recently reported that Swift is suing college student Jack Sweeney for tracking her private jet use and the carbon emissions that it gave off.
Sweeney has done this for multiple celebrities, including Elon Musk. The issue is that this letter only came at a time when Swift was facing criticism for her environmental impact due to the jet’s use being public domain.
Swift seemed to have no issues with her fans tracking her flights, but drew the line at Sweeney’s “stalking” behavior. This is especially important when defining what a parasocial relationship is. Swift, like many celebrities, has faced countless stalkers and harassment.
If Sweeney is causing harm to Taylor’s mental state, what about all of the Swifties who are also tracking her jet and seem to be much more interested in Taylor the person rather than her carbon emissions? Fans have been defending Taylor tirelessly over these “cancellable” offenses.
Swifties think the artist can do no wrong, which can be incredibly dangerous when holding people accountable for their actions. This is precisely why it is necessary for the artist to be careful about who she cares about tracking her because sometimes it is the biggest fans that can be the most dangerous.
The current obsession with Taylor Swift may have begun with the start of her Eras Tour, a culmination of all of her best music in one three hour long concert experience. Perhaps it was the end of her private relationship with actor Joe Alwyn and the beginning of her very public relationship with NFL player Travis Kelce, it could be a mix of everything.
Maybe these parasocial relationships have always been there, but have been given much less media attention or peer validation. One thing, however, is clear: if there has ever been a time for Swifties to join forces and watch their idol’s every move, it’s now.
