The Allure of YouTube(rs)

Why kids love their YouTubers, what it means, and what you should do.

In June, popular Minecraft YouTuber TechnoBlade passed away at age 23 due to a rare form of cancer. His death wasn’t unexpected, but it nevertheless shocked many of his dedicated young fans, some of whom fell into a deep grief. One tween I know had to come home early from overnight camp because he was so devastated. My 11-year-old was not a TechnoBlade fan, but I can only imagine what would happen if his favorite YouTuber, Mr. Beast, passed away — he would be beside himself.

I couldn’t help but wonder: How and why do kids develop such strong bonds with people on social media? How can we, as parents, make sense of this phenomenon? Is it bad? And what should we be doing to keep our kids’ relationship with YouTube (and YouTubers) safe and healthy?

To find out, I called up Bradley Bond, a communications researcher at the University of San Diego who studies the relationships youth develop with media personalities, including on YouTube, which are called “parasocial” relationships. He also studies the links between media exposure and self-identity. Below is a transcript of our illuminating conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

First, would you mind defining what parasocial relationships are?

Parasocial relationships are the one-sided, social-emotional bonds that we develop with people we only know through screens. The human mind is capable, obviously, of distinguishing between people we meet in real life and people we meet on screens. But what most research suggests is that the same factors that we use to determine first impressions — the same factors that we use to determine how welcoming another individual looks, like facial expressions — those factors are the same regardless of whether we are talking about meeting someone in person or meeting somebody on a screen. Arguably, it's human nature for us to develop some kind of liking, or potentially a dislike, of characters or celebrities whom we feel like we get to know who never get to know us in return.

The key element to a parasocial relationship is that lack of mutuality. It's a one-way street, where we feel very close to them and there's no mutual social-emotional connection.

I'm curious whether you think these kinds of relationships have become more important or powerful with the rise of YouTube, or whether what's happening now with YouTube is not all that different from the kinds of relationships we, as kids, used to have with musicians we watched on MTV, or actors we watched in shows.

That's actually a really good question that we've been asking in academia. Parasocial relationships were first studied by social psychologists in the 1950s, who were really interested in news anchors and late night television hosts who broke that fourth wall and spoke directly to the audience. There was this belief that these people on screen speaking to us — self-disclosing information to us over time about themselves and their personal lives — that we develop this kind of liking, at minimum, and at most, this feeling of a sense of relationship.

It continued to be studied with television and film celebrities, but there is an interesting distinction in the world of social media around authenticity and realism. We have correlational studies that suggest that we are more likely to develop this sense of personal connection, the sense of having a friend, a parasocial relationship, with characters and celebrities who we deem are like us in some regard. Much like our real-life friends, birds of a feather — we look for similarities in others with whom we want to develop friendships, and we do the same with our parasocial relationships.

That authenticity, that realism, that sense that they could actually, potentially, be like us — that if we actually met them, we would get along, that you would invite them to your birthday party — that sense of realism is increased with social media platforms. And arguably, the reason for that is the format. Your typical YouTube vlogger is going to speak directly into the camera. And most of them are going to speak to their audience from their home, or from a studio that is personalized to them. Your favorite vlogger’s cat might walk through the background or even be featured in some of the videos. So they are slowly, over time, disclosing information about themselves. And there's this sense that anybody can be on YouTube, right? Our favorite film stars, and our favorite television actors and actresses are kind of seen as this vertical relationship, we look up to them. They're kind of higher than thou. But YouTubers are the person next door. And so when you see their living room and you see flubs and errors in the video, it makes them incredibly realistic — these people are just like me — and that increases the sense that that you have a social-emotional connection to them, like they are your friend. We do have some evidence that suggests that on YouTube in particular, but also with social media influencers on Instagram and Tiktok, that young people are really likely to develop these parasocial connections, because these individuals seem like they're just like they are.

If you have a kid who is developing a parasocial relationship with a YouTube celebrity, as my 11 year old has done with Mr. Beast — he loves Mr. Beast — are there downsides to this? Is there anything we should be concerned about as parents if we suspect our kids are developing these bonds?

I would parallel parasocial relationships with social relationships. If you know that your child has developed a friendship with the new kid at school, and you're a conscious parent, you may be interested to know more about that child or more about their family or their likes or dislikes, or what kind of things your child is doing with that other child. I have told parents to parallel how you engage with your child's social relationships with their parasocial relationships. So if your child does have a particular YouTuber they are really attentive to, then be aware of what that YouTuber is posting. What kind of content are they being exposed to?

We can learn from our parasocial others just as we learn from our social others, and that has been shown to have both positive and negative consequences. When celebrities disclose mental health challenges that they experienced, for example, that has shown to be really effective at de-stigmatizing mental illness, at increasing searches for resources related to mental health. So they can have really positive effects. When we're engaged in these relationships, where we feel like they are our friends, we're more likely to imitate their behaviors, mimic their attitudes, whether those be good or bad. So it absolutely would depend on the content, I would argue.

So you’re basically saying we need to engage with the content ourselves and see what these YouTubers are posting. But… parents are busy. Are there ways to learn about YouTubers and what they’e posting without having to watch all their videos?

The easiest way to do that, in my opinion, would be to watch the “most watched” videos. Their videos will show you how many people have watched them. And their most popular videos are likely the most influential. To get an idea of the type of content, that's a good idea.

Or, if you have your own YouTube account, and you are friends with your child on YouTube, you can find the videos that your children commented on. That might give you at least a sense of what types of things are getting your child's attention.

It's impossible to just sit and watch all of the content of a particular content creator and still go about your day. But there are tactics you can use to kind of sample and at least get a sense of the type of things that your children are exposed to.

Switching to a darker topic, you know about Technoblade, the YouTuber who recently died. I have heard that a lot of tweens and teens were very upset by his death. If kids are upset about something that's happened to a YouTuber, or somebody else they have a parasocial relationship with, what suggestions do you have for parents on handling the situation? And what mistakes, if any, do you see parents making?

The appropriate response is to validate their emotions. Think of the connection that your child has to somebody that they never met in real life as an important part of their social network. So losing that connection should be treated the same way as when your child's best friend moves to a new city or your family dog dies. We approach that through validation, through listening, through engaging with your child.

A really common response, at least among adults, is to say, “Why are you bothered? There's no reason for you to be bothered by this. You don't even know this person.” Or, “There are other YouTubers who post the same thing.” But that's like telling somebody that you can easily replace a friend or a family dog. Parasocial connections are genuinely part of someone's social network. They are healthy parts of our social network. We thrive on connections to others, whether they be face-to-face or through screens. And so when we lose those connections, we experience real grief. There's research with adults that suggests that that's the case — that we actually go through the stages of grief when we lose favorite characters or celebrities.

And have these relationships gotten more powerful, too, as a result of the pandemic? With kids not being able to see their “real” friends?

Yes. My own research examined adults’ parasocial relationships during the pandemic, and we found that adults’ parasocial relationships did become stronger. The study collected data from the same people between April and June of 2020. And it was really fascinating, because we not only found that parasocial relationships became stronger, but they became particularly strong for individuals who maintained their social ties through screens. So if you were somebody who was trapped in your house, and you created, say, a friends’ game night on Zoom, or you FaceTimed with your friends daily — those individuals actually saw their parasocial relationships increase the most. This might happen with youth too — with children whose school time was online, who were seeing their classmates and their teachers through screens.

Fascinating. Why do you think parasocial relationships strengthened the most among people who connected with friends online?

What I argued might be happening is that the boundaries that separate our parasocial relationships from our social relationships were blurred during the pandemic, because we lost that face-to-face connection. We lost what we call “social presence.” So physical touch, smell, the things that make face-to-face interaction unique from screens, was kind of gone. When we deal with all of the people who are important in our lives — our family, our friends, our teachers — through screens, it cognitively muddles the lines between somebody we only know through screens, and somebody we previously knew face-to-face but now we’re only engaging with through a screen.

During the pandemic, we did see an increase in the importance of parasocial relationships. And there is some literature out right now I know that specifically looked at kids who have some type of marginalized identity — one study I'm thinking of was LGBTQ preteens, whose parasocial relationships became significantly stronger during the pandemic, because their social connections to others with that particular identity are incredibly important during that time of identity development in adolescence. When they lost those face-to-face connections, they relied heavily on their on-screen connections to compensate for that loss.

Not exactly related, but I remember when Schitt’s Creek ended during the pandemic, and I was so devastated. I felt like: These are my friends, and I'm not going to see them anymore.

Yeah, exactly. We can still see them, because they're television characters and we can watch the same episodes over and over. But because we're not learning something new about them — and what maintains our real-life relationships is self-disclosure — when our favorite fictional characters stop self-disclosing, it's harder to strengthen that relationship, or at least to maintain it over time.

You mentioned the importance of validating our kids’ feelings about the celebrities they have formed relationships with. But my instinct, sometimes, when my son is saying, “Oh, Mr. Beast gave all his money away, and he's so great. He's the nicest person. Everything he does is for other people,” my reaction is to be sort of skeptical and say, “Well, this is his public persona. There's probably things you don't know that he's not telling you, and he may not be this way all the time.” But now I'm worried that maybe, in doing this, I'm undermining his feelings for this celebrity. How do we balance our need to support our kids’ feelings and relationships with our desire to inject a little skepticism or media literacy into the mix?

That's an excellent question. I think that it goes back to balance — to trying to distinguish between the social-emotional component of a person's relationship, and the marketing component of these parasocial relationships. The advertising and marketing industries are realizing that if we see these individuals as our friends, who better to advertise a product to us? Or who better to promote a particular idea or attitude? I think that there can be a balance between validating a child's identity development or emotional connection to a particular character, while also still attempting to inject media literacy with regard to the logistics and the fundamentals of how these platforms work. So this might mean addressing exactly what you just said — that maybe there is a branding reason or a marketing reason that a celebrity needs to be engaging in these behaviors, and you can talk about them without insulting their emotional connection to that YouTuber. But it requires the parent to have that information [about the vlogger]. And so often, children know more about the platform than than parents do.

Yes, so true. I have heard — and argued — that when it comes to helping kids manage screens and technology and social media in general, it’s important to engage with the content as a parent. We need to get to know the platforms ourselves and maybe even learn with our kids about them — to try to be a mentor with our kids, rather than just a rule-setter or a technology limiter. Would you agree?

Yes, absolutely. There's a rather strong literature in the children and media realm that examines what we call “active mediation” versus “restrictive mediation.” Restrictive mediation would be creating rules, creating boundaries and parameters and telling your child that they have to fit within those rules or boundaries. Active mediation is when the parent is involved, and that may even be as simple as discussing why a particular television show might not be the most appropriate, and why these other shows might be equally entertaining, but better to watch — having that discussion, as opposed to simply creating rules. In the social media realm, active engagement can also be defined as playing along, and trying to understand by doing and showing your child that these platforms can be used appropriately, and for good.

Often, time is one of the things parents are most concerned about — the amount of time their children spend on a platform. That's something else that research suggests active mediation can help navigate. You can say, “What do you get from this platform? What other things could gratify that need that you have?” Talk through those things, as opposed to creating rules. Lots of research says that active mediation is far more effective than restrictive mediation.

Is there anything else we haven't talked about that you think would be helpful for parents to understand?

One thing that I think is really interesting to think about is the fact that marketers and advertisers have just really started to hone in on this concept [of parasocial relationships]. We need to think about what happens when these people we see as friends start to advertise to us in in novel and interesting ways. I also think that as the media landscape changes, it'll be really important to continue to think about how these emotional connections that we develop with characters and celebrities will also evolve. I just recently read a very fascinating article on how parasocial relationships are likely one of the components that has predicted the success of Peloton and other fitness companies — because you have this strong connection to these instructors who you've never really met, but that you you view as important. The thinking about this concept is going to continue to evolve as technology changes.

Last week in The New York Times, I explored the issue of expired medications. Should you really throw your prescription and over-the-counter drugs out once they pass their expiration date? Or are they still likely to be safe and effective? Read my piece here.

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