Parasocial engagement - religion's contender

[BurnedOut]

Theory WIP. I got an epiphany this morning: Parasocial engagement is the latest groundbreaking phenomenon in human life. It is more powerful than religion itself. Religion is completely outclassed and outmatched by this social phenomenon. I don't think parasocial engaging has a precedent. The distant predecessor of parasocial engagement is religion only but even in religion, a human is not as much at risk of losing cognitive abilities and social life as AV mediums.

If this is true then we are truly heading towards a literal mind-body duality as there are emerging very separate domains for both the mind and the body with the former running ahead of the latter. With AR, VR, holograms and increasing sophistication of parasocial engagement, the dependence on the physical keeps reducing. Fatties spend like 5 hours on their phones each day. The average figure is 4 hours. That is still 1/3 of the 12 hours you get in daytime. Subtract several hours from 12 hours because kids sleep late and wake up late thanks to their phone addiction.

If we are already replacing the body with the mind wherever possible (fucking online shops for grocery!?), the cyberpunk era has really begun and taken off. Whatever entails is worse than religion because of information anarchy caused by propaganda by influencers. There are no clear sides of right and wrong. With perspectives fragmented by abstract figures such as Trump, it is extremely difficult to prevent a resultant psychic fragmentation - massive levels of dissonance leading people to engage in extremes. Many phenomenons are explainable by this - From Depp's trial to China's technosurveillance leaks over Uighurs to the letter 'Z' getting famous in Russia due to Putin's propaganda. Even with science in sight, the multitudinous sources negate its rational impact on a human being - Despite knowing that phone addiction is rampant, Google and Apple continue to churn out their products even when scientific literature is readily available to users.

 

[Rook]

(fucking online shops for grocery!?)

not time to respond in earnest what i'll say is that the flip side of online shopping is that it can free folk up for more productive activities: instead of driving to the grocery store you now run around the block with your dog or whatever. i haven't ordered groceries online personally but i totally see the utility in it and think it adds value to civilization. my opinion on megamonopolies tho, that's something else...

 

[Cognisant]

Do you think the Neanderthals weren't terrified when the coming of the end was undeniable?

 

[BurnedOut]

not time to respond in earnest what i'll say is that the flip side of online shopping is that it can free folk up for more productive activities: instead of driving to the grocery store you now run around the block with your dog or whatever.

Firstly, people never free up time to engage in productive activities. The need to free up time arises when dissatisfaction occurs with your primary time spender. Therefore anything that occupies the mind will substitute the place that has been freed. In our era, the occupying activities are instagram, youtube, netflix, etc. Except for sports and gaming (only to a certain extent), every single of these activities is destructive to physical and mental health.

In india, you certainly don't need online hawkers because it is a common sight here to have plentiful grocery stores and vegetable and fruit vendors wherever you live. Even if you are poor, access to these two things are invariant but that is about to change.

The nearest grocery store is just outside my apartment complex yet my father prefers to be fooled by the low prices - addiction inducing - by the grocery apps

 

[scorpiomover]

Parasocial engagement is the latest groundbreaking phenomenon in human life.

Had to look this up.

Parasocial Relationships: What are They, and Are They Bad? - Game Quitters

Learn more about what parasocial relationships are, how and why they develop, and how you can stop them.

gamequitters.com

Parasocial relationships occur when an individual interacts with a media figure as a friend or even a sexual partner. Media figures can include reality TV characters, video game personalities, and social media influencers.

People who think like that, used to be called "obsessive fans" or "stalkers". Many people like that, attack soap stars that play evil characters. The fans don't differentiate between the person and the character. It goes back decades to the first soap operas, or even before that.

It is more powerful than religion itself.

Lots of people said that about lots of movements, that came and went.

The distant predecessor of parasocial engagement is religion only but even in religion, a human is not as much at risk of losing cognitive abilities and social life as AV mediums.

Sounds like you think parasocial engagement is more dangerous.

If this is true then we are truly heading towards a literal mind-body duality as there are emerging very separate domains for both the mind and the body with the former running ahead of the latter.

The mind relies upon a nervous system and a hormonal system that are extensions of the body's nervous system and hormonal system, and are linked into them. There's no clear separation of the brain and the rest of the body, except for Richard Nixon's head in Futurama.

With AR, VR, holograms and increasing sophistication of parasocial engagement, the dependence on the physical keeps reducing. Fatties spend like 5 hours on their phones each day.

That's how they get so fat, and it's killing them, and making them highly unlikely to have children. So those genes that make people use parasocial engagement to the point of not putting in care and maintenance of their bodies, are likely to go extinct.

If there are no people who are into parasocial engagement, and into their bodies, then that only leaves the people who dislike parasocial engagement to become the dominant form of humanity.

In which case, in a few hundred years, people may regard the internet the way they think of phonographs and log tables.

The average figure is 4 hours.

So with 8 hours of sleep, that still leaves 12 hours a day to exercise. So the reason the fatties aren't slim, isn't because parasocial engagement is taking up all their free time. They're using parasocial engagement for an excuse to avoid real life.

Some posters are into Taylor Swift. As long as she says nice things about her fans, and keeps to a certain image, her loyal fans can safely imagine that she'd be the woman of their dreams, if they were only to meet. She gets loyal fans who buy her albums, and they get to live in their fantasies.

If they go out to the local bar, they can meet someone who looks like Taylor Swift, and has the personality they crave in a partner. But then she can talk back, and there's a risk she might say "no", or might turn out to not fulfill their dreams and shatter the illusion.

There's a risk of being disappointed with people in real life. There's no disappointment with a parasocial contact, not until the person realises that they've spent their life in a fantasy and done nothing with their life.

It's the same reason why people take drugs: escapism.

Marx said that religion was the opium of the masses. Well, social media and parasocial engagement have surpassed religions in that way, as they're now more like Fentanyl addicts.

If we are already replacing the body with the mind wherever possible (fucking online shops for grocery!?),

We're not, because scientists aren't telling everyone how to call a person with their mind, or more things with their mind.

We are replacing legs with fingers. Instead of your legs walking to the shops to buy your groceries, your fingers are walking across the keyboard to order your groceries.

the cyberpunk era has really begun and taken off.

Cyberpunk was about punks taking over cyberspace. This is more like cyberspace taking over the punks.

Whatever entails is worse than religion because of information anarchy caused by propaganda by influencers.

They're paid, same as everyone else. So the internet is controlled by the people who like to control the flow of money.

There are no clear sides of right and wrong.

There are some things that are clear. But if they go against the goals of a corporation, then they pay lots of people to post things on the internet until people change their minds.

With perspectives fragmented by abstract figures such as Trump, it is extremely difficult to prevent a resultant psychic fragmentation - massive levels of dissonance leading people to engage in extremes. Many phenomenons are explainable by this - From Depp's trial to China's technosurveillance leaks over Uighurs to the letter 'Z' getting famous in Russia due to Putin's propaganda.

Do you agree that mass shooters like the Buffalo shooter and the recent mass shooter in Texas, seem to be going to extremes, and seem to have very broken minds and fragmented psyches? Maybe the rise of the mass shooter is another consequence of the rise of the internet?

Even with science in sight, the multitudinous sources negate its rational impact on a human being - Despite knowing that phone addiction is rampant, Google and Apple continue to churn out their products even when scientific literature is readily available to users.

Google and Apple are corporations. Their job is to make money, not make people healthy.

Of course, the online gaming sites keep paying for TV ads that repeatedly say that you should stick to your gambling limits and seek help if gambling becomes a problem. But that's more to make people feel like they're not trying to turn the UK into a nation of gambling addicts, so online casinos won't be made illegal.

 

[BurnedOut]

People who think like that, used to be called "obsessive fans" or "stalkers". Many people like that, attack soap stars that play evil characters. The fans don't differentiate between the person and the character. It goes back decades to the first soap operas, or even before that.

No. You are getting it wrong. Parasocial engagement happens when a person engages with another person who is not tangibly present and reciprocating specifically. The other person's engagement is extremely indirect to nil - political debates shown on TV. If it afflicts us, we are parasocially engaging with the debators.

This is bigger than simply fanboying or stalking somebody because empirically all of us have some degree of parasocial engagement - we engage in discourse and have our personal opinions about people we have not met at all. However the effect is not pronounced when the person in question consciously avoids such content.

What is the proof that I am referring to? Engaging people through media has grown and is growing and is one of the biggest industries in the world. That's an industry that simply exists to suck you out of reality and get emotionally attached to nonliving things and 'influencers' peddling their shit. In other words, it is exactly like selling drugs. Political parties cannot exist without a social media in this era and corporates will die without constantly progandazing on all forms of media. People have bizarre relationships with the most visible politicians whose actions are not extraordinary in contrast to their predecessors but are perceived as such.

Do you agree that mass shooters like the Buffalo shooter and the recent mass shooter in Texas, seem to be going to extremes, and seem to have very broken minds and fragmented psyches? Maybe the rise of the mass shooter is another consequence of the rise of the internet?

Our friendly white supremacist cunt he was. I won't surprised if he was consuming racial content of a particular person and engaging in similar discourses with other people on the internet. Yes. He does have a fragmented psyche as he holds a view that has clearcut tangible criticism and yet he at the extremes - tearing at the seams despite knowing that it is absolutely illogical.

Why do people eat more junk and buy more luxury goods? Their favourite people do so that's why. Social media influencers are extremely in demand because they cause a multiplier effect in sales - much more efficient than hiring celebs who will drink dollar bills like water.

We're not, because scientists aren't telling everyone how to call a person with their mind, or more things with their mind.

They are not. But their discoveries bring amenities to the doorstep each year. Why is it that current homo sapiens have a fragile build as compared to their ancient counterparts who are equal intellectually?

 

[Hadoblado]

Can you clarify what Scorpio got wrong? It seems like you're describing the same thing. I'd say stalking is among the most extreme parasocial behaviour? Parasocial relationships are not new, they are just increasingly facilitated by technology.

What has buying groceries online got to do with anything? It's super convenient for the less physically able.

Why are you randomly hating on the obese?

I see religion as a form of parasocial relation. Just with someone who doesn't necessarily exist. It's a unilateral relationship with the idea of someone.

 

[scorpiomover]

Parasocial engagement happens when a person engages with another person who is not tangibly present and reciprocating specifically.

You mean when people are having a private conversation on Zoom?

The big difference is that you don't get to spend all day together, as you'll probably only get a slot for an hour, and that you can't physically touch each other.

The other person's engagement is extremely indirect to nil - political debates shown on TV.

They're about fans. If someone is a fan of political debates, they watch political debates on TV, and think they understand the politicians. But it's theatre, choreographed, like the fights in Westerns. When the libs win, it's because they both agreed that the conservatives are to take a dive.

This is bigger than simply fanboying or stalking somebody because empirically all of us have some degree of parasocial engagement - we engage in discourse and have our personal opinions about people we have not met at all. However the effect is not pronounced when the person in question consciously avoids such content.

What is the proof that I am referring to? Engaging people through media has grown and is growing and is one of the biggest industries in the world. That's an industry that simply exists to suck you out of reality and get emotionally attached to nonliving things and 'influencers' peddling their shit. In other words, it is exactly like selling drugs.

OK. Then social media is the modern Fentanyl of the masses? Fentanyl is said to be 100 times more addictive than morphine and many times more addictive than heroin.

Political parties cannot exist without a social media in this era and corporates will die without constantly progandazing on all forms of media.

Then stop the internet for 3 months and let the ones that don't adapt, go extinct.

People have bizarre relationships with the most visible politicians whose actions are not extraordinary in contrast to their predecessors but are perceived as such.

That's just a natural product of continual media playing the same audio-visual messages over and over.

Before TV, the only time you got to find out about the latest political scandal, was when you bought the paper and read it, and most people only did that once a day.

Also, it was in print. So it had similar effects to reading a book. You have to make an effort to read, and so your brain is engaged and you think.

When you're watching another Youtube video, all you need to do is sit back and let the subliminal messages bypass your mind and take control of your subconscious.

Do you agree that mass shooters like the Buffalo shooter and the recent mass shooter in Texas, seem to be going to extremes, and seem to have very broken minds and fragmented psyches? Maybe the rise of the mass shooter is another consequence of the rise of the internet?

Our friendly white supremacist cunt he was. I won't surprised if he was consuming racial content of a particular person and engaging in similar discourses with other people on the internet. Yes. He does have a fragmented psyche as he holds a view that has clearcut tangible criticism and yet he at the extremes - tearing at the seams despite knowing that it is absolutely illogical.

Why do people eat more junk and buy more luxury goods? Their favourite people do so that's why.

I was given the impression that it's because some people are lazy, and others care more about things than people.

So now you're saying that if celebrities were showing themselves going to the gym and working out every day, that all their fans would become gym bunnies and lose the pounds? We could solve the obesity crisis in a day, and probably save so many lives and medical treatments that public healthcare could take care of everyone.

Social media influencers are extremely in demand because they cause a multiplier effect in sales - much more efficient than hiring celebs who will drink dollar bills like water.

Great for corporations. They can bankrupt the kingdom with a multiplier and a single grain of rice.

But their discoveries bring amenities to the doorstep each year. Why is it that current homo sapiens have a fragile build as compared to their ancient counterparts who are equal intellectually?

Because they used to walk for miles, used to beat carpets, used to sweep floors, etc. Even electricians used to have to move big, heavy blocks of concrete around as part of their job. Humans evolved at a time when we needed to use our muscles a lot every day. So it evolved to be part of the design.

Different people needed different muscles and different shapes for their jobs. A diver needs a different body to a lumberjack, and needs to have powerful lungs, but not tree-trunks for arms. So humans evolved so that their muscles could be different sizes, which is determined by which muscles you use on a regular basis, and how much.

Not using any of those muscles, means the body also evolves into a gelatinous lump, like an amoeba, because amoebas don't travel far and so don't need big muscles either.

You don't work those muscles, they get smaller to save energy for other things.

 

[Rook]

not time to respond in earnest what i'll say is that the flip side of online shopping is that it can free folk up for more productive activities: instead of driving to the grocery store you now run around the block with your dog or whatever.

Firstly, people never free up time to engage in productive activities.

i mean some people do. pretty much why i said online shopping can enrich your life instead of saying it does.

 

[BurnedOut]

Can you clarify what Scorpio got wrong? It seems like you're describing the same thing. I'd say stalking is among the most extreme parasocial behaviour? Parasocial relationships are not new, they are just increasingly facilitated by technology.

He mentioned stalking which I felt was too narrow a term to ascribe to the term because further discourse would have been forestalled. I don't disagree with him on most points.

What has buying groceries online got to do with anything? It's super convenient for the less physically able.

Why are you randomly hating on the obese?

If you take a developing country and put 2 and 2 together keeping in mind this a amenity, millions of people will suddenly slide into poverty. For the rural populace and urbanized rural populace, it is a lifeline. For the middle-class and even the lower class, the same can be said. The benefits are vastly outmatched by its harms - catastrophic. The pain of this will be felt by the middle-classes and immigrants even in developed countries.

 

[BurnedOut]

Then social media is the modern Fentanyl of the masses? Fentanyl is said to be 100 times more addictive than morphine and many times more addictive than heroin.

You talked about parasocial engagement being an ancient phenomenon. I don't disagree with that. But in this era, the engagement is exponentially more. Accouple that with poor emotion-coping skills and the degree of illusionary specificity it provides.

A zoom meeting is not parasocial unless the participants are not at all involved. My theory is supported by evidence - 80% indian kids don't like online classes. Their marks in science and maths were abysmal due to lack of human presence.

 

[scorpiomover]

You talked about parasocial engagement being an ancient phenomenon. I don't disagree with that. But in this era, the engagement is exponentially more.

You mean, internet and smartphones?

There were times in the past, when the disseminators of new information were seen as having too many followers that might threaten the existing social order. They were brought to heel, or were ousted from society.

We haven't brought the internet to heel, yet. It's still a Wild West, and that Wild West's ways are spilling into the rest of everyone's lives.

Accouple that with poor emotion-coping skills

People used to be taught social etiquette for their social class, so they knew how to behave in different situations, including how to behave when angry, when sad, when excited, when sexually aroused, etc.

But then the class system was taken down, by removing all classes in etiquette and how to behave in different social situations, so there were no more rules to divide people.

and the degree of illusionary specificity it provides.

Well, being part of a no-class system is supposed to be much better for everyone than a class system. So of course people feel like they are more capable and better off than before.

My theory is supported by evidence - 80% indian kids don't like online classes. Their marks in science and maths were abysmal due to lack of human presence.

If their online tests and online lessons are written as well as online MBTI tests and online articles about MBTI, then is anyone really surprised?