Fediverse and parasocial relationships
-
Shouldn’t the fediverse discourage patterns that create parasocial relationships?
-
Wouldn’t it be better if the standard was a symmetrical relationship between users instead of the asymmetrical follow model?
-
Most big social medias thrive on parasocial-relations, is it necessary to emulate that model for success?
-
Shouldn’t we focus on community building and mutual friendship instead of forcing everyone to be a mini-celebrity?
-
Aren’t communities/groups better for discoverability than the public feeds of mastodon, pleroma,etc
No, I’m saying that instead creating a cult following around the artist, the art should be shared in dedicated communities, (like Lemmy) and mutual friendships should be created from discussions and conversations within the community.Thus the ‘influencer’ culture will be eliminated and people can focus more on the content of art without getting trapped in the parasocial relationships with the artist itself.
The fediverse is supports varied social media paradigms.
It’s not because one platform such as mastodon is centered around parasocial relationships that the entire fediverse will be. If you don’t like parasocial media, stick to lemmy and don’t go on mastodon. That’s the stength of the fediverse.
I think you are dramatizing quite a bit, and overstating the role of following. Following someone’s updates doesn’t make you a stan or a cultist. I think a parasocial relationship can be quite harmless as long as you stay aware that it is one.
On the other hand one can also overestimate how close they are to an acquaitance, thus having a kind of parafriendship, yet still compatible with mutual connection. In addition to that, a creator could just create a group that people can follow instead of their profile, and have a similar effect.
In conclusion I don’t understand how one would get rid of the parasocial relationship. In fact, I don’t understand too much the why either.