Post No.: 0990
Fluffystealthkitten says:
This modern world is arguably unfortunately losing a bit of sociality. Kids increasingly spend more time on electronic devices than with their parents, many people would rather now communicate online than face-to-face (physical and face-to-face contact releases far more bonding oxytocin), parental divorce is more common, and there’s more individualism being promoted in our busy, stressful, capitalistic culture, for instance.
Market norms have been creeping into social contexts when what’s best for work, business or profit maximisation isn’t best for life, happiness, health, relationships, communities or society overall – not least because working and making money is just a small part within life, not all of life itself. Making money isn’t wrong but we’ve perhaps become too single-minded in using money as the proxy measure of success in life overall. We’ve become too individualistic and competitive and need to be more welcoming and cooperative.
Social norms are different to market norms. Between friends, carefully considered gifts (so not usually plain cash) are given unconditionally without any expectation, never mind entitlement, of any return; directly, in-kind or otherwise. (Imagine if a romantic date just gave you some plain cash… and then expected to sleep with you afterwards(!)) Meanwhile, trades, loans or speculative investments or gambles happen between businesses and clients, or businesses and businesses.
Despite this, people sometimes misjudge and treat their friends, family or romantic dates with market norms, such as by charging them for, or stipulating compensation conditions when offering, items or favours. Social relationships certainly supply and thrive upon reciprocation, but it’s never demanded.
Businesses routinely purposely attempt to artificially blur the line in the other direction to make their customers perceive them as their ‘friends’ in order to encourage loyalty, easy trust and social reciprocity norms, like by giving away free products to review. It’s not true altruism here because they only select whom they give these products to based on a high probability they’ll receive a positive review in return. And it’s been conclusively shown that providing free products for review does subconsciously elicit much more generous reviews compared to from regular paying customers for the exact same products, even when the recipient of a free product believes they’ve not been affected by the gift and the exploitation of their social reciprocity norms. (We’re obviously not consciously aware of what’s influencing us below or beyond our conscious awareness – and most of what influences us on a day-to-day basis is below or beyond our conscious awareness.) It’s deliberately calculated, which is fair enough in business, but not between real friends.
CEOs and shareholders won’t even know or personally care about your name – you exist for their speculative profits. The larger the firm, the more distant they are to each of their customers, and therefore the less likely they’re able to be your friends. Yet many customers loyally follow the brands of especially larger firms with large marketing (i.e. commercial propaganda) budgets.
It does get trickier regarding being loyal to your local small business fishmonger whom you chat with every time you meet (hi Diego!), becoming business partners with a friend, being contestants on game shows or competitions that involve a bit of teamwork yet also individualism, or giving loans to a sibling because the amount is too personally unaffordable to be simply gifted away, for instance. These can unavoidably blur the lines between market and social relationships. Most of the time things will run without hitches but situations may arise in these cases that test how one really views the other, such as how to treat them if they fail to pay back the loan on time. Ruthlessness is generally deployed between business relationships, not family or friends.
One should protect oneself from being taken advantage of even amongst friends, and one shouldn’t ruin one’s health to constantly be available to help others even if one enjoys doing things for others. But it’s not in the spirit of friendship or family to consciously keep tabs on favours or values of exchanges with those we’ve done something for or to try to make others feel indebted to us. We instead try to express how indebted we are towards our friends and family. And we shouldn’t feel entitled to take fuzzy liberties whenever we feel like a friend owes us.
In short, it’s not genteel to ‘count points’ or seek to profit in zero-sum ways in social contexts because people then just seem like commodities of utility rather than trusted friends one can be relaxed around – trusted friends who’ll reciprocate in their own way in their own time if and when they can.
So give from the heart, and remember what others have given to or have done for you. If you’re the type to explicitly point out to friends ‘I gave you this so remember you owe me’ then that’s essentially treating them with the market norms of ‘I gave you this so remember to pay me for it’. Reciprocation is vital in social norms but they’re tacit, not explicit. You don’t intentionally screw over your friends or family; whereas in market contexts, if you gain from others then you don’t need to worry about them – just leave with the ‘steal’ in your pocket.
…Parasocial and semi-parasocial relationships are a notably tricky area. Purely online communities have become more prevalent due to social media technologies, and some of these revolve around following particular entertainers or influencers. (Read Post No.: 0738 for more about influencers.) Parasocial relationships (like following a movie star who’d likely never interact with you directly even if you tried to message them) and semi-parasocial relationships (like following a streamer on Twitch who’d occasionally interact with you directly but really they’re there to work) and the communities they generate can be fun and help those who’d otherwise feel lonely not feel so.
Yet the latter, especially, do blur the lines between market and social relationships – the content creator almost treats their audience like their friends yet understands that they’re their customers. There’s marketing, selling and giving a performance. Real friendships developing between content creators and followers aren’t unheard of, yet market norms mean that followers are normally kept at arms length and are expected to not cross any boundaries into thinking they’re really like their real friends (including by being too attentive and caring towards them). Popular content creators cannot be true friends with all their followers even if they wished anyway because there’s too many of them, or they cannot trust all who follow them.
It’s sometimes like there’s a central ‘queen/king’ whom everyone in the community ‘worships’, and if this ‘monarch’ ever personally responds to you then you feel a buzz that ‘the exalted one has personally interacted with you today’. They’re entertainers and their loyal followers want them to continue entertaining with new content (i.e. to stay in their job) thus may regularly spend real money on them. Most followers or subscribers also want to be recognised amongst the group for doing so. There can thus be incredible fawning and competing with other followers to become seen as ‘the number one or most favoured fan’ or at least a part of the ‘inner clique’. Some can be overprotective and push away new followers. (K-pop idols will face uproar from many of their fans if they’re (found to be) dating anyone!)
They have such influence that some followers will unquestioningly do whatever they’re suggested, including harassing competing content creators or swarming into public locales just because of a giveaway.
Because it’s ultimately work for the content creator, the script frequently devolves into becoming automatic and trite. (The most infamous phrase is, “Please like and subscribe!”) Some things are clear business trades, like subscriptions for ad-free viewing. Yet unpunctual schedules are forgiven, most chat moderators work for free, and the voluntary nature of much of the giving can sometimes feel like gift-giving. It’s easier, and perhaps safer, for both sides, to completely regard these kinds of relationships as purely business. The intimacy towards their followers is largely feigned.
Yet they can at times get quite friendly and personal and we get drawn into fostering a deep affection and loyalty towards those we support. The content creator may regularly volunteer personal stuff about them that’s irrelevant to the primary content they produce, thus followers can get to emotionally know, and even cry with, them.
But at the same time they’re seldom truly like the relationships we have with our real offline friends, and they (regarding both the content creator and between fellow followers) seldom will develop into such real friendships compared to if you regularly interacted with a work colleague and hung around them during leisure times after work, for instance – even though for the followers it can also feel like spending leisure time with a bunch of mates when they’re watching live streams simultaneously together.
It’s therefore often tricky to know how much to invest (in heart, time and other resources), care and be loyal to someone in a semi-parasocial relationship. Would it be disloyal to one day unsubscribe, unfollow or ‘ghost’ them? Or would it be stupid to be so loyal towards someone who isn’t really like one of your real friends? It’s always difficult to know how to regard someone who straddles that line between personal and business – are they your friend or is it about the money?
A potential danger for some on either side is to forget or fail to understand what a genuine friend is like. We need true friends in our lives. We need to nurture some people into becoming our real friends, especially if we don’t have many, because these are the people we can really depend on. True friends, I’d say, are attentive, caring and will check in with each other periodically to ask how they’re doing. They’re equals. They see the best in and compliment and encourage each other. They mutually self-disclose, talk and keep up-to-date about each other’s backgrounds, families and goings-on. They try to selflessly help out in each other’s lives wherever they can. And they say they’re there for each other and mean it. It’s not really about the labels of friend or not but the show of care and actions of friendship that make a relationship a true friendship.
Social connections exist on a continuum, and some forms nourish and sustain us more than others. High-quality connections fill us with energy and vitality and involve seeing each other in a positive and accepting way. They boost our overall well-being, sense of belonging, and make us feel psychologically safe and more resilient. They can even improve our longevity, and they ultimately strengthen our support network.
Some people are fine with hierarchical fan/follower relationships with public figures or content creators. Some spend more habitual time on checking these social media channels than their real friends and family. Others, meanwhile, don’t see the appeal of such sycophancy. I personally particularly don’t understand why anyone would pay any amount of money to watch someone twerk, take their clothes off or do something more explicit like on OnlyFans. The content subscription service content creators act like attainable celebrities that anyone could have a chance with, but it’s just an act. I don’t blame those content creators (or likewise ‘girlfriend experience’ girls, escorts, etc.) because they’re making money from doing what they do – although it’s difficult to identify who really holds the power over, or is exploiting, whom? Maybe it’s balanced because it’s a non-coerced transaction between two free and consenting parties. I suppose it’s better than trying to solicit the above behaviours from someone who doesn’t wish to take their clothes off for you for any amount of money! To ask or exploit anyone who doesn’t wish to be treated as a mere sexual object (including via deepfake pornography) would be like, as a human, asking a pet shop to make you dinner when there are enough restaurants out there(!)
Meow!
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