Doja Cat and the Parasocial Dilemma
Recently, Doja Cat went on a Threads rampage, labelling her fans ‘losers’, telling them to ‘get a job’, support their families and delete their accounts. In another post when asked if she loved her fans, she replied she didn’t even know them. In response, she lost over 180,000 Instagram followers and a number of prominent Doja stan Twitter accounts vanished from the digital world.
Insulting your own fans may initially seem unusual for a celebrity. Why would they insult those who show them adoration? This seemingly breaks the obligation that two parties who know each other have to maintain cordialness and agreeability.
But Doja Cat has no such obligation, as the relationship she has with her fans is based on the most superficial of ties and the most ridiculous of illusions — the parasocial relationship.
The theory of the parasocial relationship was first conceptualized by academics in the 80s when they were looking at the relations between radio hosts and tv characters, and the audiences that followed/loved them. It is the one sided relationship between the public figure and a member of the public, where the unknown party is invested socially in the public figure, who themselves isn’t even aware of their existence except as part of the ‘mass’ that follows them. The public feels like they ‘know’ the celebrity, who on the other hand has no idea who they are.
This creates the need for a permanent illusion — for the celebrity’s fans need the love of the figure they admire. Many celebrities will say how much they love their fans, how they would be nowhere without them, etc etc. Influencers do the same. This love is manufactured to serve a purpose, they need to perform the love to maintain the reciprocal love of the fans, who falsely believe the celebrity has an obligation to them. The celebrity will let them believe in this illusion because helps them retain attention — the primary goal of a celebrity figure is to remain a celebrity figure, after all. The dilemma for the celebrity is firstly whether they should maintain this illusion (usually yes) and secondly, how long they can maintain it for.
Doja Cat’s mistake (or not)
When Doja Cat insulted her fans, she broke the illusion that their love for her depended on. They wanted, even expected, for her to continually affirm the attention they gave her. They wanted her to be grateful to them for helping her maintain a position as a public figure of interest through listening to and appreciating her music.
Her fans voyeuristically want the illusion of complete authenticity — her authenticity is valued as long as they only view its representation, not its true full form. The true form is of course unappetizing, as it would reveal the reality of their relationship — it is exclusively conducted over a small screen for small amounts of time and is as fleeting as the direction in which the wind blows. Her fans only interact with a small slice of her identity (her image as ‘Doja Cat’) and continually want more to be revealed, only to be enraged and disappointed when they do not like what they find. Very predictable.
A TMZ article noted it would not bode well for her upcoming tour sales. They referred to her fans as her ‘base’, a term usually used in politics. This hints at a larger phenomenon — the democratisation of attention and followers. In this new 21st century reality, where experience is partly the hyperreal, entertainment-centric digital world and partly the increasingly mundane-seeming physical one, the difference between politics and celebrity entertainment has blurred to the extent where there is no boundary between where one ends and the other begins. TMZ and others in the online panopticon chastising her as stupid reveals the truth about the internet and influencer/celebrity culture: the most important is whether a public figure can maintain and increase the size of their ‘base’, their fans, their following. True, full authenticity and honesty is of course not valued — why would it be, when the real and mundane is not as entertaining as the exciting representation? The worst sin on the internet is to be boring, as the internet’s very existence is to spite that feeling.
