… Say the followers of social media influencers. With Parasocial as Cambridge’s word of the year, it’s a softer version of trolling
Shweta Mahadik, Ruchika Lohiya and Saloni Daini
The Cambridge Dictionary has named “Parasocial” its word of the year for 2025, defined as the one-sided emotional connection people form with public figures they’ve never met. A 2016 study by Research Gate found that adolescents who had interacted (even just through a reply or retweet) with media personalities on social platforms reported significantly stronger parasocial relationships than those who hadn’t.
In a digital climate already shaped by male insecurity, transitioning gender roles and hyper-visibility, parasocial attachment emerges as the gentler cousin of trolling.
Shweta Mahadik, a DIY creator with 1.2 million followers, sits at the softer end of parasocial attachment. Her comment section is filled with gentle, familial affection — people telling her they “feel like they know her.” “A lot of mothers share with me how their daughters are inspired by my art and that really makes me happy,” she says. Her followers treat her page like a cheerful corner of the internet. For Mahadik, this kind of parasocial warmth feels more like community than intrusion.
But even the gentlest admiration can bend the boundary. During Ganesh Chaturthi this year, her viral décor brought crowds of strangers to her doorstep. Women from nearby buildings, entire groups of visitors, all ringing her bell because they felt welcome in her life. “It was nice they wanted to see,” she says, “but it was a bit strange too.” The affection remains harmless, but the ease with which people step into her world hints at how quickly online familiarity can spill into real life.
On the other hand, Ruchika Lohiya, a 24-year-old poet and storyteller who performs across India, has learned that standing out online comes with its own emotional weight. When she recently posted about feeling unsafe in Delhi, the comments turned harsh and mocking. “People generalise all the influencers so they said that only we have such incidents to talk about. Normal people never face anything like it,” Lohiya said. People accused her of exaggeration, calling her “dramatic,” even threatening her with “Ab tu aa Delhi.”
The sharper boundary appeared when a male follower began showing up at every show she performed — in multiple cities. “He travelled to each venue, carrying bangles and sarees for me. It made me very uncomfortable because I have no idea what his motives are even if they are pure.” Lohiya asked her manager to intervene. Social media makes it easy for strangers to map her life, so she now hides her door, avoids showing the layout of her home, and reveals only fragments of her routine.
The emotional engine humming beneath these stories mirrors the one driving the trolling. Both grow from the same digital soil of insecurity, loneliness, blurred boundaries, and the fantasy that influencers exist for personal consumption. Saloni Daini, who makes comic content, sees this slippage constantly with men who adore her comedy yet message her with commands, insisting she “stick to” what they want, as if her creative choices belong to them. “I don’t indulge in these DMs but some of them go as far as to command me to not try acting. I don’t know why they think they have the authority to convey that to me,” she questions. Parasocial affection and hostile trolling look like opposites, but they share a root with strangers convinced their imagined relationship grants them control.
Visibility does come with a strange tax. Women influencers aren’t just watched. They’re interpreted, imagined, claimed. The digital stage expands a woman’s reach, but it also expands the private emotional worlds of the men who watch her.
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