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Do We Have a Real Relationship?
Malcolm and Simone have an insightful debate about why some celebrities seem to genuinely enjoy interacting with fans, while others recoil. Malcolm argues niche internet stars are more likely to be themselves publicly, feeling kinship with fans who understand their odd ideas. But Simone counters that reaching mainstream fame requires compromising your true self. They discuss how public personalities reacting negatively to fans likely feel cognitive dissonance about the persona being liked. They theorize on specific celebrities, concluding Bill Murray, Donald Trump and Andrew Tate are fully themselves, while progressive influencers often put on a facade. The lesson - pay attention to how famouses engage with fans for clues to their authenticity.
Malcolm: [00:00:00] he was like, Oh, I have a parasocial relationship with you guys. You've never met me, but I watch all your episodes and I feel like. I sort of know you through that. And it was very interesting the way I felt about that in the moment because I was like, yeah, well, I mean, you're our friend, right?
Like, I immediately felt like it was much more of a two way relationship than historically I have seen. People talk about parasocial. Well,
Simone: more than you would expect. Right?
Malcolm: And so then I begin to reflect on the people I know when they talk about their fans, do they have. A relationship where, , they genuinely feel an emotional connection to them, even when they haven't personally talked to somebody, they just meet someone, and this one's like, oh, I'm a big fan of your work, and they're immediately like, oh, yeah, we're going to get along, or do they sort of recoil at that? So then what is your thesis on what was causing this divide?
Would you like to know more?
Simone: So Malcolm, I am so afraid right now. For what reason? The, [00:01:00] imagine there's like a monster or like a murderer outside, outside your room, just outside and that feeling, that feeling, or like, like your worst enemy or like your boss or something is like right outside your, your door just waiting for you.
Malcolm: So this is because there is a mess outside her door.
Simone: There's a mess. I can, I can
Malcolm: hear it. We got all of this stuff from my mom after she died and we've been putting it away. And Simone just always reacts this way to messes. Where is this existential sort of constant hatred and dread? By the way, Simone, speaking of messes and I get added the longer we're in a relationship, I get new little tasks I have to do.
So I took a shower before this podcast and now I have to squeegee the walls of the shower after I do it. Oh, heart stains don't. I don't know if this is a task that anyone else has to do for their wife. I have not heard [00:02:00] of this as a part of regular life maintenance.
Simone: If you have hard water, it is hard water.
Malcolm: We have a whole system to help with the hard
Simone: water and it's not enough. It's not enough. It gets the glass all smudgy and gross and cloudy. And I don't want that. But yeah, anyway, we're not going to
Malcolm: talk about shower count. What, what, what inspired this podcast with a particular. So we're going to be at this Natalist conference.
We're, we're not the ones running it. A lot of people think we're, we're the ones running it. No, another group is running it. Actually they've got some, some canceled people among them. So it will be spicier, I think, than a lot of things that we might put together ourselves. And we were talking as one of the people who was running it, but who we hadn't met yet.
And he was like, Oh, I feel like, I already know, like, like I have a parasocial relationship with you guys. You've never met
Published on 2 years, 2 months ago