I’m Nervous about Sharing This Secret with You: Youtube Influencers Generate Strong Parasocial Interactions by Discussing Personal Issues

Abstract

Purpose Performers may generate loyalty partly through eliciting illusory personal connections with their audience, parasocial relationships (PSRs), and individual illusory exchanges, parasocial interactions (PSIs). On social media, semi-PSIs are real but imbalanced exchanges with audiences, including through comments on influencers’ videos, and strong semi-PSIs are those that occur within PSRs. This article introduces and assesses an automatic method to detect videos with strong PSI potential. Design/methodology/approach Strong semi-PSIs were hypothesized to occur when commenters used a variant of the pronoun “you”, typically addressing the influencer. Comments on the videos of UK female influencer channels were used to test whether the proportion of you pronoun comments could be an automated indicator of strong PSI potential, and to find factors associating with the strong PSI potential of influencer videos. The highest and lowest strong PSI potential videos for 117 influencers were classified with content analysis for strong PSI potential and evidence of factors that might elicit PSIs. Findings The you pronoun proportion was effective at indicating video strong PSI potential, the first automated method to detect any type of PSI. Gazing at the camera, head and shoulders framing, discussing personal issues, and focusing on the influencer associated with higher strong PSI potential for influencer videos. New social media factors found include requesting feedback and discussing the channel itself. Research limitations Only one country, genre and social media platform was analysed. Practical implications The method can be used to automatically detect YouTube videos with strong PSI potential, helping influencers to monitor their performance. Originality/value This is the first automatic method to detect any aspect of PSI or PSR.

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“…The results from the content analysis reveal strong parasocial potential, in accordance with the proposal by Thelwall et al (2022). 63.8% of the comments analyzed were directed at the hosts, using "you", compared to 35.8% of the comments that weren't intended for anyone specifically.…”

“…In the third phase, comments by EEC followers on YouTube were taken into consideration to understand the fandom's response. These were analyzed using both discourse analysis and content analysis (Krippendorf, 2004) to measure the extent to which certain factors indicating parasociality were present: whether the person directs their message at the creators (the use of "you", Thelwall et al, 2022), the use of affective language belonging to the primary group, or the recognition of gratifications and relationships that go beyond entertainment. The main conceptual categories were operationalized in variables for this second technique and an ad hoc codebook was developed (Table 1).…”

“…This parasociality stems, in part, from the process of identification, in which the fan establishes a relationship of similarity between the figure in the media and themselves, and the process of projection, in which the fan projects their wishes, attitudes or prejudices on the figure (Macé, 1997). The study by Thelwall et al (2022), which proposes analyzing user comments that address figures in the media using the pronoun "you" as an indicator of potential PSI, is useful because this pronoun expresses a stronger interaction. Likewise, the authors propose the concept of "semi-PSI" to differentiate an imaginary interaction from new interactions that are allowed by social media platforms and are real but do not guarantee that the information actually reaches the recipient.…”