I saw the new Downton Abbey movie last night, and also got ahold of almost all of the books in the Slow Horses series. So it looks like I'm going to be in escapist mode again for a little while.
Gee, I wonder why?
Well, I'm still in sick recovery as well, and trying to do a lot of my regularly required commitments. So it's not just escapism. But it's partly that.
I admit I'm flabbergasted that my couple of MAGA relatives are still flakking for the cause, possibly more strongly than ever, and appear to have a strong parasocial relationship with Charlie Kirk.
I've decided that anyone who refers to a person they don't know personally by their first name has a parasocial relationship with that person. My relatives referring to Kirk repeatedly as "Charlie" in their social media posts is an example.
There are definitely public people, and particularly politicians, who try to encourage the use of their first names — I assume because they know and have been told by consultants that it builds their brand and tightens the connection between them and their base.
I guess Hillary Clinton did this, but it was partly to differentiate her from Bill ("Ready for Hillary").* The only real example on the left/progressive end I can think of is people who refer to Rachel Maddow as Rachel, and I guess there are people who refer to Lawrence O'Donnell as Lawrence.
I don't do either, personally. I never called Biden, Joe, or Harris, Kamala, either. I always used either their last name alone or both first and last. I'm not thinking of Mamdani as Zohran, despite his campaign signs.
It seems weird to use just their first names to me!
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* I see, in looking through my past posts, that I frequently referred to Hillary Clinton as Hillary. But I think that is not because of a parasocial relationship but because of the need for clarity in referring to the correct Clinton, without repeatedly saying Hillary Clinton.
I can think of a handful of public people whom I don’t know for whom I use first names only: the members of the Beatles, and Brian Wilson, who always seemed to me far too vulnerable to refer to as “Wilson.” (All other Beach Boys get first and last.)
ReplyDeleteThe people on MSNBC are always first and last for me. But Stephen Colbert is always just Colbert, maybe because of the Report.
Maybe it's because I spent almost 10 years in a journalism school, but the idea of thinking of public people by the first names seems really alien to me. When there's more than one person with the same last name (as with the Beach Boys, or the Clintons) I can see it more. I even think of the Beatles by their last names, generally!
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