But still we find meaning – Reflections on “follows are not friendships” as we move towards embers

hmm... what do you mean by friend?

the original post, “follows are not friendships: the parasociality of feed-based social media, through the lens of content warnings” is thinking about a few things:

It says some things we still agree with today. But the title, while quippy... keeps coming back to us. Lingering. Do we agree with the statement? The desire for ever more nuance has brought some clarity with time.

It seems that a follow can be a form of companionship. There are people who follow us, we don't follow them, but they are often present in conversation with us thru the medium of replies.

There are others who simply appear as a presence, sending signals of “this resonates”. When taken as a lump sum- an aggregate number- this feels like a corrupting force, in how it affects us. but when taken as individuals, they say something else. What sorts of folk are hearing us, and perking up? Who's still around? What are they saying in their own space, who else are they listening to? We feel this way about seeing individual folk show in notification likes. When looking at who is showing up on our bandcamp. When getting an email that says “hey, thanks for that post!”.

There has been much raising of awareness in the past decade of parasociality, as a concept. It has entered the conversation as a thing that can be thought about. It first entered, and often is focused on, as a source of problems. a source of control. of power dynamics. A streamer enticing people into financially overextending by providing the illusion of friendship. Or an audience working as a mass to manipulate the one who performs for them. someone who thinks they're much closer with another than that other feels about them. Someone who's internalized every judgement they've seen anyone have about anyone else, so deeply that their selfhood is utterly paralyzed.

This is true. I have felt this. Many of us have.

But there is another side, isn't there? If we can conceptualize parasociality, what other thoughts can we think?

There are some musicians I've never met, whose music is deeply meaningful to me, yet whom I hope I continue to never meet them. Whom I have explicitly made choices to avoid such a meeting. I prefer the parasocial in that moment; it leaves more space for me to choose my own meaning, to invent a speaker who is speaking to me. That speaker does not exist, but arises from the distance between the original artist and me as a virtual voice.

There are people who I follow, who I could never carry a conversation with in a chat. And people who feel the same about me. But we still mean something to each other. That meaning has worth. It can be a force for good, when it's understood.

On some video on Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't, someone presents the concept of the “outdoor friend”– a friend who is best enjoyed outdoors. You don't seem to enjoy spending time with them inside, but when you're outside with them you have a blast. If you refuse to accept this about them, you will not have a happy friendship. If you lean into it, you'll have something truly wonderful.

We have some companions who, to us, are “convention friends”. Folks who we do not enjoy spending time with online in any capacity. Couldn't say if we'd enjoy being friends with them if they lived nearby. Couldn't say if they even remember us after it ends. But we treasure hanging out with them at conventions, for an hour or two in someone's room. This is the way we know them, and we have come to realize, the way we prefer to know them.

Everyone fits into a different place in our lives, some fit into multiple places, sometimes the places folks fit change as they themselves change, as we change. Having the words to describe these places makes it easier to observe this.

When I walk by street art that grabs me, I have often thought “I wish I could meet whoever made this”. Lately I've come to believe that in those moments, I am meeting them, a particular part of them. They are communicating with me, with those around me, through their mark in a particular place. I can join them in that forum. Will they ever see a response? Maybe, maybe not. I'm talking towards my perception of them. I am communicating with the same world they are, harmonizing without them even knowing.

We are fractal beings. We can never truly, fully, know each other. We are always meeting and interacting at the edges, at the infinite edges that somehow give rise to forms recognizable.

And we've come to feel the importance of all these forms of being together. No single one supplants the others. Each has its own meaning and force, to us.

It seems that some companionships transcend places. That some do not. That when places disappear, some companionships end with it. Some continue beyond. Some new ones form, as we more frequently inhabit places other. And that's ok, I think.